I think you are talking about cooperativism. That’s a form of capitalism. Again, it would be great to have a multipolar world where we could try that out. But it doesn’t not have contradictions, it just has new ones. Every politicial system has dialectical contradictions, and we simply flow from old ones to new ones as material conditions change. I recommend reading the deluzian criticism of dialectics.
No, I’m talking about Modes of Production. I linked videos explaining it more in depth for a reason.
A workers cooperative is using a socialist mode of production to organize and run a private business.
You didn’t provide what the contradictions of the socialist mode of production are. You gave critiques of planned economy and authoritarianism.
The contradiction of a capitalist mode of production is between the owner, who wants to maximize exploitation, and the workers, who want to minimize their exploitation. A socialist mode of production makes a democratic organization of all the workers replace that capitalist owner. The workers are in full control. There is no contradiction between the owner and workers because the workers are now also the owners.
I recommend reading the deluzian criticism of dialectics.
This is about philosophy, not a critique of marxian economics or dielectical materialism
If we can’t agree on the definitions of Capitalism and Socialism, then we can’t really have a conversation. I provided the videos by Richard Wolff so that the definitions being used are clear.
You didn’t provide what the contradictions of the socialist mode of production are. You gave critiques of planned economy and authoritarianism.
I… did… what? The critiques were in the form of contradictory forces: central planning (seeks to centralize power) and democracy (seeks to distribute power), those who work “according to their ability” (incentive to minimize work) those who receive “according to their need” (incentive to maximize receipt of goods) (contradiction comes from the added premise max work -> max goods). These are as contradictory as the class differences between capitalist and worker, even moreso since they are contradictions between the worker and himself. Society and itself.
This is about philosophy, not a critique of marxian economics or dielectical materialism
Which are we talking about again? Philosophy or Marxism? Wait, Marxism and dialectical materialism are philosophies. Wait, Deleuze comments on them. Wait… wtf are you talking about?
Those aren’t contradictory. Centralized planning refers to organizing aspects of the economy, in particular things with inelastic demand, through the government (the public sector). It’s run as a business, same as in the private sector, except profit is not the point. It can be organized based on a capitalist mode or a socialist mode. If it’s organized in a socialist mode, the entire body of workers have a say in the process of the central planning.
Centralized planning is critical for inelastic demand, such as housing, healthcare, and for the most part food. It is not a replacement of markets, it is supplementing them to ensure basic necessities are available to everyone. The private market can still exist just fine, it’s the organization within the companies that change. The ratio of public to private, and planned economy to market economy, depends on a significant amount of factors, internal and external.
Marx’s critique of political economy says you can’t have a half capitalist half socialist system like that. If there is any form of money or profit it will pool. It will become political power. It will oppress the socialist tendencies, and just like you see in America, it will privatize them over time. It will eventually destroy any gains you made socializing the economy.
Capitalism is a centralizing/monopolizing force, and under Marxism the goal is to benefit from that centralization materially, simply bring it under the dictatorship of the proletariat. There are so many passages in Marx and Engels about “economic anarchy” (describing free markets, not anarchism) vs the prosperity that comes from central planning, the nationalization of the imperialist monopolies.
I just don’t think you’ve read anything. I’m not even that read and I know this shit.
“The entire body of workers have a say in the process of central planning” - you can have a democratic system where you vote on planning, true, but it’s hardly non-authoritarian. Imagine if our democracy decided all the material goods you could consume and all the work you must do? Would you be satisfied? No, because democracy at its best is slow, ineffective, and ultimately authoritarian. It’s how you do things when you have no other choice, not how you want to live, eat, and breathe each day of your life. Democracy is not freedom. Anarchy is freedom. It’s only benefit is its not literal fascism.
You are a Bernstein-esq social democrat with Proudhon-esq mutualist and cooperativist elements. Not a Marxist. Not a socialist under any modern use of the term.
A workers cooperative is using a socialist mode of production to organize and run a private business.
Marx didn’t think so. You still produce commodities for the purpose of profit. You just become your own capitalist.
