We already have a flavor of highly centralized economic planning, we just need to nationalize Amazon
this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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People's Republic of Walmart
No, it will only bring up ideas of "robot dictator" or "AI uprising". You cannot gloss over details of what is "socially beneficial" without having a human debate around it in the first place. AI is a tool, a means to an end, and should not be advertised as a way to replace human management, and as a supplementary tool it should be cautiously used.
As others have mentioned, this is reformist thinking, and having to "sell" communism in a form of loose analogies or even lies is not in the spirit of the Communist Manifesto, where I quote: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Manifesto_of_the_Communist_Party
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
Not that educating people is unimportant, but there's plenty of that going around from across the entire political spectrum. Action speaks louder than words, organize into parties, develop your own means of production, build your own armed forces, that's what sets Marxism or scientific socialism apart from utopian socialism.
While The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist Movement were my personal gateway to becoming a socialist, I resonate with your point that using the concept of a computerized resource-based economy to persuade people tends to lead them into the misconception and fear of such a society being ruled by a "robotic dictator", and I can attest to this from previous conversations I've had. These organizations I mentioned were also reformist and believed that by simply making a better alternative of society possible and more affordable through the means of technological innovation alone, a socialist society could be realized nonviolently, which, of course, we can see from examples like solar panels being more affordable but not profitable that this notion has turned out to be false, plus the ruling class does not want to give up their power nonviolently. At the time, I would say that "I believe I could trust a robot to be more ethical than easily corruptible humans," and this was before I learned more about socialism and realized this statement negated previous socialist experiments and current AES countries achieving more just societies and dismissed the potentially dangerous outcomes of a "robotic leader" (though I said this more out of frustration as I couldn't come up with a better answer).
From the book, Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States, I will provide this excerpt from the preface:
The Fourth Party Congress discussion revolved around some of the particular ideological challenges facing a revolutionary process in the United States, where anti-communism has long been the unofficial religion, and in the world generally in the post-Cold War era. There is no absence of militant struggle in the United States, but without a simultaneous ideological struggle to revive socialism as the legitimate alternative to capitalism, this will not happen on its own. Socialists cannot expect to make a revolution by being the best and most dedicated organizers in the mass struggles and then hope that one of these mass struggles simply gives way to socialist leadership in a time of great crisis. Neither is it sufficient, given the urgency of the times, to win people over to socialism in ones and twos. A larger cultural shift and acceptance of socialism must be effected and a mass pro-socialist consciousness has to be deliberately cultivated, now and in advance of a revolutionary crisis, if socialists are to successfully seize such an opportunity.
For all these reasons and more, we resolved to write a book that we understood would be unorthodox for Marxists. Among the Marxist left, it has long been a principle that no one can sketch out a blueprint for what a socialist society or government will look like. But that's what the assembled writers have done here--not because we have located a crystal ball, but because it has become politically necessary for our current time.
Previously, we might have argued that sketching out such a blueprint would be an exercise in utopian dreaming. It would be more useful to spend our time organizing and writing around a burning issue of the moment. After all, no revolutionary process follows along ready-made paths. Anything can be written on paper, but in practice, all political processes encounter new variables, twists, and turns that cannot be anticipated. When the working class comes to power, involving millions in the reorganization of society on a practical level, this will produce and generate so many new ideas and solutions; the new power will not be bound by or follow the script of any one book or pamphlet that has been written years earlier under capitalism.
Karl Marx himself declined to describe the details of future socialism, insisting instead that he and the rest of humanity were "uncivilized" compared to the future human beings of highly developed socialism and communism. Future societies would look back at our world and be astonished at how limited our understanding was. The important thing for revolutionaries, Marx and Friedrich Engels established, was to identify the contradictions within capitalism that would spell its downfall, and organize that class that has every interest in such a revolutionary transformation--the working class. Once the working class became conscious of itself as a class, understanding its distinct interests and developing its own yearning for political power, this would set the stage for a socialist revolution. To that end, Marx consciously broke with utopian socialists and focused his intellectual work on a critique and analysis of capitalist development.
