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Top-level
@DrDanMarshall The problem with universal social programs within a Capitalism is that such programs can still perpetuate hierarchical structures and also fail to address the root causes of poverty and inequality. 61 comments
@DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom The main constraint on progressive taxation and social spending to reduce economic inequality is political will. Also, social spending could powerfully affect *other* hierarchies. Child, elder care subsidies, public housing makes it easier for abused wives to leave their husbands. Individualistic social spending from the bureaucratic state makes personalistic religious charity less important. Etc. @DrDanMarshall @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom As a thought experiment, imagine progressive wealth taxation was taken to the limit, and every single individual had an equal amount of wealth, therefore an equal share of the means of production. (There might be a difference of incomes, resulting in unequal shares of the means of consumption, but that's a side issue.) @Radical_EgoCom Let's further say individuals pooled their wealth into small voluntary mutual aid funds, and decided how to invest or donate their wealth collectively. Further, workshops are (directly?) democratic, workers get 60% of the vote at the meetings, investors get 40% and play an advisory role. @Radical_EgoCom How would this differ from individualist anarcho-socialism or whatever version of anarchism you're evangelizing? Assuming that the progressive taxation is done by a magic fairy instead of the state's use of force, maybe. Honest question that, how would the two or three hypothetical societies differ? @DrDanMarshall @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom We *could* ensure equal shares of the means of consumption, but that would also eliminate the ability of the market to allocate scarce forms of labor! :D I leave it to you to propose an alternative method, but I'm okay with stipulating "a magic fairy does it" for the purposes of this thought experiment. Investors *might* have a disproportionate influence at a single firm, if they decide to put all of eggs in one basket. But since everybody has equal wealth... @Radical_EgoCom the investors would have the same power over society as a whole as the workers themselves. (And the investors would also *be* workers, either at the same firm or a different one.) @DrDanMarshall 1. **Equal shares of the means of consumption**: Ensuring equal access to resources doesn't necessarily mean distributing them equally; it means making them collectively owned and managed. 2. **Market allocation of labor**: Markets, as I see it, perpetuate inequalities and exploitation. Instead, I propose decentralized planning and/or participatory democracy to organize production and distribution based on need rather than profit. @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom On point three, if a mutual aid society invests in a cooperative workshop, what say, if any, should that give the mutual aid society in the internal decision of the workshop? I'm basing the 60/40 split on what Piketty says about how the share of national income gets split between capital and labor, btw. Ain't no reason capitalists should get 100% of the say, but it is their resources, so... @Radical_EgoCom I was basing unequal shares of the means of consumption on something Marx said in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. Was testing to see if you would *also* be okay with it, guess not :D How exactly to allocate scarce forms of labor, even within a single household, seems like a Non-Trivial Problem which I really don't want to go into right now. Is it okay if I chalk it up to magical fairies for the time being? @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom It seems to me that if a form of labor is scarce, then there's a reason for it. Can you give examples of some scarce forms of labor that would potentially be underserved? @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom When I look it up, it sounds like you're possibly describing certain forms of skilled labor, so are we worried about not incentivizing enough people to occupy those roles? If so, then I think you may be overestimating the size of demand in a non-capitalist framework, which is understandable given how we currently treat skilled labor. @nonehitwonder @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom @Oddel @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom I suspect that if a large enough number of people want to organize a festival, that there will be people willing to do the work to make it successful, including the task you just described. If not, then maybe there shouldn't be a festival. We clean up our messes; isn't that a basic value we teach to children? I think a lot of these scenarios are still taking place in a hypothetical world still running at a scale driven by profit motive. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom Let's back up a bit and talk theory before we get to concrete cases. Are you familiar with the labor theory of value, the marginal utility theory of value, the differences between them? @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom I am. Please continue with an example of some scarce forms of labor that would potentially be underserved in an Anarcho-Communist system as you currently understand it. @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom Advocating for a different social system isn't evangelizing. The implication that Anarcho-Communism, or indeed any alternative to Capitalism, is a religion is only serving to undermine sincere discourse. @nonehitwonder @DrDanMarshall @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom Do you believe you would be unable to have a sincere discourse with a person of faith? If so, why not? @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom That depends: does being a person of faith make one unable to distinguish between religion and economics? @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom There might be more of an overlap between religion, politics, and economics than you might recognize. I have a point I would like to make, but I will take a slow path to get there, in order to keep the possibility I might offend Radical_EgoCom further to a minimum. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom As it happens, I have three different philosophical writing projects cooking at the moment. One of the ones on the back burners has the working title of "Faith as a Weapon Against Religion." @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom My working definition of a religion is that a religion is a human-created social institution that requires the public endorsement of a set of beliefs as a condition of membership. I know of both necessity and sufficiency counter-examples to this account, a better account would probably have to be constructed on the basis of praxis. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom A more solid definition of faith is that it is "the surrender to the possibility of hope," a line I stole from Babylon 5. On the basis of this definition, I believe that if a person can show that every alternative to a proposition being true is a cause for despair, then that person would be justified in taking that proposition on faith and *should* take that proposition on faith. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom The way to challenge a belief that is held on faith isn't to stack up evidence against it. The way to do it is to show that there is at least one alternative to the faith-held belief that isn't a source of despair. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom Politics, like religion, is based on a kind of faith. For example, participating in electoral politics requires having faith that the party in power will relinquish power if they lose the election. This faith is less extreme than religious faith, but it is there. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom For me, an article of political faith is that meaningful reform within a parliamentary democracy is possible, therefore making a revolution unnecessary, at least for the moment. A revolution becoming necessary isn't quite as bad as eternal damnation, but it isn't exactly my idea of a good time. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom For Radical_EgoCom, the belief that solidarity is a powerful enough force as to render coercion unnecessary also appears to be an article of political faith for them. (My own pronouns are he/him, btw, I am unsure of Radical_EgoCom's so I will follow their lead and default to they/them.) That's why we were unable to come to an agreement on the universality of nepotism, and why I deflected the question to subject matter experts. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom If I am correct, both of us are people of political faith. We are also both engaged in proselytizing our particular brands of political faith. I'm slowly writing an entire book with the working title of "In Defense of Robin Hood: An Unapologetic Apology for Social Liberalism." I assure you, this is not the act of a sane man. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom Meanwhile, I swear that I have seen Mormon missionaries put less effort into selling their religion than Radical_EgoCom puts into running their pro-anarcho-communism account. And I seriously doubt they're getting paid to do it. If their motivation isn't religious, then it is a close cousin to it. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom So while me accusing Radical_EgoCom of evangelicalizing was admittedly mostly a bit of trash-talking on my part, I also believe there is an element of truth to it. Do you two disagree? If so, then why? @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom I think that a drive to find an alternative to a set of systemic behaviors that are inherently destructive and quite overtly the cause of an overwhelming amount of human misery can stem from an inherent desire to be kind and extend a grace to our fellow humans that they are otherwise denied. If I could be accused of any kind of faith, it is in our humanity. @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom Conversely, if I have to take on faith that elected officials are acting in our best interests when overwhelmingly the dominant motivation in our society is infinite wealth accumulation, or if I have to have faith that the pieces of paper I use to buy things will continue to have the value I am to believe they have, then I am participating in a system that is at best co-opted, and at worst explicitly designed to take advantage of the faithful. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom My faith in liberal democracy does not rest on the generosity of politicians. Instead, I think that liberal democracy works to the extent that the representation each faction has in the legislature is roughly proportionate to the military strength each faction would have in the event of a civil war. To the extent that this is true and everybody is rational and well-informed, that should make civil war unnecessary... and impossible. Unfortunately... @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom And, allegedly, Christians are motivated by their desire to save us all from damnation. So, to the extent the self-allegations of Christians are true, your two faiths and your two motivations are similar. @DrDanMarshall @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom @nonehitwonder My definitions of religion and faith say absolutely nothing about the supernatural. And true faith, unlike rationalization, is not blind. True faith sees the alternatives, recognizes that they are a source of despair, and *chooses* to surrender to the possibility of hope. Rationalization subconsciously blinds us to the truth, even while telling us that we are being perfectly rational. @Radical_EgoCom @nonehitwonder So I am going to ask this question as gently as I can: Under what circumstances, if any, would you accept the use of coercion as an alternative to relying on solidarity? @DrDanMarshall @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom @nonehitwonder Then, congratulations, your faith in solidarity is not absolute. My faith in liberal democracy isn't absolute either. My greatest fear during the Trump Years is that they would do something so odious but within the letter of the law that we would be forced to break faith with the Constitution first. Jan. 6 was something of a relief, that way. Trump was never that good at following the rules. @Radical_EgoCom @nonehitwonder There were pragmatic considerations in that fear, such as securing the loyalty of the military. But my main motivation was my reluctance to be the first to break faith with an agreement that I do consider sacred. @DrDanMarshall @nonehitwonder @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom I can't speak for anyone else, but none. No coercion. The moment force and threats become a part of the system, the door is then opened to deny people the very grace I think we should be extending to everyone without exception. You can't be your best self if nobody is making room for you to occupy that space. |
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@Radical_EgoCom You are correct progressive taxation and UBIs won't eliminate hierarchies. But they would at least massively reduce them. And the thesis I am arguing for is that economic hierarchies would re-emerge in an anarcho-socialist society in the absence of progressive taxation, or some similar thing that performs a similar function.