So what exactly is preventing socialism from taking place?

So what exactly is preventing socialism from taking place?

I mean, if socialism is the superior socio-economical setup for a civilization, what exactly prevents it from appearing?

For example, it could start slow as a cooperative which internally does not use money, or between a small subset of companies that decide to exchange goods circumventing the capitalist system.

So what exactly is holding it back?

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annudah shoah

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Gee?
I fucking wonder????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

can you be objective?

In what exact ways is it being prevented?

I mean, I could go tommorow and start a cooperative, who is there to stop me?

go and stay go pls

Google "US involvement in regime change"

So what is missing to get the ball rolling from there?

I'm genuinely curious, while it's true my knowledge is mostly superficial on the topic I think someone here should be able to explain in simple terms.

If you don't want to engage in conversation that's fine, no reason to act so elitist

The faggots you responded to. They think co-ops aren't Socialism so they should be against co-ops.
I bet these niggers would have been against labor unions in the 1920s, too.

Sure but, what is your point? That whenever someone tried to install a socialist-like regime the US was there to stop it?

Wouldn't it be more reasonable that the reason the regime change was made to happen was because it suited the US interests, rather than being "against socialism" per se?

For example in the cold war, it probably had more to do the US not wanting countries aligning with the USSR.

Being against Socialism is the US interest. If people see a classless society is possible, the upper class is screwed.

There are no 'US interests' there are only the interests of the bourgeoisie, which control the american state, and every other state, and the interests of the proletariat. These stand in contradiction. The bourgeoisie has never and will never hesitate to eliminate any threat to their interests.

So your belief is that the reason socialism does not install itself in a country organically is because the upper class is smothering any attempts to achieve it?

Can you be more specific about it? I mean, in the US, you have certain rights as a citizen, that cannot be violated by the state. Aren't these rights enough to give enough freedom to individuals that want to start a socialist society?

It can't be built from scratch. One needs to transform capitalist society into a socialist one. This is the equivalent of telling a stone age person to start a firm.
For instance, how does a small co-op "internally does not use money"? Do they not pay their workers wages? In that case they have to provide them with houses, food, schooling, cars, books, etc. How do they accomplish this? By selling their products on the market and buying other products? Then their only difference between a normal group of people working together and this co-op is that they engage in the market collectively instead of each and every one doing so individually. Now if they want to expand (and if they don't they will most likely be outcompeted) they have to make a profit, selling the products the workers make for less than what they buy the goods they get back, exploiting the workers. They are also victim to the other forces of capital, like socially necessary labour time.

I sometimes hear this burgeoisie/proletariat dichotomy, I'm curious at they exact definitions, because I've seen people using it in different contexts.

For example, a factory owner, what class is he? What if he is the owner of the business, but he is renting the equipment? Is he burgeosie or proletariat?

What if you rent a house in city A, but own a house in city B, which you rent out to guests? What class do you belong?

What do you think a socialist society is? And how do you think it can be built in the garage unlike every society up until now?

The bourgeoisie own capital.
The proletariat subsists on selling their labour in return for wages.

I see what you mean. What I had in mind is a group of socialist-minded individuals getting together and starting a separate economy, that runs in parallel to the "capitalist economy". The idea is this separate economy allows them to bypass the capitalistic market for the goods they produce themselves, although for the rest they would need to engage with the capitalistic market.

I imagine if the individuals are well intentioned, and they would eventually be able to expand, and this would attract other people in joining in in the separate economy.

Just putting some ideas out there, I'm not sure if it would work just wondering.

can you address my examples and explain which are which?

It seems to me that a person can be both part of the proletariat and the burgeise, depending on the transactions

Both the business owner and the machine owner are parts of the bourgeoise the renting relationship between them is only a matter of how the money is distributed within the bourgeoise. The money the business owner makes before rent is made off the labour of the factory workers, and it is post rent divided between him and the one who ownes the machines.
If you make all, or almost all your money from renting out that house, you are a part of the burgeoisie. But unless that is one big ass house you most likely belong to what one might call the petty burgeoisie. So still burgeoisie, just not filthy rich.

Well, I'm not saying it's possible, I'm sort of asking the question, "what is the minimum amount of change that society requires, to allow a societal change?"

I imagine it would be easier to build a society from the garage now than in the past, as we have some recognition of human rights, democracy, etc (and I'm not saying they are perfect, just saying that they help).

gonna leave for a few hours I'll check responses later

Laws, violence and government policy

The education system and media do their damned hardest to make sure that anything remotely socialist or critical of capitalism is portrayed as leading to some sort of death-cult. This shit has been going on for a century now and is now part of the American consciousness.
It's not the only reason for sure, but you can't really get people on board with socialism if they disregard Marxist theory because they're afraid it will lead to over 100 billion deaths.

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No one here is against co-ops you thick cunt! We only recognize that they will be trod upon by larger capitalist powers in the modern market place. It's not enough to simply abolish the position of the boss, we must abolish the conditions that give rise to a boss, and in a market it will always be easier for a firm to be led like a tyrannical institution, and get successful, then to give people their freedom, and be shit on by porky and his army of slaves.

