Market 'socialism'

He's right. Unless a countrie abandons everything capitalis and the global market then is completely fucked.
USSR still had a central bank. USSR still used currency. USSR was part of the global market. They fucked themselves.

Can anyone fuck Bhutan? No, because although they have currency and an authority that serves as central bank, they don't want actively be part of the global market.
In fact they only have diplomatic relations with two other countries, Nepal and India.

Isolationism is the path of success.

It´s like you didn´t watch the WEBMs.

Let me spoonfeed: in a mode of distribution dictated by markets to coordinate production (that is: production for exchange), we have socially necessary labor time. This is what directly disciplines labor and production and, by extension, the lenience of what happens to surplus production.

You can watch the WEBMs again now!

Oh, looks like you didn't watch the WEBMs again!

Let me spoonfeed (again): a democratized economic unit means simply that. Those who envision democratic firms are right to see the dictation of enterprise by a capitalist to be exploitative, but entirely fail to see that the capitalist (that is: anyone with authority over the direction of the economic unit and its proceeds) is acting in accordance to the impersonal market forces disciplining these decisions!

You can watch the WEBMs again now!

Oops, looks like you didn't watch the WEBMs! Again!

Let me spoonfeed (once more): in a society coordinated by market exchange, poverty is a condition of existance relative to the proper coordination of goods and services to consumers. So no; the democratization of economic units does not innately guarantee the elimination of poverty, because it by definition upholds the inherent machninic workings of capital by producing first for exchange value as opposed to use value!

Please watch the WEBMs now!

Dang, you really didn't look at those WEBMs, did you? Shucks!

Let me spoonfeed: the democratization of economic units only gives them control over the fate of the cooperative unit they occupy! If they do not properly respond to the impersonal forces of market forces and accordingly discipline their productivity in accordance to it, they will go out of business!

Woah, you didn't watch the WEBMs again! Wowsers!

Spoonfeeding time: the crux of market 'socialism' lies not in eliminating the pressing forces of entrenched labor to market exchange, but to democratize the economic unit's method of dealing with capital! Economic crises under capitalism, as we know from the critique of capitalism, come from the inherent tendency of market exchange to have a falling rate of profit, which is born from the contradiction between use and exchange value!

Consider watching the WEBMs!

Aye, those WEBMs huh!

Let us spoonfeed again: in democratizing the autocratic unit into a democratic one, we do not abolish classes, we merely merge the roles of capitalist (the coordinator of capital) and worker (the one doing the bidding of this coordination) together, creating the perfect capitalist! We did not address any of the systemic workings of capital exchange and production for exchange value; we merely addressed the chain of command through which disciplined labor must meet market forces!

Watch the WEBMs please!

Stalinism destroyed itself, my friend! Liberalization was the only way forward from a capitalism dominated by a state bourgeoisie.

But this is the biting force of ideology; 'they do not know it, but they are doing it!'. If there were a maxim if rationality we could achieve through a society-wide Socratic debate, we would already have a communist society, but we do not, because of the reifying nature of capital today, and the reifying nature of power by the sword yesterday!

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I must say, Zizek skims dangerously close to strawmanning - creating his own definition of Stalinism that is easy to disprove within his paradigm.

Much more importantly, webm ends before Zizek actually attempts to delegitimize "the Leader" aka "historical necessity" - through the essentially Liberal argumentation.

Forward to what?

This is inevitable when approaching any nebulous concept like Stalinism (which is a term specifically coined by Marxists to describe the phenomenon of demagogue-driven Marxism-Leninism), which Zizek approaches from a Marxist as well as Lacanian psychoanalytic position (what does the symbolic order signify?, how does the crux of the political ideology manifest itself materially?, etc.).

Zizek also does not 'disprove' anything, although you are free to clarify here what you mean with this almost positivist view of someone's position.

'The way to undermine Stalinism is not through attacking the leader or big Other, but the people subjected to it itself'. The WEBM (really just a fragment from Pervert's Guide to Ideology) really goes no further, and I'm surprised you haven't seen it.

To the next endurable position (liberal capitalism), from the previous deteriorated and utterly dysfuctional position (state capitalism). A bureaucracy could never advance through the innherently destructive nature of capitalism as well as a decentralized bourgeoisie could.

