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this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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I am totally with you in the broad sentiment you're expressing, but almost everything you said is ultimately just bandaids that still don't address the real deep, systemic problem, and this mode of production that will always reward greed. You were most onto something towards the end. But rather than a new French Revolution, which just sets things up for this to happen all over again, how about a new Bolshevik Revolution that aims not just to try to do capitalism more fairly, but reorganizes society in such a way as to eliminate poverty and all need in what is already a post-scarcity human epoch.
We the people have the power to seize the means of production. We the people can set society on the road to the complete abolition of class.
Basically, because socialism fundamentally requires centralized control, and I don't trust centralized control. I fully expect corruption and greed to exist, and to gravitate toward power.
I don't trust society not to deliberately appoint a tyrannical megalomaniac: I've seen them do it entirely too often.
You say "centralized control" but that doesn't really mean anything. After all, the capitalist class already have centralized their power, and their class interests mean they structure every feature of both business and government to keep it that way. Socialism, as defined by a dictatorship of the proletariat, upends this class dynamic entirely. So no, socialism does not "require centralized control" just because a classless society would utilize central planning efficiency to meet societal goals. This is fundamentally, scientifically different from the current system of bourgeoisie control.
Please elaborate. I am not sure what you mean when you say that the capitalist class has centralized their power.
You're the one who said:
What did you mean when you said that? There is no way in which socialism "requires" anything like this that capitalism also doesn't require in terms of controlling the population. At least in socialism the population has control over the population rather than a small elite class (the bourgeoisie aka capitalist class aka owning class) as in capitalism. If you are talking about a planned economy, then again, capitalism does this too and you need look no further than fucking amazon as an example. The economy is just planned around gaining more capital for a small class instead of actually serving the needs of people as in socialism.
Finally,
No, you haven't. You've been told that happened as a means of propaganda to make sure you and everyone like you (people not part of the owning class) think exactly what you do now think "ooooooh noes scary socialism always turns ebil dictatortotship!" Show us what socialist societies (AES) "appointed a tyrannical megalomaniac" and we'll show you a load a bullshit that has been force-fed to the people of a capitalist society ruled by the real tyrannical megalomaniacs: the capitalist class.
I didn't say socialism appoints them. I said society. Socialism is not a prophylaxis against society fucking itself over by declaring itself subject to a tyrant.
With socialism comes the first mass state and genuine rule by the majority. You can't just generalize "society" as having a tendency of "fucking itself over" when this "society" is ruled by completely different classes depending on the level of development of the productive forces.
What I mean by this is that there is no choice for capitalists but participate in our economic system. If a "nice" business owner tries to be fair to their workers, give them the full value of their labor, etc., then they will be out-competed by a company that does not. As long as workers continue working for a company (no strike or anything), then the safest course for a business to take is maximum profit and wage exploitation. This way, they keep wages down, their shareholders are happy, etc. Now, there's always a balancing act they put on so that workers don't realize this, be that platitudes like game rooms at tech start-ups, all the way to traditional methods like raising wages.
Because of this, businesses will naturally gravitate toward anti-worker practice. As late-stage capitalism progresses, this becomes even more brutal. Now the biggest companies maintain their competitive advantage by lobbying, PACs, propaganda, owning the news stations. Joe Biden and Donald Trump both have lavish dinners with donors and business owners who discuss politics and national policy. And because these business owners are from Microsoft and Raytheon, they further America's goals (substitute America for any Capitalist country too). The capitalist class has centralized power because any individual in the class who tries to steer policy toward worker protections and limits on their own class are quickly out-competed.
I'm basing this analysis on some of the later chapters of Capital like Vol. 1, Ch. 25, Section 2 (I skimmed this just now to make sure I could word this response correctly). I do recommend the entirety of Capital for a scientific breakdown of worker power and commodity production. Hexbear has a reading group for the book going on now.
Read this
TL;DR: The growth of banks concentrates capital more closely, and also development causes the creation of truces between capitalists and mixes capitalist control between industries.
Socialism is not a political philosophy based on belief, but simply the epoch that must follow capitalism, as it’s the first step in really resolving the fundamental contradictions of the latter—done halfway by the capitalist state apparatus, which aims to reconcile class contradictions whilst preserving their originator, and so itself falls into contradiction; the increasing socialization of production coming along with development contradicts the private ownership of enterprise, even still imperialism lends to the centralization of production/distribution as a resolution of the fall of the rate of profit (and this rears its head also in the sphere of automation, where capitalist development requires greater and greater productivity for competition, and yet, the greater the reliance on automation (for extension of productivity beyond human potential), the lower the rate of profit becomes as surplus value/variable capital comes from human labor power—this contradiction is unique to capitalism as it holds exchange-value over use-value, and so the necessary outcome is the resurgence of use value as the dominant force with a mode of production which serves the whole working populace rather than a few profiteers).
Wrt socialism? Do you understand how material conditions work? Which "societies" as a whole deliberately appointed tyrannical megalomaniacs? "Entirely too often" means you have to name at least five.
How would you implement your progressive tax system without centralized control?
Centralized control over whom?
Socialism controls the means of production, which means (in theory) it has a direct affect on every shop, every worker. Any errors, mistakes, or corruption in the system that causes harm will impact our entire society.
A punitive cap on wealth at $1 billion directly affects only 756 people in the US. If we progressively apply a securities tax above $16.7 million, it directly affects a maximum of 1% of the population. Any errors, mistakes, or corruption in that system affects only a very small segment of society, and only that segment most able to mitigate the damage of such harm.
I'm less concerned with the harms that come with centralized control when those harms only affect the most privileged among us.