A few pages are devoted to a broad sketch of socialism and communism in The Grundrisse, Critique of the Gotha Program, and in Engel's The Housing Question. His most important work, Capital, says very little about these matters. Even The Communist Manifesto limits its forward-looking program to a general picture of the rise and ultimate fall of capitalism, forecasting that the working class would overthrow the rule of private property. It includes a series of immediate changes for the first stage of socialism in advanced capitalist countries: the abolition of private land ownership and inheritances, state control of banking and industry, the shared responsibility of all to labor, free education for all, a gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, and so on. The Manifesto provides no further details on what all this looks like and even these measures "...will, of course, be different in different countries."
Since the publication of the Manifesto in 1848, socialist and communist parties have mostly limited their publications and presentations in a similar fashion to Marx and Engels. Their programs describe their overall vision, what they are fighting for, and emphasize what immediate changes they would declare right away to remedy the central problems of capitalism. It would be inappropriate for a party program to go beyond this. For political parties, the program represents the essential basis of unity for someone who is considering joining. One can be in the same party, in other words, without agreeing to all the ins and outs of what future socialist living and governance would look like. In the future, such questions may in fact become dividing lines, but for now, the primary task is for the working class to conquer power, and a socialist party must devise strategies and tactics to that end.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), which published this book, also has a program which is keeping with that Marxist tradition and serves as the essential basis of unity for our organization. So why did we also produce this book, which in some ways, breaks with the Marxist tradition of declining to provide a blueprint for socialism?
This book does not substitute for a party program but serves another purpose entirely: to demonstrate, rather than just declare, that there is an alternative to capitalism in the United States, and to start a dialogue with all of society about what such a socialist society will look like. In this project, we have enlisted as writers individual members, and some non-members, who have experience and expertise in particular fields and areas of struggle, and posed to them a singular question: if the working class already had power in the United States, how would it reorganize society? Of course, we do not pretend that any of the responses represent the final word or final answer to any of these questions. That can only be shaped in real life. Nor is every major question about what socialism would look like answered. Each chapter demonstrates that another world is not just possible, but quickly achievable once private profit is removed as the engine of society and the existing technology, resources, and power structures are reorganized to meet the needs of the people and the planet.
Our mission with this book is not to convince everyone of every detail, but rather to raise the socialist and communist horizon, to reintroduce that into our day-to-day organizing work, to make socialism vivid and real; to give people a taste so they order a full helping. Much of popular culture today is rightfully understood as a form of escapism, allowing a reprieve from the depressing reality of capitalism. Many contemporary postapocalyptic films and novels attest to the truth that it is now easier to envision the end of the world than it is to envision a new system. This book is an attempt to puncture that. It too is escapism, but of a different type: to escape for a moment from the narrow and horrible boundaries of what appears politically possible at this exact moment; to let our minds jump forward one historical stage and conceive of how much we could achieve under socialism. There is a considerable history of political science fiction, some of it quite sophisticated, which speculates on how future high-tech societies could be reorganized and, in turn, impact social relations. But typically, socialist organizers have only indulged in such conversations over a meal or a drink, perhaps after a meeting or a long day of marching. Here we bring greater systematic thinking and concreteness to these discussions.
I need to split this response in two due to the character limit...
To summarize (for OP, I have essentially repeated your response in affirmation and in a more verbose form), it is beneficial to give people a glimpse into the possible future of a socialist society, but we cannot determine what that future will entail until it is manifested in reality. While I still like to envision a communist future where we use computers to automate resource allocation and distribution based on need, efficiency, and safety of the planet and humanity while cutting the money-middleman out, a fully automated communist society will not occur until the distant future, thus it is not very productive to dwell on this idea while we are still struggling under capitalism and trying to bring class consciousness to the working class. There are many steps, as mentioned in the book (which I still need to finish), that would likely precede the need to allocate resources digitally when a socialist society is formed. We will be starting under the conditions of the capitalist framework, and some changes can occur overnight while others will require more time to deconstruct the current system and reconstruct an improved socialist framework.
