this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Market != Capitalism. You can have a free market without capitalism, and capitalism without a free market.
The hexbears will attack me for saying that a regulated free market is good and a planned economy is bad. The others will attack me for saying that capitalism is bad and that we should have market socialism instead. But if we can't have that, a capitalist free market has proven much less bad than any planned economy, as long as it's regulated enough that it stays free.
Personally I just think your distinctions are a bit idealistic. Maybe useful as abstract definitions, but too removed from real world economics to make strong statements about it.
For example, a regulated market economy is kind of the natural state of capitalism, unless perhaps you zoom in on single transactions. As capitalism was struggling to emerge out of feudalism, the newly emerging capitalist class had to contend with governmental entities that arose out of feudal economic relations (and thus were geared towards protecting the power and wealth of the landlord class against the peasant class). In that struggle, as the capitalist class gained dominance, they tended to enact laws that protected their interests against both the old landlord class as well as the new working class.
In regards to central planning, that's a tendency of complex economies to drift towards for a variety of reasons. Capitalism tends towards monopoly (because monopoly is the most profitable state an enterprise can strive towards), and in later stages of monopolization, the economy is de facto, if not de jure, a centrally planned economy. ln the US, a large amount of our industry and distribution is centrally planned by corporations like Amazon and Walmart, large agriculture corporations, etc. And I imagine companies are going to continue to consolidate.
The big problem is this central planning is done without our or society's best interests in mind, their primary purpose is to benefit the company's shareholders. What some of us theorize is that once it reaches a point of consolidation, that infrastructure can then be seized, and systems can be set up such that the efficiency and whatnot is preserved, but the purpose is changed to benefit everyone (as much as possible) instead of a small number of shareholders. That's very theoretical and general, of course. The specifics and nuances will depend a lot on the specific conditions we live in.
Even without the exploitative relation of worker and owner, markets can still have horizontal exploitation between firms.
https://jacobin.com/2023/02/nicholas-vrousalis-exploitation-as-domination-interview-capitalism-labor-justice
By 'attack' or do you mean engaging in well sourced arguments against your assertions? And by the way we have plenty of market socialists amount our numbers
I actually don't know, neither happened so far. Let's find out.
No. They do not.
I was told me another hexbear that essentially you guys don't believe in good faith debate on public forums, hence all the insufferable shitposting and trolling.
I'm sure there's probably a few Hexbear users that think that, but as far as I can tell it's the minority. Maybe I'm wrong
In any case, there's a lot of us who prefer to interact in good faith. Personally that's why I left Reddit years ago, because people there are too at each other's throats instead of interested in finding common ground and developing ideas.
I can't really speak for a site - it's users are not a monolith - but the general culture is that you are not owed a good faith discussion , if you clearly aren't interested in one. If you look you'll notice that when people ask questions they get them asnwered, but when they try to make gochas or they get embroiled in an argument, but then don't respect the other well enough to respond to their queries, then it turns into shotposting. And why wouldn't it? Why would I wanna spend energy validating some doofus that's pretty obviously just trying to troll? Why would I validate someone's opinion on something they obviously know nothing about, when I've shared sources and knowledge which they then disregard in order to continue knowing nothing?
Yes, and we are right. The Soviets went from an agrarian backwater to an industrial giant in basically a decade using economic planning, doing all the complex math by hand. The US is a semi-deindustrialized state with access to supercomputers.
Russia is FAR closer to capitalism than socialism and the only planned parts left are corrupt shit...
Free market is the divine right of capitalism.
What a perfect somersault.
Do you understand that a law banning slavery is a piece of regulation? Would you agree that society is more free with that regulation, or less free?
The same logic applies here. The market is free when everyone can freely participate in it. Which means that we have to stop (regulate) those who want to prevent people from participating (i.e. monopolists).
Look man, good on you for understanding that "free markets", the fundamental ideology of capitalism, is antagonistic to people's liberty. Its just wild that you acknowledge that but then go on to insist we should keep doing free markets and capitalism.
Free markets and capitalism will always both ideologically and materially put people into power who disagree with you, people who want to deregulate the market and restrict people's freedom. In order to actually do what you want you must shut those people, the bourgeoisie, out of power. It doesnt matter if you do that through revolutionary violence like the communists or through peaceful democracy like so many Latin american nations. You will be met with violence from the bourgeoisie. Doesnt matter if all you want is an actually regulated free market.
Wrong already. The fundamental ideology of capitalism is that people with capital reap the profits (through control of means of production, but also means of living). You can shorten that to "rich get richer". But nothing related to markets.
