Socialism doesn’t dictate a government structure, there’s authoritarian socialism and there’s anarchist socialism and there’s socialism in-between.
What’s ironic about your point is that you’re advocating for a literally authoritarian economic system where the owning class dictates what laborers do. You spend most of your waking hours working for a dictator.
Socialism is about making the economy worker owned and giving the workers control over what gets produced and how. That could be via worker cooperatives, it can be via anarchism, it can be via an authoritarian state that (claims to) represent the worker.
I disagree! Socialism by definition requires the people to own their own homes and the places where they work, which is difficult in a government not run by the people. Socialism must be democratic, anything else is just red fascism.
it can be via an authoritarian state that (claims to) represent the worker.
I may have been hasty, seems you agree! But I would like to stress that any government which claims to be socialist but makes unions illegal and enforces capitalism and private property shouldn’t really get to call itself socialist or communist. They’re just state capitalist oligarchies.
I’ll give you that. I am leaving room in my definition for anarcho-communism and anarcho-socialism (or even anarcho-syndicalism and other left-anarchist systems) and those don’t require a state.
Democracy is a decent enough way to run a state, but anarchists would critique democracy (from the left) by pointing out that it can violently compel people based on the will of the majority, and so consensus building, federation, and mutual aid can replace a democratic state while accomplishing socialism.
oh hey there’s the trivial argument I was expecting… I’m not going to debate this (at an elementary school level) with you but you might consider that anarchists thought of that believe it or not. You can choose to educate yourself, or you can feel smug.
Humans existed for well over 200,000 years without government. There is strong evidence of massive settlements that existed for extended periods without any sign of being ruled, just people living and cooperating.
In fact, it’s the formation of governments that could enforce exploitative economic systems that started the ecological collapse of this planet in the first place. Humans without government live in balance with the rest of the world.
The idea that humans, to survive and thrive, require the formation of an entity (government/state) that allows the subset of the population in control of the it to exploit the subset not in control of it is a dangerous fallacy.
Look up “megasites”, these are large settlements not called cities as they lack signs of being dominated by a subset of themselves. One I’ve heard of is called “Nebelivka” but I believe there are at least a few others known and probably others either not yet found or misunderstood as cities.
in Russia, members of the nomenklatura ride in expensive limousines, while in Yugoslavia, ordinary people themselves ride in limousines through their representatives.
Nah, mate. Not the USSR nor Cuba were like this. You simply couldn’t find wealth disparities in those countries as you can in modern capitalist ones, not even remotely close.
Under socialism, the tower belongs to The People, and is used by their representatives in the Party.
Socialism doesn’t dictate a government structure, there’s authoritarian socialism and there’s anarchist socialism and there’s socialism in-between.
What’s ironic about your point is that you’re advocating for a literally authoritarian economic system where the owning class dictates what laborers do. You spend most of your waking hours working for a dictator.
Socialism is about making the economy worker owned and giving the workers control over what gets produced and how. That could be via worker cooperatives, it can be via anarchism, it can be via an authoritarian state that (claims to) represent the worker.
I disagree! Socialism by definition requires the people to own their own homes and the places where they work, which is difficult in a government not run by the people. Socialism must be democratic, anything else is just red fascism.
I may have been hasty, seems you agree! But I would like to stress that any government which claims to be socialist but makes unions illegal and enforces capitalism and private property shouldn’t really get to call itself socialist or communist. They’re just state capitalist oligarchies.
I’ll give you that. I am leaving room in my definition for anarcho-communism and anarcho-socialism (or even anarcho-syndicalism and other left-anarchist systems) and those don’t require a state.
Democracy is a decent enough way to run a state, but anarchists would critique democracy (from the left) by pointing out that it can violently compel people based on the will of the majority, and so consensus building, federation, and mutual aid can replace a democratic state while accomplishing socialism.
Ah, I see! I was only disagreeing with the inclusion of authoritarian socialism, which in my mind is an oxymoron.
Democracy can take many shapes and I would argue anarchy must always be democratic as well, even if it is way more democratic than current systems.
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oh hey there’s the trivial argument I was expecting… I’m not going to debate this (at an elementary school level) with you but you might consider that anarchists thought of that believe it or not. You can choose to educate yourself, or you can feel smug.
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ok educate me
Humans existed for well over 200,000 years without government. There is strong evidence of massive settlements that existed for extended periods without any sign of being ruled, just people living and cooperating.
In fact, it’s the formation of governments that could enforce exploitative economic systems that started the ecological collapse of this planet in the first place. Humans without government live in balance with the rest of the world.
The idea that humans, to survive and thrive, require the formation of an entity (government/state) that allows the subset of the population in control of the it to exploit the subset not in control of it is a dangerous fallacy.
Do you have further reading on this?
Look up “megasites”, these are large settlements not called cities as they lack signs of being dominated by a subset of themselves. One I’ve heard of is called “Nebelivka” but I believe there are at least a few others known and probably others either not yet found or misunderstood as cities.
Zizek has a joke like that:
Nah, mate. Not the USSR nor Cuba were like this. You simply couldn’t find wealth disparities in those countries as you can in modern capitalist ones, not even remotely close.