Hey, I’ve argued this exact stance with my Marxist brothers a few times here and here. They seem sure of revolution and against market socialism. Anyways, I’ve created a community for us to talk more about it here - Collective Cake
And what a coincidence today being a Collective Cake day!
Climate change, wealth inequality, fascism, war, the global epidemic of loneliness & depression aren’t distinct disconnected problems. They are a singular globally connected problem. And it requires a singular globally connected solution. We’d need a few things -
That business is just constant problem solving one after another and going through as many to-dos as you can day after day, while still maintaining sanity. That is persistence.
That business is always a house of cards that can fall apart anytime and so you must always keep your eyes on it. That is exhausting worry.
That business is so hard, you’ll be tempted to quit everyday. To overcome that urge to quit you’ll need a much bigger purpose or mission that drives you. Purpose brings determination.
That business really is about value creation for the entire ecosystem (customers, employees, vendors) and that a business is not above that ecosystem. Wall St & American capitalism is short sighted because it demands you pass lesser and lesser value to that ecosystem quarter after quarter, and that is like a slow axe to your own foot.
That most modern economic theory taught in business schools and used by execs in the biggest companies worldwide is all flawed because it fully relies on capturing and optimizing all sorts of business data, but the truth is that it is impossible to capture real world in data.
Everyone alive right now must have ancestors who very literally did live & survive though the stone age and the ages before and after that. Wish I knew what my ancestors did to survive stone age, or better still if I could like watch them in a time lapse video. I guess I might have run away from stone lifting to go be a shepherd or something.
There is no evidence of cooperatives being capable of out-competing the megacorps of today in a system already controlled by megacorps. There is no growing systemic pressure for cooperatives to overwhelm megacorps, only further proletarianizaton and social stratification.
Nature tells you the power of cooperative working, look at ants, bees, fungi. The fediverse is a smack in the face of Reddit, Unix in the face of Microsoft. These things only grow, never shrink. There are more people in credit unions in America than any private bank. There are so many cooperatives in the agriculture space you wouldn’t believe. Look up mondragon, the largest cooperative employer with over 70k employees. Look up IFFCO, the largest agriculture cooperative connecting farmers in India, which has a revenue of over $7 billion/yr. These are behemoths, a force for good. They are not being overwhelmed by megacorps, rather they overwhelm the megacorps.
You are correct, we are already in Capitalism. Replacing the entirety of the firms within a Capitalist system with cooperatives is a monstrous task without first overthrowing the State to help facilitate things
Disagree, cooperatives already exist. Everywhere! We just need more and more, one at a time. Bigger and stronger! Where is the need to overthrow the state?
Secondly, I do not want to start over. I want revolution, then a nationalization of key industries like the banks, railroads, airlines, energy sector, raw materials, telecommunication, etc. Not a replacement, but a nationalization. Additionally, large firms will be nationalized, ie Amazon, Google, Meta, Nvidia, other huge firms that dominate the private sector will be folded into the public.
And I want the same level of nationalization as you here, but you are still asking for a revolution as a starting point, i.e erase the entire drawing board and start over.
What is a free market and how will it cease to exist? I can still make any cake and sell it to anyone at whatever price. Free market still exists.
You’re the one in the fantasy land. We’re already in capitalism, I’m only adding cooperatives, you know the whole workers owing the means of production that you advocate for. I’m literally taking us from where we currently are to a better place, A to B. You want to erase the whole drawing board and start over.
My brother, I gave you a version of capitalism where workers globally own the means of production. We’ll even put measures against monopolization, labor exploitation, and short term profit seeking. Hell even add 100% taxation over a billion dollars so nobody gets too big. You’ll still won’t like it because it ain’t communism.
The problem of ‘growing big’ has to be solved via cooperatives operating in the same markets, not by disbanding the entire system.
The purpose of Capitalism systemically is Capital accumulation and the increase in profits through the general process of converting money into commodities in an endless loop.
I disagree. The purpose of capitalism systemically is to simply allow for value creation for the entire ecosystem (customers, employees, vendors) and give anyone the individual freedom to do so.
Current Western flavor of capitalism has allowed short-sighted greed to take over because Wall St demands so.
On an ideological level, you and I are the same - community over commerce. I support capitalism only under such principles.
Greed is not the cause of capitalism. Capitalism exists to create value for society. My grandfather, an immigrant, opened a bakery 50 years ago to serve his community and raise his family. I, an immigrant, opened a grocery store 10 years ago to serve my community and raise my family. Capitalism can be honest & hard work. In both cases, community over profits was a core principle.
Greed comes with accumulation and has to be restrained.
First, don’t point your finger at capitalism as the problem.
You already lost me
I know, many here have have an automatic trigger on ‘capitalism’, but I appreciate you trying. I will try to respond sincerely.
Second, acknowledge & understand greed and how it is inherent in all human nature.
I would rather acknowledge and encourage humans inherent nature to cooperate and grow together.
Me too! Cooperation is the good against the evil of greed. But greed still exists, you can’t wish it away, you have to strategize against.
Third, build systems that minimize the damage done by individual or corporate greed.
Like building an economy that doesn’t inherently reward greed? I wonder what that would look like.
Greed is rewarded in every economy.
Check against consolidation, monopolization, and short term Wall St like thinking of endless growth.
These things exist because of capitalism
No, they exist because of greed & corruption and failure of systems to contain those things.
Four, make sure socialist programs exist to support everyone
That’s social welfare. Being socialist means the workers own the means of production
No, socialist systems like free housing, healthcare, education can exist alongside capitalism. Worker owned systems like cooperatives still operate in a market.
capitalism is not the only way to live, it’s optional
It’s so easy to live in the USA and just not do capitalism /s
It’s impossible in the USA, I’m with you.
the European nations seem to be doing things quite alright
Do you understand that their wealth was pillaged from the global south?
Yes, the British East India company uprooted my own ancestors and erased all culture. I’m against imperialism as much as you, but this has nothing to do with it.
Can you give me a description of what makes socialism bad solely based on how it works (not referencing any country who may have attempted it)?
To your first point, let’s pretend you’re right and look at it in the abstract. What is to be done? Do you want to kill greed? How would you do that?
You’re getting somewhere! First, don’t point your finger at capitalism as the problem. Second, acknowledge & understand greed and how it is inherent in all human nature. Third, build systems that minimize the damage done by individual or corporate greed. Check against consolidation, monopolization, and short term Wall St like thinking of endless growth. Four, make sure socialist programs exist to support everyone, and capitalism is not the only way to live, it’s optional. When you think like that, the European nations seem to be doing things quite alright, but they are still vulnerable to greed. And so they must be vigilant against greed, not capitalism.
Greed, not capitalism is the root of evil. Fight me.
It’s okay to doubt; doubt is natural for those who question and those who reflect, you are way ahead simply for reflecting, and choosing to live your life by being honest to the principles you feel are important.
Anything you own ends up owning you or something like that.
Btw, why do you care what others think? Aren’t you free? Didn’t you do this for yourself and not to impress anyone? You should be secure in your rationale for living your lifestyle.
Start with being a good human first, then add lots of love, empathy, & patience, then add ability to recognize the world from their kids perspectives and give them wisdom and guidance throughout their lives so they can go on to become good & happy humans themselves. That’s it.
I’ve had similar experiences - endless tiring bad faith discussions. I sincerely believe market socialism is a realistic step we can take to improve human condition, but they seem convinced against it and hell bent on ‘revolution’. It’s clearly a cult with group think, they’ve arrived at their conclusions by reading theory, not from personal experience, self awareness, empathy & logic.