Bump. :^)

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Bump. :^)

Are you referring to the law of value video series with the smug, condescending asides you are using for 'persuasive rhetoric'? I've watched through it three times.

You are correct so say that this disciplines production, but in a market socialist system it would be an individual's self discipline which and innovation which would produce surplus, besides of course random fluctuations in the market. The point is that we do in fact need labor and production to be disciplined. Why should aim for inefficient production to meet society's need. Certainly in a situation where workers own the enterprise they work in, this discipline would not innately disadvantage them the way a capitalist quest for profit. For whenever they work harder or for longer hours, they personally reap the rewards.

What an interesting definition of capitalist you have there. Are not capitalists those who use their ownership of capital to claim ownership over an enterprises. When workers own a businesses this definition is rendered meaningless.

Also, if you accept that workers and capitalists have fundamentally different interests, than clearly workers would not make the same decisions that capitalists would given control over the means of production!

You forget that this only occurs within a larger political economy! How would workers have control of the surplus and not the state? Through the state they can control the economy on a macro level, mitigating the force of the market to wherever they please. This also relates to the issue of poverty. For what reason would workers want poverty to persist?

But I would also add, would the workers of an organization like wallmart be living in poverty in market socialism, as is the case now? Certainly not.

wrong. It is through the contradiction between the interests of labor and capital that capitalist crisis is born. When capitalists try to increase profit by cutting wages and benefits while trying to increase productivity. This creates an inability for workers to buy all the goods that are produced, eventually creating a crisis of credit after the workers or the state continually borrow to keep the system running.

In the Jewish Question Marx describes such a process as necessary for total abolition.

are you really such a spurge you can't go twenty minutes without bumping your own thread?

If all you can offer people is a "different form of freedom" then people will scoff in your face. We must offer both the freedom we have now and the much greater freedom of control over their own society.

Zizek as well as G. A. Cohen have also expressed such sentiments.

Yes, the two WEBMs I posted in this thread are both from Kapitalism 101: Law of Value.

Hush now.

Then why did you bring up arguments knocked down in the WEBMs?

Wrong. In any mode of production based on production for exchange, individual disciplining is proportionate to the average socially necessary labor time. This is why self-exploitation is used as a term; because you can only ever surpass this social average. If you go under it, you recupate damage to your firm's competition-driven compound growth and will ultimately be forced to adjust labor intensity or go out of business. The only difference in market 'socialism' is that you can feel good about your bankruptcy or socially necessary disciplining through horizontal means instead of vertical means.

Exactly: the impersonal, socially disciplined fluctuations we are desperately trying to move away from by adopting a mode of production that does not produce for exchange, but for use.

What did he mean by this?

This is addressed above: you can go through socially necessary labor time by self-exploiting your productivity as to take home some of your surplus, which will naturally go against the interests of the firm as your firm and other firms inevitably need to readjust to the social average labor time and meet compound growth (or go out of business). You'll have essentially done everything in your power to reintroduce an economic system of compound growth that dictates the fabric of labor intensity just so that you can take home an extra one of the dragon dildos you manufacture at Sex Toys Incooperated.

The definition upheld since Smith, upheld by Marx and reaccepted by Proudhon and Marx?

How do they instrumentalize their ownership? Use your noggin!

I know you want it to, but have another read.

We have concluded that in merging the function of the capitalist in the firm (proprietor) and worker in the firm (laborer), we obtain members of the economic unit whom are at once proprietors and laborers. This mean that they both fulfill the deeds of the proprietor's ultimate material interest (amassing compound growth disciplined by impersonal market forces disciplining production) as well as the laborer's ultimate material interest (materializing the socially necessary quota of labor for the firm). This is where the term 'perfect capitalist' comes from: the capitalist who at once has the authority to exploit his own labor as well as the ability to, through his own labor, meet his own economic unit's productive quotas. Once again, whether or not these impersonal market impulses upon labor are responded to by a laborer's response to a capitalist directly or by the laborer directly is irrelevant – what defines capitalism is the accumulation of capital through exchange as a means of systemic sustenance.
(1/2)

I can find merit in the theory overall without agreeing with all of it.