It is more important at this moment to educate people about class struggle and to build unity under the idea that a better society can be achieved, even if we don't and cannot know the full details of such a society. We can look to other socialist countries and experiments now as potential examples, but I believe more people need to be deprogrammed from the Red Scare first before they are open to such projects and concepts.
Indeed, there are plenty of issues that can not be solved by technology alone (land reform, nationalization, etc), and there are conditions that prevent technology from being widely available to the proletariat (copyright, patent, etc.).
As we are in an era where it is much easier for anyone to sell their own ideas, I think it is better to have an organized party that is doing things like pooling resources into starting a worker's cooperative, and build up that means of production into a position where it could help the local community beyond simple volunteer programs.
It's not just about convincing others to join the socialist cause, but also about persisting through the highs and lows of a process that will take years and decades. Leaders of the party will make mistakes, comrades may not be with you all the way through. There will be arguments, there will be betrayal, there will be sacrifices.
There is nothing easy about achieving a socialist state, our Marxist teachers have shown us the light, it is up to all of us to build the road through hard work and unity.
The core assumption is that people are just ignorant on their own oppression and not actively in on it on the hopes of becoming an oppressor themselves. That's a good place to start, otherwise you're just going to get another strain of left-aesthetics fascism.
I'd be very careful with this tactic of obfuscating the communistness of communism with aesthetics. We don't need to be citing Marx every second (just paraphrase some Yankee Marxist like Parenti or Cockshott instead).
But if you want to use this as a rhetorical technique, I wholeheartedly recommend this documentaty about Project Cybersyn in Chile. I also like how Richard Wolff frames socialism as "Democracy at Work", though I haven't read his book. It's also more urgent and tangible as a selling point, rather than waiting for the far off future where AI is competent, or abstract like explaining long-term economic planning.
Yankee like Cockshott
he spat out his Irn-Bru reading that
Sorry I'm bad with accents lol
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Have you read Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina/thoughts?
Not yet, hadn't even heard of it before your comment, but I just started it and am saving your comment so I can reply to it once I've finished it. Hyperfocus is bliss.
Marx himself envisioned the workers being replaced by “automatons”, either in pursuit of a communist society, or by force for capitalists in pursuit of profits.
Automation and robotics are a logical next step in technology for a socialist society.
People need to be sold on the fact that they will be able to work less. Not more efficiently.
When appealing to the less reactionary elements, it can be sold as a “decentralized optimization algorithm based on democratic inputs”. Like, just throw in a few buzzwords.
The public is continuously sold on progressive ideas, as a marketing tactic, and this wouldn’t be any different. (Except for compromising capitalist resource allocation, so expect more pushback than most)
If you want more info, I’d recommend you check out people’s republic of Walmart.
I'm of two minds about this. Let me explain.
On the one hand...
People are scared of "Marx", "communism", and sometimes even "socialism" (Though some people think it means "just some parts of europe with more social programs than us", and those people are wrong, but at least have positive associations with the word). Terms like 'tankie' get thrown around loosely, and the USSR, China, DPRK, Cuba, are all "bad places" that westerners don't want to be associated with. In this way, re-naming things can help introduce the concept in a fresh way, because most people actually want to bring about the change that communists/socialists do, but they are conditioned to ignore everything positive about it's history. So far, my biggest problem with explaining communism to people is using communist terms, this throws them into a bad place and think my arguments are wrong from the get-go. But if I introduce something in a terms-neutral way, explaining in great detail instead of using descriptive communist terms, most people are on the same page (With some exception because liberals still believe in 'personal freedom', and it can be difficult to get them to track all the way from a 'peoples congress' to a party that only acts in the way the ->people<- want. Most people of western countries think that it's basically impossible to build it, but would like it if it's possible.... Ugh these people need to learn about China...)