Yea I'm aware of that. I'm just asking the question, what is mising from our society to allow for it to happen.

We know there are people who believe in a society around socialism. And I imagine a subset of those people want to change society. What is the best way of doing that? Can't we just change society using the political and economical tools that we have? What's preventing that from happening?

The thing about socialism is that it is by definition a revolutionary change, a complete upending and reorganization of the current society and a totally different distribution of power. So what is the minimum amount of change necessary? A whole fucking lot, more than just a few hippy communes or worker's coops.

Socialism requires the total expropriation of the means of production as well as the implementation of new methods of resource allocation and economic production, labour relations, state decision making mechanisms etc. These radical changes are opposed at every corner by elites with infinitely more resources at their disposal than any socialist element, so any modest attempt like a commune would undoubtedly be subverted and crushed starting from the very moment it started to threaten the existing order.

The rights guaranteed under liberal democracy wouldn't mean shit if socialism actually started to supplant capitalism, and there is a long history of this. Pretty sure it was a violation of the constitution when the national guard shot striking workers in the 1900s, clearly the porkies didn't give a shit, and they wouldn't give a shit today. The constitution to them might as well be toilet paper, it's a document that they parade around as a supposed example of how free their society is, and they hide behind its protections of property when it suits them, but the second it protects the interests of workers or labour they will do away with it, and they have already done this countless times.

The reality of your bank account.

Unless your "subset of companies" is completely autarkic, it will have to operate on the market like any other, and therefore make profit or be driven out by concurrence.

Define socialism. I'd like to know what you think we'd be trying to achieve.

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This is what North Korea and Cuba are trying/tried to do. Its really difficult because we live in a global economy.

If you live on a tiny island that has oil but no arable land and you want to sell oil to get food so you don't starve you cant be socialist.


They have been literally murdering socialists and breaking up their families as far back as railroads and mining existed.

The question ‘why can’t an egalitarian society spring out of cooperatively managed firms themselves in cooperation’ is a valid question

I don’t know enough to answer definitively but there are a few things to note

(I will be assuming you do not permit that people at least living among people who participate in capitalist society can be analyzed as themselves living in a socialist society)

1. It requires tons of property, which is not feasible. You can look to the utopian socialist movements of the past and their failings, but peacefully carving out space for a growing and independent population requires the kind of capital that people who intend to work until retirement do not typically have
2. States do not have laws that are conducive to totally independent populations within them. Between taxes and other statutes dealing with organization, living apart is an uphill battle.
3. Even if you find somewhere to live where they will leave you alone, it is impossible to create autarky without massive amounts of human capital. Anything short of total self‐sufficiency or collaboration with other utopian communities will require participation in a market with people who do employ wage labor and then you are no longer completely a socialist society.
4. A very large, dedicated community willing and able to drop everything and start a cooperative somewhere else already has the means and will to seize industries and suppress a smaller counter‐revolutionary element which is actually much easier than seceding from society cleanly.
5. Capitalist forces do not permit thriving socialist communities because they threaten their lifestyle, this is doubly true in their borders.

Feudalism didn't cease to exist because capitalism was "superior", nor did slave society. Both ended because they became completely unsustainable.

Hmm

You keep asking what prevent people from starting their own socialist society along capitalist ones, and I will say honestly it's a good question. I'm disappointed in others responses here.
What you are proposing or asking about is a form of dual power, something Lenin spoke about. It is a means of weakening the current bourgeois state, creating a cohesive movement that can overthrow the current system. But it in and of itself is not socialism until the workers are liberated from wage slavery. It is simply a means to an end. So in the example of co-ops you mentioned, they are certainly useful for what I referred to as dual power, it they cannot be the end goal, since they do not achieve the end goal of abolishing class. Hopefully that makes sense

AHAHAHAHAHA

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Mauritania

In what way did "feudalism" vanish? You realize there are still tributary societies as well right?

All that mainly happened was urbanization and industrialization. Maybe some reforms related to Napoleon's empire.

The Revolution was a fully conscious effort of some Great Men who attempted to implement various Cults of Reason while murdering eachother until it got rolled back. I mean you got a catchy slogan out of it I guess, but it was not some nebulous Event mappable onto cogitative moments of sublation when considering the world system totality.

Much of the medieval system was not suitable for the transition from farm to factory and so was dismantled, and of course international finance played a role. Unless you are trying to suggest inherited muh privilege and a decadent, idle and parasitic aristocracy that owns most of the wealth no longer exists?

you know that globalism word that literally everyone throws around?

Socialism is less flexible than capitalism.
Unless there's a global revolution, capitalism will always win.

Were you literally born yesterday? Holy shit.

It's not "less flexible", it's that capitalism is the established world system. It's the entirety of the current world standing against a new order.

well we are closer to communism than socialism based on current conditions. Maybe you have a flawed worldview kiddo