You entirely miss the meaning of "random fluctuations". By random, I mean almost truly random. They do not correlate to the disciplining of labor. The market is one of imperfect competition with many over-determined factors involved in its movements, and as such socially necessary labor time, while a useful theoretical abstraction, is just that, an abstraction.

You know exactly what I mean. Lowering the costs of production is a good thing.

Ah but here's the thing, you are the firm. And as I've already said, competition is not perfect in a market. People will not base their decisions on surplus extraction based purely on the snlt. But even if they did, and they reinvested the surplus, this would mean that the costs of production have gone down, which is still a good thing. And as you well know, because there is a market and exchange value, the worker will be taking home profit, not the goods themselves.

They defined capitalists as the owners of capital.

Via a capitalist legal structure.

Except, you know, for the fact that is the entirety of your argument so far.

How does this, once again, change the economic base of capitalism? The cooperative unit does little more to break the infinite reproductive cycle of capital; all it does is democratize the administrative faith of the economic unit within this cycle, thus doing little more than recuperating it.

They would. How else would the region-wide dictation that any economic unit must be democratically run be upheld? A state must be necessary to ensure the universal condition of a system like capitalism whether it is more or less democratic. All this does is reinforce the notion that market 'socialism' does not break the constitutive nature of capitalism; it simply shifts away its personal hierarchic characeritstics (capitalist-worker firm relation) while pretending the impersonal characteristics (socially necessary labor time, production for exchange) now do not matter to its logical need to compound growth.

So market 'socialism' is now Keynesian state expanditure to correct the inherently contradictory process of production for exchange, but with added democracy? We can all see how that worked out with an autocratic unit, but do we really need to see it fail with an extra pinch of workplace democracy again (as if Soviet kholkhozes and Yugoslav labour communities already didn't prove their inability to overcome systemic failure of market production) before we can finally bury market 'socialism' like the memetic pipe dream it is, along with 'planned' state capitalism?

Does this imply that we have poverty today because the capitalists will it? Or is it because production for exchange is innately incapable of meeting universal sustenance because it does not produce for first for use? You've taken the capitalist, fulfilling the leading role of capital accumulation, to the idealized position of bogeyman: he does everything to sate his own desire to keep us in poverty. There's a reason we call the economic capitalism, and not capitalistism.

You're free to clarify your argument here again because as it stands it's actually painful to process such an amount of idealism.

What did he mean by this?

This is, as Marx literally says, the logical conclusion of the capitalist being incapable to discipline labor as usual. He cuts costs in labor because has the authority to put himself first. If crisis were merely a matter of some period of universal porky desire shot out of nowhere to unilaterally be as much of an asshole as possible to the workers to maximize profit, why does this not occur all the time at similar intensity? Because all the capitalist does is reply to the impersonal forces of the market to maintain his compound growth. The only thing changing under a cooperative is that the workers can come together and have a chat and vote over how they're going to cut their wages following the inevitable unbearably low rate of profit.

Read above. Or Marx. Whichever makes you stop repeatedly mistaking ad nauseam the external consequences of production for exchange for the actual root of the problem which is production for exchange.

[citation needed]

Much more interesting than a work Marx did not publish would be Critique of the Gotha Programme, in which Marx explains that the democratization of the economic unit consequently must imply the socialization of labor. This means an end to production for exchange.

What did he mean by this?

You find merit overall in the fact that production for exchange inherently implies socially necessary labor and what not?

Have we come full Austrian here? Capitalism is now not based on material contradictions and impulses on labor but on the invisible hand and its RNG?

You might think they do not, but they do. Or, once again, you're a marginalist.

What did he mean by this?

The rest of your post is unbearable to read. You've come here either completely ignorant of things I have to spoonfeed to you, or to wilfully plead ignorance to things you know are incircumventable in your sorry excuse for a lack of self-theory. 'Things are random and abstract because they are' is the epitome of a non-argument. Read a book my nigga: gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=DD0B27231F6E7CABEF184B616A59DAFE

There was a ~45 minute time span between the first two bumps and an entire hour between the last two. If you'd spent all that time realizing you were full of shit and had virtually nothing of value to reply with beyond 'everyone who disagrees with me is the left communist bogeyman' or 'um ur wrong lol xd', you wouldn't be caring about something as minute as a few bumps.