In fact, there were several instances of capitalist economies without a free market. Nazi Germany comes to mind - the government bought weapons, supplies, and everything else, but they were contracted from private corporations controlled by "desirable" individuals. Other wartime economies apply here too, to a lesser degree - with rationing but still private ownership.
And yes, capitalists are always afraid of a genuinely free market, because they don't want competition.
That's not an ideology. That's the actual material conditions of capitalism. An ideology exists in people's minds. Its the justification for those material conditions. The capitalist justification is "the freer the markets the freer the people". Sometimes people see through that bullshit and they adopt a new ideology, usually some variant of fascism.
The Nazi's and many fascists will cannibalize sectors of the market that dont get along with the new regime. This isn't a particularly novel observation.
Its like you understand that everything the capitalists told you is bullshit but you still want the fake goal they set up. So you kept the label of "free market" and slapped it on "well regulated market" and are pretending like you've done some clever judo. Everyone will call you a market socialist because that's what you want.
Yes.
And despite all your railing against anything resembling a free market, I still don't see any downsides of that.
My problem is you're calling a well regulated market a "free market" when thats universally accepted as the total opposite definiton of the phrase. I dont know why you insist on calling market socialism "free markets". You want market socialism for a free society.
Free markets are antithetical to a free society as you pointed out before.
That's the thing, when people say free market they mean a unregulated one and not a social democracy, markets are a effective tool to generate wealth and progress but they don't spread that wealth very well and profit over everything isn't a great way to help people so you need heavy regulations and certain areas shouldn't be under market control at all because people can't choose to use them!
Since nobody agrees with terminology, we might as well just say: we should do Scandinavia
if we try our absolute hardest to just "do scandinavia" we will only get one step forward three steps back. you can count on reactionary capitalist claw back of any progress, the only long term solution is to defeat the capitalist class and remove their dictatorship. not beg them to give us tiny scraps from their extravagant buffet.
Read "Riding the wave" about how scandinavia relies on imperialism to function.
I still disagree with this statement, insofar as it makes it seem like Scandinavia is more reliant on the third world than any other imperialist country.
This statement makes it seem like if the us just did enough imperialism it'd finally get healthcare. That's obviously not the case. It works as a shield for the American liberals to explain why they do not have healthcare.
The welfare state was a concession won by labour movements in Scandinavia. These concessions could be afforded due to the fact that the Scandinavian countries benefitted from empire - though such a benefit is not necessary for welfare to be present, as has been shown by the many aes states that provide services for their citizens.
Dismissing this victory of labour as "a product of imperialism" diminishes what we can accomplish. We should critique Scandinavia and be aware that those countries - like the rest of the west - benefit from empire. We should however not correlate the existence with a welfare state with participation in empire.
The largest Scandinavian companies don't pay their taxes, the welfare state is primarily funded for by outsized taxes on the poor and the "middle class". The upper classes in Scandinavia have been embroiled in countless tax fraud scandals.
It's not to say that Scandinavia doesn't benefit from imperialism or that the existence of the countries as they are now aren't reliant on exploitation of the third world - they are.
It is to say that the statement "Scandinavia can only be the way that it is due to imperialism" implies that with sufficient imperialism the us would turn into Scandinavia (it wouldn't) and that Scandinavia somehow does more imperialism than the us or other puppet masters.
Kid, Scandinavia is falling apart. It's being hollowed out by neoliberal regimes like those that hollowed out the UK a few decades ago.
Even before being hollowed out, the place was far from perfect. There has always been homeless and exploited immigrants. One of the largest Scandinavian firms is Mærsk, which ships all over the world - mainly using underpaid labor.
None of the "good stuff" is paid for by these companies anyway - they're just cheating with their taxes like anyone else - it's paid for mainly by taxes of the lower and middle classes (when you're wealthy enough you put your money in a tax haven). At that point it's not "well regulated markets" it's outsized taxes on the part of the population with least resources available to them.
Is it better than the us? Very much so, but it's not even close to good
Do you mean their economy and policies, or their people? In either case, I agree.
They didn't say "be" Scandinavia, but "do".
Ah, I see.
This is correct and praxis, date more Scandinavian hotties.
Why would what people your country has matter?
Read the comment that I replied to. It does not say "have", but "do".
Yeah and then you wrote "in either case, I agree" as in you think it would be better to have Scandinavians, than whatever you have now, which is why I ask what you mean by that?
The two cases were "do (meaning 'emulate') their economy and policies" and "do (meaning 'have sex with') their people". No "have" anywhere.
Okay that does make more sense, I had trouble parsing the text, thank you for taking the time to explain it.