What are the internal contradictions of the various economic systems we have available? I think I know most of those of capitalism but I haven't heard that many criticisms of the other ones and I'd like to know what killed them. Off the top of my head, these are the problems I can think of with each system.
Primal Nomads (Hunter Gatherer): -Highly limited ability to own property since you need to carry everything -Low overall living standards due to bad food and housing -Limit on tribal size limits capacity for specialization, everyone would need to be a jack of all trades
Slavery: -Slaves don't breed enough to replenish their supply, other countries need to be constantly drained of their population, requiring constant warfare and cruelty -Slaves that aren't rewarded for the quality of their work become lazy -Wealth collects in the hands of a few big land owners, slave-less population is outcompeted
Feudalism: -Right of the first born results in second or third sons falling into poverty -Constant warfare wastes resources and lives -The part of the population with no land keeps increasing
Capitalism: -Mechanization interrupts the circulation of money -Ownership of the means of production concentrates in the hands of ever fewer people -Industry keeps moving out of countries that become more civilized and will at some point run out of places to flee to -Weapons of mass destruction are developed
I'm also interested if socialism or communism has internal contradictions. Was it designed to be the actual end of history or are there other systems that could come after it? If I had to think of something:
-weak government communism or anarchism could collapse back into previous systems -strong government communism could get corrupted, collapsing the system back to a previous state -worker motivation becomes harder to maintain due to lack of monetary incentives
Earth's resources are depleted. Only limited exploitation of celestial bodies is possible due to technological limits. Waterwheelpunk follows.
Oliver Foster
I can't shake the feeling that nobody here reads theory and that you'd much rather talk about outrage porn than about philosophy
William Smith
Possibly a sort cross between Fully Automated Luxury Communism and Distributism as a form of self reliance where means of production are owned by each individual or family from technology so advanced it would be highly portable and can produce anything from any matter with freely available open sourced technology and fashion and cuisine. I can see that as a possible end.
Jason Torres
Sounds like UFOs. Posadas was right again.
Joshua King
I think we need to give this some more thought, just thinking technology will solve everything is somewhat simple. Did you ever read Asimovs Foundation? In book 5, they visit a planet that has gone down a kinds Stirner-ish individualist path. The humans there all own huge mansions and tons of robots to do all work for them. Through advanced bio technology, they have turned themselves into hermaphrodites, living alone in huge estates and giving birth only when they wish to die. The entire planet has only around a million or so inhabitants if I recall correctly and they only sometimes communicate via an internet, never meeting in person. Decreasing our reliance on other humans and replacing them with more metal sounds like a path that could lead us to such an end. All humans have all the rights and any contact with others is seen as an infringement on both, so to have maximum freedom, you need minimum interpersonal relationships.
Jordan Perry
Social structures revolve on more than what you can take from others.
Lincoln Watson
I honestly can't think of anything like that. Assume a broader look. First, not all things you take from people are material goods, you can just as well take away knowledge, fun or satisfaction. You don't interact with people unless you are forced or you want to. FALC removes the forced cooperation and all voluntary contact is because you want something from someone, be it emotional or physical. Secondly, we have evolutionary noise clouding our rationality, which is good for us. Rational actors are all cunts, we have stuff like empathy and so on built in, it makes us happy to help others. That happiness is what we then take away from that interaction. But a high tech future where humans become cyborgs could lead to us becoming more and more rational. We could end up abandoning these things.
Joseph Gutierrez
People said this for every generation of technology including claims about books being dedegenerate.
Jackson Wright
Sorry to go all one dollar man on you but that is not an argument. Transhumanism and supertechnology that removes all work are pretty different from other inventions. I'd also argue that every time we increase technology, we did decrease social interaction. Only in our modern times can you be alone among thousands. Books might have been the start, allowing people to just sit alone and destroying the tradition of storytelling, we've been on a downward spiral ever since. What people don't realize is that technology and progress isn't black or white, you gain things but you also lose things. Wes Cecil talks about this in his forgotten philosophers lecture. We make fun of old people wanting their times back but we don't realize that they simply didn't accept the new good things while witnessing the loss of the old good things, leading them to view the present in a negative light.
Jayden Long
sounds great tbqh
Brody Brooks
Actually, the hermaphrodites on Solaria had abandoned sexuality together with all relationships. Instead of having both genitals, they instead had just testicles and a small vagina that would excrete a fetus in the early stages of development, which would then be raised to full growth in a mechanical womb.
Kayden Lopez
Well they're obviously doing it wrong
Brandon Ortiz
Several problems arise due to this specific formulation of the question, most of which, I presume, you weren't conscious of.
