SOCIALISM EXPLAINED

Socialism: clear and concise. I'll try to respond to all of your questions.

[socialismexplained]

The State

The state is, fundamentally, an organisation of force.

It exists because there are unequal social classes. It is used by the capitalist class to suppress workers, through protecting the means of production as the private property of capitalists.

The means of production are factories, plants, facilities, machines, and so on.

The state is used by working people to take ownership of the economy, so that the economy belongs to the people who operate it.

It does not mean persecuting workers who are self-employed.

Social ownership of production means that everyone in society has equal relations to property. This eliminates economic inequality and abolishes social class.

Without social class, there is no group to oppress, and so the state, without a function, does not function at all. The conditions that gave birth to the state would have been ended.

A stateless and classless society is referred to as ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’.

[left-reminders]

This is your daily reminder that "capitalist democracy" is a contradiction in terms.

[socialismexplained]

Unemployment

Without a planned economy, there is no way to ensure full employment.

Capitalism consistently operates under capacity. This means empty facilitates, full of productive machinery, while those who could operate it are unemployed.

That’s not an accident.

Competition for jobs drives wages down. If 1000 people are willing and able to fill one post, the employer can choose the cheapest from a large pool of workers, all undercutting the cost of each other’s labour to secure the job.

If there are only a handful of people to do a job, wages cannot be forced down as far.

Near-full employment would leave employers with a very small pool of potential workers, forcing wages to increase or stay the same.

The market drives unemployment, demanding the longest possible hours from the cheapest available labourers.

[left-reminders]

[eilooxara]

Neutrality is not enlightenment. It is a position only accessible to those for whom the stakes are very low, who want to feel superior to those who have no choice but to care.

[thepeacockangel]

Criminalizing immigration serves capital

By creating a class of workers who cannot strike for fear of deportation

[socialismexplained]

And by extension, forcing wages down.

[socialismexplained]

Capitalism versus Freedom

Capitalism is not freedom. Capital is a condition of freedom under capitalism.

What does that mean?

In order to have “freedom” of choice, you must have capital (wealth/property).

For example, those with capital can choose not to work.

Those without capital must find employment in order to buy food, clothes, shelter, etc. or to maintain acceptable living standards, although workers often live in poverty anyway. This means they have to sell their ability to work. The capitalist exploits the worker.

Employment does not provide workers with a wage that would allow them to accumulate enough capital to leave employment. This is a form of coercion, which holds the capitalist economy together.

In other words, the purpose of the wage is to ‘keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer’.

This is known as ‘wage slavery’.

[fearwax-deactivated20200108]

A lot of Marxists find the argument that “communism killed millions” argument incredibly tedious.

Not because we deny (or most of us anyway) a lot of the unsavory shit that happened in previous socialist states.

But because capitalist states are very rarely held to the same standard.

The forced relocation and genocide of Native Americans by the United States, the brutal colonization of India by the British Empire, and countless other atrocities committed by so called democracies are either treated as unfortunate necessities of history at best or are given a shrug at worst.

The British Empire is responsible for far more death and misery than the Soviet Union even under Stalin’s leadership. Yet the Hammer and Sickle is treated as taboo but no one bats an eye at the Union Jack.

If we are to be completely honest with ourselves, there is not a state that has existed on earth without blood on its hands.

I think the most probable reasoning from defenders of capitalism is that the core principles of capitalism and liberal democracy don’t neccitate genocide or imperialism (although I know many people who disagree with that, myself included to an extent. But that’s besides the point)

But why should we treat Marxism differently. Nowhere in the theoretical writings of Marx, Lenin, will you find them arguing that large swaths of the populace must die. In fact you’ll often find the countrary. Lenin was a big advocate for protecting the ethnic minorities in Russia and granting them some degree of autonomy.

You end up with people either willfully ignoring history or comparing apples and oranges.

Marxism I think, should either judged on its principles compared to the principles of liberalism, or compared in practice to liberalism in practice. Anything otherwise is just lousy discourse imo.

[socialismexplained]

“Marxism I think, should either judged on its principles compared to the principles of liberalism, or compared in practice to liberalism in practice. Anything otherwise is just lousy discourse”

[socialismexplained]

'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’

This slogan is sometimes attributed to Marx. In fact he’s not the author, and warns about misusing it.

Pro-capitalist commentators abuse this phrase, claiming a socialist state would seize all property and redistribute it according to perceived need.

In socialism, workers collectively decide what to produce and how. They democratically decide what to do with the products. This leads to more equitable distribution of the wealth they produce.

A “socialist state” does not alienate workers from the fruits of their labour. On the contrary. It exists to stop wealth being taken from those who produce it.

Only in a state of superabundance, where co-operative labour has provided all workers with more than they need or want, might society voluntarily choose to distribute on the basis of need.

“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” - Marx, ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’ 

[left-reminders]

You went from right-libertarian to leftist too? I went from voluntarist NAP-obsessed Rand-spouting propertarian to eventually going 'wait, my philosophy isn't consistent...', shifting from bourgeoisie 'voluntarism' to advocating free association and mutualism, and then straight to fucking Marxism.

That’s a really interesting evolution, actually! It sounds like you didn’t take a dip back into mainstream discourse after right-wing libertarianism like I did, at any rate; I went from Ayn Rand to Robert Reich to Bernie Sanders to Rosa Luxemburg.

