this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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What've you got against socialism in general? It's a very broad term.
I definitely am not against unions and the defence of worker's rights (Specially for the USA, you fuckers have like 19th century working conditions) but there are quite some things in Marxist theory that I disagree with
Like, that part where it's the amount of work done that adds value to goods. Like, I could literally pick up a diamond meteorite that just fell on my yard and it would be extremely valuable. Scarcity is definitely a bigger factor than work put into goods. There's also this thing of having no real incentives to be more efficient, but that might be more command economy specific
We could have a long conversation about this, but I think the easiest way would simply be to say that:
Marxism is not the only form of socialism
Command economy is very, VERY specific to the style of Marxism-Leninism that was exported by the Soviet Union. You might find interest in anarcho-syndicalism, mutualism, and market socialism. Not because I think you'll necessarily agree with them, but because they posit very different ideas about how a socialist economy should work.
Don't assume I didn't know about those ideas. And don't assume either that I'd like them. I mentioned Marxism as Marx is considered to be the "father of scientific socialism"
You don't like anarcho-syndicalism?
I didn't say that you'd like them, I only brought them up because you included a specific criticism of command economies when asked for your issue with socialism.
Diamonds are literally one of the most artificially inflated gemstone values in existence. They’re also the most abundant. Just pointing that out for when you try to argue your point again.
And yet it would have a high value despite it having gone through no worker's hands.
Yes, the economy is crazy in quite a lot of cases, yes, sometimes things are overvalued and that further proves Marx's stance wrong
Oh, yeah, I’m not disagreeing. I guess diamonds work for that, I’m just saying it’s not rare at all.
Well, I specified that it fell from the sky, that definitely is a plus
True. Just for clarity, I think the Marxist socio-economic platform is absolute horseshit and doesn’t survive contact at all with the Information Age, because it necessitates an industrial/agrarian society.
That diamond would be worth a lot more if you put in the labor to cut and polish it. Almost like labor adds value to resources.
Also: Who says you own what falls on the ground?
I own it because I took it while nobody else claimed it
How do you plan on enforcing that claim?
Simple: as nobody else claimed it I just take it and leave it in my home
And what happens when an angry mob or lawyers or jackbooted thugs come and take it?
That's why the state must protect private property. In the case of the lawyers, if the claims are unfounded then I would get to keep it
Oh, so you get special thugs that are allowed to use violence. That doesn't seem fair.
Also: Now you see the violence inherent in the system.
Yes, we get special thugs that protect what's of each person.
Sure, it's probably even more violent than a literal mob trying to steal my stuff just because they want to. Well, it was that way in the Neolithic (raiding settlements) and that's why its inhabitants decided to have some kind of protection by and for the settlement.
It's literally not that hard to understand: you use force to prevent people from raiding your settlement, then the settlement grows with more safety and that's literally how we stopped being either nomadic raiders or afraid and impoverished farmers.
Anarchism would be just going to that step