On the other hand...
If we continue to use terms like "Means of production", "liberal", "fascist", "dialectics", "materialism", "reactionary", "neocolonial", etc. then people can look these terms up, read old books, and see that the arguments of communists/socialists of the past 200 years have been talking about this. It's a powerful message to send, that this is not new, this information has been suppressed, that the red scare did actually control information and was just as authoritarian as any socialist country they've heard of, and these things are relevant and important to know. Connecting communism to historical events and ideas is important.
On the third hand...
This, of course, takes a lot of time. I'm a new commie and it took me a few months of just reading, listening, and studying before I even really uttered the word "communist" to anyone I knew. I just didn't feel comfortable until I could understand enough to speak intelligently about it. Most people are not patient enough to do that, they want to scroll tik tok, facebook, twitter (or x), or reddit, or whatever they do daily, and not think about these complicated things. Most people get their "info" from these garbage sources, and it takes real effort, that a lot of people don't have the energy to give, to understand these things.
As a final argument...
I don't know if I want to sell a bunch of libs on the idea of robots building/running everything. See, like in the movie "Elysium" (Yes it's a lib film, not communist, but it does give insight into the struggles of the global south from a lib perspective, and was actually inspired by the writer getting arrested in Mexico and seeing 'the other side of the fence' himself, and forcing some self-reflection about living in a rich place bordering poverty) a lot of those libs will see the shiny technocratic future of making their lives insanely, extremely better, but won't extend that privilege to the global south. If we, as communists, sell them on this future, but then when we are in charge, do something like open our borders, or actually treat Mexico like human beings, or even build that technocratic future of robots building things, but we spread the wealth, and instead of making our lives 1000x better, we making the entire world 100x better, but maybe only make our lives 1.5x better, then those libs might see our work as a 'failure', or as a 'compromise'.
Anyway TLDR: libs believing in a technocratic future prefer to see see themselves ->living<- on Elysium, having that personal medical machine keeping them young and pretty and acne free forever, instead of letting those medical machines heal disease worldwide, saving a billion lives.
I believe a movie that may not scare libs off is The Creator, which shows US imperialism against sapient robots and China. Such a movie might possibly chip away some of their imperialist mindsets, I hope. It's now my top favorite movie of all time.
Before I start, context: I am a USian, so what I say applies to typical Amerikkkan sentiments, but is possibly easily reproducible to the material conditions of a number of comrades here. With that said:
I feel like this might lead them closer to the Elon Musk camp more than anything. The whole "technology will save us all!" kinda thing. This method of framing things - like many comrades have pointed out - neglects to answer questions regarding imperialism, racism, class antagonisms, class solidarity, redistribution of wealth, etc.
When talking to people who are reflexively unfriendly toward communism, socialism, Marxism, etc., I just avoid using the commie buzzwords like "bourgeoisie", "proletariat", "means of production", etc.
Instead I'll start with first establishing some concepts, like the labor theory of value, using an apple tree analogy I once heard (it basically goes like, "simply owning an apple tree doesn't do anyone any good, rather someone has to work on that tree to care for it, harvest the apples, then distribute them, same thing for a factory). While doing this, I'll stoke the common idea that the rich CEOs don't do shit for their money.
Then once I do that, I establish that the owning/owner class is like someone who has an apple tree but puts no work into it, and the working class as the person they "hired" on threat of starvation to work their "apple tree" (the factories, offices, etc).
I'll also make sure to point out that yes, while politicians are one enemy, who bribes them and lobbies them and pays for their campaigns? I'll also introduce the idea of Tweedism, which is that no matter who the working class vote for, the owning class always win since they nominate the election choices using their money. This is why it never seems to change anything whenever the other party takes over, even with supermajorities.