The first problem (which is purely analytical) is the "we have available" part: the only "rational, available, or possible" game in town is capitalism as far as our ideological predicament allows us to conclude. The all-encompassing nature of capital precludes all alternatives.
The second, dialectical problem, concerns our embeddedness in the aforementioned ideological situation: when formulating the question itself, you, in short, forgot to reflect on your position of enunciation (from where you ask this question) and thus already determine the possible answers.
You continue by listing "alternatives" of various (ahistorical, adialectical) worlds. The (already surpassed) stages of history as encapsulated by Marx are in no ways viable points of return for us. (I hope I don't have to give reasons for this because you can surely figure out by yourself why this is the case.)
What interests me, in contrast, are the "fields of possibilities" as seen by different leftist schools that don't resort to the ahistoricity of your post but go on to propose "alternatives" that are really nothing more than ideological permutations of what already exists masked as "radical alternatives," e.g. market socialists, post-leftists, and the sorts.
With regards to the Soviet Union (something missing from your post), Zizek should be evoked:
… 21st century communism should be something completely different from what could be imagined and what can be imagined.
Robert Morris
Why would that "end" be bad? It sounds ideal to be honest. Everyone lives in their own virtual utopia customized to their desires. By the time we have the technology to build that kind of society we'll have built AIs which are far better equipped to carry on the noble pursuit of knowledge than any human. They'll take over the job of exploring the universe and improving themselves. We can retire surrounded by our waifus.
Easton Cooper
Oh, sorry about that. First of, I want to be able to sound as smart as you when I'm older, I don't get stuff like dialectics yet.
While badly formulated, I actually wanted a historical picture, I do NOT think that any older systems are viable solutions to our current problems. I had heard that Marxists had identified various internal contradictions in each of these, which then led to their downfall. I was just wondering which these internal contradictions were, since we are usually just criticizing capitalism here.
Hmm, how am I supposed to understand this. Do you mean to say that our minds are so caught up in the paths of capitalism that any alternative we can imagine is just "capitalism but…"? In that case, should we cease activism and just wait to see what new order arises out of the ashes of the past? Or is it possible to free us of these though structures by studying philosophy and seeing a way we haven't before?
Levi Phillips
I'm not sure why to be honest. Maybe categories like good and bad don't even apply to such things. The post-humans in it would certainly be enjoying their lives. All I can say is that thinking about such a future fills me with dislike, it doesn't seem like something anyone should want. Then again, I'm only a human and can't surpass my cultural upbringing, which values such things as friendship.
Tyler Clark
Sounds like something all the transhumanist DAE LE INTROVERT faggots on here would like.
James Foster
There's no subjective difference between a real human friend and a sufficiently advanced AI pretending to be your human friend. In fact, the AI can probably be a better friend than any human.
I think the best way to look at it is that the AIs we build will be our children. Parents always have to eventually step aside and let their children take over. It will be the same for the human species. On the bright side, we'll get put in a sweet retirement home.
Zachary Brown
bump for these
Gavin Powell
Maybe, and most probably, tbh? Yeah, there are ways of "seeing us" moving beyond such connotations.
Anyway: our understanding of 20th century communist propositions should parallel our critical assessment of them. This doesn't propose much more than a critical distance towards what was crucially flawed when already implemented…
We are not to repeat what was done to us.
Sebastian Lee
lel, no.
So why do you present us with a system that does that very same thing, ya' cunt?
why is it tho, that Murksists accept this shit, as opposed to anorkasts?
Carter Murphy
the fug?
Adam Reyes
"Economic analysis only becomes scientific when it is able to subordinate its particular principles to a total conception which is both systematic and concrete, which situates the entire system of economic relations within a single movement that determines each particular relation within a total process. Only in the form of a systematic whole can the real interconnections which unite the system of economic relations be made intelligible so that the driving force behind economic life be made explicit. Yet, the systematization of the diverse principles of economic interaction is not the result of the intention of the individual author, or of a school to present existing knowledge in a consistent and connected form, therefore of the intention to impose systematic form upon a content which does not yet contain the unifying principle within it already in a well-developed form. Systematicity is not imposed upon the subject-matter but exists already implicit within it as its determining principle. Thus for economics to adopt a scientific standpoint it is necessary that it discover the central principle which unites the whole of economic relations in a systematic way. This requires that the analysis (1) attain the highest level of abstraction in order that the fundamental concepts may be grasped in a systematic way, and (2) determine the unifying concept which makes the systematic quality of the exposition an inner necessity rather than an arbitrary imposition."
Andrew Diaz
The only contradictions prior to capitalism are the master-slave, and the alienation of religion. These were arbitrary relations of power through various means, and do not develop into any logical systematic social form.