It is not nebulous. There is a very specific meaning to it.

It is simply inconvenient - for liberal ideologists - to approach actual real Stalinism from the practical standpoint. It would mean necessity to compare things. But sanctity of Liberalism brooks no challenge. It is not an ideology, but "Objective Reality".

Which is why people invent stuff like "cult of personality" and then substitute "Stalinism" with it. This way they can discuss nebulous concepts instead of uncomfortable reality.

Which is a term coined by Trotsky to describe the practical application of ML by Stalin's faction. Neither collectivization, nor Five-Year Plans, nor the politics of 1929-1952 could be described as demagogy.

But I see you lost control of your verbal bowels and is no longer capable of civilized discussion.

In the US, for example, the support for a given law among the mass of people makes no difference as to whether it is passed. If it has the support of the top 1% of income earners though, the amount of support almost directly correlates to whether it is passed or not. This has been statistically proven. If workers are given the same economic power as the capitalists, this would radically change the political economy.
youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

Yes! Exactly!

Wrong. They do matter! In fact they matter a great deal. The project of any market socialist society is closely tied to allowing the competition that creates SNLT to be carried to its logical conclusion, that eventually you’d reach a point where a good requires zero SNLT to be made. In a capitalist society this would lead to crisis, a market socialist society would deal with this in an orderly manner.

It worked out pretty well until capitalist interests decided to abandon such reforms.

Soviet Kholkhozes were never truly independent and the Yugoslav cooperatives were flawed by giving workers control but not ownership, thus encouraging them to put all the surplus generated into wages instead of reinvestment. Neither were market socialism and both occurred in a situation where workers did not control the state either,

Yes, actually. Of course, I’m sure most capitalists when asked will say they don’t want poverty to exist, but the reality of their priorities prevent them from doing anything about it. For example, they don’t want to raise taxes to do so as they would cut into their profits, they don’t want to lower military spending to do it, as that would make it harder to trade, and they don’t want to nationalize basic goods to do it as that would mean no one would be making a profit off of it.

This is also true, certainly some industries will need to be subsidized so as it fulfill the needs of all. But why this does not occur is also due to the capitalists wanting to preserve their interests.

I have now doubt that from the capitalist perspective there is no alternative. But certainly, capitalism would not end if we had a single payer system in the US. And yet we are met with such incredible resistance for it. It’s simply not in their interests to allow it to happen. Yet, it is in the interests of workers to make this happen. They do not have the same concentrated wealth that capitalists would have that would allow them to cover all medical costs. If they had the same economic and political power of the capitalist, we would have a single player system in the US.

It is not idealism to say that different people have different interests. To say that people in a different situation would have different interests. Why are you expecting the interests of the so called “perfect capitalists” to be the same as the capitalists we have now?

I mean exactly what I said. Workers in extremely profitable enterprises would not be living in poverty as they do currently under market socialism.

The intensity is always around the same. The differences in situations are caused by class struggle.

First of all, prices would also be going down in that scenario. Not to mention if workers are feeling the pinch they can always turn to the state and public services for support.

My apologies. The section I was thinking of was actually in the Manuscripts of 1844. See pics related.

Not an argument.

I find merit in the analysis of capitalism.

Lol wut? Where did I mention the invisible hand? The truly austrian sentiment here is your impression that markets movements always have meaning behind them.

> Or, once again, you're a marginalist.
A marginalist would be agreeing with you here.

Memes can’t save you now.

If you think markets aren’t random I would like you to turn your attention to the labor market for CEO’s. forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/06/16/the-highest-paid-ceos-are-the-worst-performers-new-study-says/#6f258a11293a

Oh jeez, what a beautiful debate strategy you got there. One of the things I love about you ultra-orthodox types is just how arrogant and dismissive you get at the slightest challenge. I see we’ve hit the point where you stop making arguments entirely and just rely on the smug assumption of correctness to carry you along your responses. Try backing up your assertions with evidence why don’t ya.