Once I establish the differences between the working class, the owning class, and their political puppets, I then move on to the need to stand alongside other working class people abroad, and with others with a different skin color, ethnicity, religion, etc. I point out all the things we have in common with them, such as a desire to live a peaceful life with a family. I point out that they, like us, are constantly being lied to by the owning class factions of their countries (or the same owning class factions when talking about domestic ""others"") and that division only serves the owning class.
This stage may take the longest to get through, since you'll often need to explore the ideas behind the roots of crime, inter-generational poverty, feminism (might need to avoid that word depending on your audience though), war, etc. It is good to remember that you can't reach everyone with every concept though, so it is important to know your audience here. You may need to speak around the issue in an indirect way to whittle and chip away at the foundations of whatever brand of reactionary thought you are dealing with so that when you hit them with the "at the end of the day black folks want the same things as white folks: to have a happy life with their family and friends" they don't give you the shocked lib face. At the core of anger is fear.
When revisiting the ideas of the inefficacy of working within the Amerikkkan democracy (or insert your own country's bourgeois democracy, but I avoid using the buzzwords), I remind folks of Tweedism (electoral choices are predetermined by owning class money) and that voting rarely, if ever, really leads to change. If someone is going to participate, the local level will have the best effects (though if someone is still very reactionary at this point I don't encourage this since it also means they can still do damage to their local communities are harm local communist efforts). At the end though, peace won't bring about anything meaningful and impactful at scale. Note: with some audiences you may never be able to get to this point, since you are directly or indirectly advocating for the violent overthrow of the government. Know your audience. I'll say that again: know. your. audience. Do not put yourself too far into the crosshairs. You could get yourself fired at work, arrested, harassed, killed, etc depending on the whims of reactionary forces and the ruling class.
So yeah, basically, break it down barney style. Don't use big words, because if they don't immediately hate you for being a commie then they'll hate you for sounding smug or best case you'll confuse people. Define those buzzwords only for the most receptive of your friends and family, those who are actually going to read, or better yet are already reading, Marxist literature. Talk in the lingo of your audience. Before people can embrace AES states, you'll need to undo the brainwashing liberalisms to pull the away from that first, after which you can then turn them toward the answer slowly, once they realize liberalism and all its baggage ain't it.
Hope this helps.
Solid answer with great advice, I wish I could give you more upvotes.
Thank you comrade, it means a lot none the less and I definitely appreciate the feedback. I am always worried I'll come across the wrong way, especially when I make slightly longer posts.
Same, as I am still a "socialist padawan", but I believe you were spot on, and I will be keeping your advice in mind when I have conversations with people about similar topics. I get nervous about coming the wrong way, too, which is why I edit my comments a lot to make sure I don't come across as offensive or reactionary by accident. I am a USian, myself, but I try to be considerate and open to ideas from people from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures.
You could create a bunch of alts
Nah, I don't want to abuse the voting system. I prefer to give only one vote as one person. Unlike the undemocratic US where corporations get an extra vote and money is the actual deciding factor of a candidate winning, as long as they are neoliberal and decided upon the ruling class.
I don't personally know much about it, but I remember The Deprogram having a guest who researche(d/s) digital planning at a massive scale, and there's probably a fair amount of work being done in China if you can find it. Cockshott has also written about it, although I believe his stuff is based on older technology. As for how to communicate it to liberals, you can sidestep the use of Marxist language but I don't think it'll do much good to hide revolutionary sentiment (rather, it might delude them into thinking that such a system can be implemented through electoralism)
no, that is slavery
We wouldn't work for the machine, we would work for ourselves with the help of machines that we program to manage the supply chain
If I understand what OP means
twas a joke
Oh shit, totally flew over my head 😭
The economy is already planned. Most people don't care what system it is much, they'll just be happy when the system makes there lives better - something that seems currently unfeasible.