I made this a separate comment because it’s so common and also so absurd. Richard Wolff is wrong about this. A socialist mode of production where workers produce commodities for profit 🤣
You fundamentally misunderstanding capitalism if that’s what you think.
Profit exists in both modes of production. The difference is that in a capitalist mode, workers are over-exploited to maximize profit for the owner. In a socialist mode, workers are not over-exploited and the profit is shared between the workers. In a capitalist mode, increasing profits are prioritized above all else, while wages are minimized as much as possible. In a socialist mode, workers decided democratically how much to put towards their wages and how much to reinvest back into the business; increasing profits year over year is not the priority, the well-being of the workers and business is.
I think you are the one who fundamentally misunderstands Marx’s critique of capitalism if that is all you think capitalism is.
Sure there is a contradiction between the classes, in the form of their conflicting interests, but there is also a contradiction in commodity production itself, in the materialist superstructure that makes up the concepts of money, wage, profit, etc. The ultimate goal of socialism is to do away with the value-form. Because the value form produces a contradiction between the exchange value and the use value of a product. Things are exchange values of each other under Marxist theory if they both contain the same socially necessary labor time. However, not all things which contain the same socially necessary labor time are necessarily of the same use value, indeed use value is not a quantitative metric but a qualitative one, and is the actually useful metric for human flourishing contained in an item. Diamonds and Uranium might both take the same labor time to get out of the ground, but how much of each do we need? Socialism ultimately hopes to provide people with use values, things they need, not simply trade things of equal labor values. If you don’t handle this you get into crises of overproduction.
The second contradiction in cooperativism (again these are textbook Marxist critiques not things I pulled out of my ass, you can actually search for the word cooperativism in Marx’s work, that’s what he calls it) is that workers still participate in a race to the bottom competing on working conditions. Two firms both make X. They each compete each other down in their profits until the profit is near 0, that is the tendency of profit to fall. Now how do they outcompete each other? On wages. On hours. On safety standards. Etc. one corporation willing to work harder, for less, less safely, will outcompete the other. That’s what he means when he says the workers become their own capitalists, and thus their own oppressors. They will democratically choose this even as a cooperative, because the system of capitalism oppresses them to do so, else they are outcompeted and go out of business.
I think you are talking about cooperativism. That’s a form of capitalism. Again, it would be great to have a multipolar world where we could try that out. But it doesn’t not have contradictions, it just has new ones. Every politicial system has dialectical contradictions, and we simply flow from old ones to new ones as material conditions change. I recommend reading the deluzian criticism of dialectics.
No, I’m talking about Modes of Production. I linked videos explaining it more in depth for a reason.
A workers cooperative is using a socialist mode of production to organize and run a private business.
You didn’t provide what the contradictions of the socialist mode of production are. You gave critiques of planned economy and authoritarianism.
The contradiction of a capitalist mode of production is between the owner, who wants to maximize exploitation, and the workers, who want to minimize their exploitation. A socialist mode of production makes a democratic organization of all the workers replace that capitalist owner. The workers are in full control. There is no contradiction between the owner and workers because the workers are now also the owners.
This is about philosophy, not a critique of marxian economics or dielectical materialism
If we can’t agree on the definitions of Capitalism and Socialism, then we can’t really have a conversation. I provided the videos by Richard Wolff so that the definitions being used are clear.
I… did… what? The critiques were in the form of contradictory forces: central planning (seeks to centralize power) and democracy (seeks to distribute power), those who work “according to their ability” (incentive to minimize work) those who receive “according to their need” (incentive to maximize receipt of goods) (contradiction comes from the added premise max work -> max goods). These are as contradictory as the class differences between capitalist and worker, even moreso since they are contradictions between the worker and himself. Society and itself.
Which are we talking about again? Philosophy or Marxism? Wait, Marxism and dialectical materialism are philosophies. Wait, Deleuze comments on them. Wait… wtf are you talking about?
Those aren’t contradictory. Centralized planning refers to organizing aspects of the economy, in particular things with inelastic demand, through the government (the public sector). It’s run as a business, same as in the private sector, except profit is not the point. It can be organized based on a capitalist mode or a socialist mode. If it’s organized in a socialist mode, the entire body of workers have a say in the process of the central planning.