It’s good to know there is no short supply of leftists who used to be bootlickers – it gives me hope!

[socialismexplained]

Many people are becoming aware of their own exploitation. Socialists must be at the forefront of the debate to illustrate how that exploitation works.

[socialismexplained]

The Working Class

The working class, or proletariat, are waged employees. They rely on this wage to survive.

They are hired to make money (surpluses) for their employers. In order to keep a job, workers must create more wealth than they receive in wages.

Employers collect these surpluses. Everything left after wages are paid is profit. Employers therefore receive more wealth than they create.

How profit is created and distributed (simplified).

Under capitalism, the wealth dynamic resembles that of older economic systems - lord and serf, or master and slave.

In each instance, those who work create surpluses, and in turn may receive enough to survive, but not enough to escape reliance on the exploiter.

The use of ‘exploiter’ is not moralistic. Under capitalism, individuals must be one or the other - employer or employee, exploiter or exploited. The relationship is systemic.

Wage competition between workers forces wages down.

When workers cannot live on the wage, the capitalist state subsidises the employer through welfare schemes.

If workers could not live, the market would collapse.

[sbjsjshzhjsjajabsgw]

do teenage girls who support communism realize they would be exterminated under it?? as in it literally is stated in the communist manifesto that upper and middle classes are so spoiled theres no chance for resocialization for them and they need to be exterminated for the good of society… like… how do you support an ideology that says youre the scum of earth and you need to die??

[socialismexplained]

No it doesn’t.

Click here to read the Communist Manifesto for yourself (it’s not too long).

“When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character … we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” - excerpt from The Communist Manifesto

[socialismexplained]

Outsourcing

Workers compete for jobs. Employers choose those who will accept the lowest wage.

As poorer nations entered the market, employers moved jobs en masse to those places. Workers do the same work on very low wages.

This created mass unemployment in the countries where capitalism began.

Without an income, individuals cannot buy what capitalists are selling. Workers in poor countries can’t afford the products of their labour - wages are too low.

Welfare programmes, although they were won by workers, create a consumer base in the countries left behind by industrial capitalists (they enable the unemployed to buy).

The market depends on the capitalist state. They appear antagonistic, but the capitalist state continually saves the market from extinction by its own hand (this is a ’bourgeois dictatorship’).

Maximisation of profit minimises disposable income. Therefore, a ‘free’ market is impossible, as is ‘anarcho-capitalism’ (also known as 'right libertarianism’).

[socialismexplained]

[socialismexplained]

Can a socialist society be creative and progressive? We are told that only the competitive spirit of capitalism can drive society forward so how can socialism prevent societal stagnation?

The emancipation of workers allows every section of society to become innovative.

Profit doesn’t drive creativity, it excludes innovations on the basis of profitability.

The capitalist era has indeed seen an explosion of productivity. The goal of socialism is not to halt progress, but to make the fruits of progress available to society.

An example:

Mechanisation in factories results in higher output with less labour. Jobs are lost, while work hours are as long as is legal.

Because socialism is able to provide targets based on social demand, and can plan to include the entire workforce, higher outputs result in much shorter work hours and more leisure time. Innovation may also result in a better product, which in turn benefits everyone who uses that product, including the innovator.

The drive to enrich one’s own life is of course still present, even when those benefits are distributed democratically.

It is also in the interests of the whole of society to provide for those who devote most of their time to technological progress.

The capitalist state standardises education around the requirements of the job market. Most available jobs require little more than basic literacy and numeracy, informing the limits of education for the majority of workers.

This represents an untold loss of creative potential. The question might be posed that if this much progress can be made using such a tiny proportion of our collective intellect, what could we achieve using all of it?

[sovietspacedogs]

Under the capitalist system you have the absolute freedom of choice for inconsequential things. You have dozens of different toothpastes, hundreds of different phones, different TV’s, and different computers.

But under the capitalist system you have a supremely limited choice for anything of consequence. Limited political representation and choice, limited control over one’s work, limited access to necessities, and a limited pursuit of fulfillment.

Nothing meaningful is offered in capitalism.

[socialismexplained]

Under Socialism, workers produce what they want or need. If they wanted different types of toothpaste, they’d make different types of toothpaste.

[left-reminders]

Can you help me understand how rich people don't help create jobs? Or is the reverse true (rich help create jobs) only within a capitalist system?

Rich people “create jobs” because they own the means of production, the gears that allow the reproduction of daily life in society. Of course those gears need turning, but they don’t need to be autocratically-owned by an elite minority. Labor produces all the value in society, including the means of production. It follows that workers can democratically manage their own affairs in society through cooperative/horizontal setups, without a parasitic middleman class that accrues the grand majority of wealth based on their top-down ownership over those collectively-operated utilities. Worker cooperatives are viable even within an otherwise capitalist economy; the capitalist class is a superfluous middleman to the flourishing of humanity.

[socialismexplained]

Jobs are created in response to demand for a product or service.

The process of creating jobs can only be started by those with the resources (money) to create jobs.

Under capitalism, that is the employing class, who collect the profits made by their workers.

The resources to meet social demand are therefore created by workers and held hostage by wealthy employers.

There is no requirement on employers whatsoever to use the wealth to create jobs. The decision is based on profitability.