Centralized planning is critical for inelastic demand, such as housing, healthcare, and for the most part food. It is not a replacement of markets, it is supplementing them to ensure basic necessities are available to everyone. The private market can still exist just fine, it’s the organization within the companies that change. The ratio of public to private, and planned economy to market economy, depends on a significant amount of factors, internal and external.
Marx’s critique of political economy says you can’t have a half capitalist half socialist system like that. If there is any form of money or profit it will pool. It will become political power. It will oppress the socialist tendencies, and just like you see in America, it will privatize them over time. It will eventually destroy any gains you made socializing the economy.
Capitalism is a centralizing/monopolizing force, and under Marxism the goal is to benefit from that centralization materially, simply bring it under the dictatorship of the proletariat. There are so many passages in Marx and Engels about “economic anarchy” (describing free markets, not anarchism) vs the prosperity that comes from central planning, the nationalization of the imperialist monopolies.
I just don’t think you’ve read anything. I’m not even that read and I know this shit.
“The entire body of workers have a say in the process of central planning” - you can have a democratic system where you vote on planning, true, but it’s hardly non-authoritarian. Imagine if our democracy decided all the material goods you could consume and all the work you must do? Would you be satisfied? No, because democracy at its best is slow, ineffective, and ultimately authoritarian. It’s how you do things when you have no other choice, not how you want to live, eat, and breathe each day of your life. Democracy is not freedom. Anarchy is freedom. It’s only benefit is its not literal fascism.
You are a Bernstein-esq social democrat with Proudhon-esq mutualist and cooperativist elements. Not a Marxist. Not a socialist under any modern use of the term.
Marx didn’t think so. You still produce commodities for the purpose of profit. You just become your own capitalist.
I made this a separate comment because it’s so common and also so absurd. Richard Wolff is wrong about this. A socialist mode of production where workers produce commodities for profit 🤣
You fundamentally misunderstanding capitalism if that’s what you think.
Profit exists in both modes of production. The difference is that in a capitalist mode, workers are over-exploited to maximize profit for the owner. In a socialist mode, workers are not over-exploited and the profit is shared between the workers. In a capitalist mode, increasing profits are prioritized above all else, while wages are minimized as much as possible. In a socialist mode, workers decided democratically how much to put towards their wages and how much to reinvest back into the business; increasing profits year over year is not the priority, the well-being of the workers and business is.
I think you are the one who fundamentally misunderstands Marx’s critique of capitalism if that is all you think capitalism is.
Sure there is a contradiction between the classes, in the form of their conflicting interests, but there is also a contradiction in commodity production itself, in the materialist superstructure that makes up the concepts of money, wage, profit, etc. The ultimate goal of socialism is to do away with the value-form. Because the value form produces a contradiction between the exchange value and the use value of a product. Things are exchange values of each other under Marxist theory if they both contain the same socially necessary labor time. However, not all things which contain the same socially necessary labor time are necessarily of the same use value, indeed use value is not a quantitative metric but a qualitative one, and is the actually useful metric for human flourishing contained in an item. Diamonds and Uranium might both take the same labor time to get out of the ground, but how much of each do we need? Socialism ultimately hopes to provide people with use values, things they need, not simply trade things of equal labor values. If you don’t handle this you get into crises of overproduction.
The second contradiction in cooperativism (again these are textbook Marxist critiques not things I pulled out of my ass, you can actually search for the word cooperativism in Marx’s work, that’s what he calls it) is that workers still participate in a race to the bottom competing on working conditions. Two firms both make X. They each compete each other down in their profits until the profit is near 0, that is the tendency of profit to fall. Now how do they outcompete each other? On wages. On hours. On safety standards. Etc. one corporation willing to work harder, for less, less safely, will outcompete the other. That’s what he means when he says the workers become their own capitalists, and thus their own oppressors. They will democratically choose this even as a cooperative, because the system of capitalism oppresses them to do so, else they are outcompeted and go out of business.
So no, I understand this material. You do not.