Modern socialism

can we discuss Cockshott's methods of administration as put out in his book towards a new socialism? I would also like to discuss other contemporary communists and their theories/methods whether ideological or economic, so feel free to post them.
Despite organizational differences between ML's, decentralized socialists, anarchists, etc we must all consider that one of the key economic and technological developments of the 21st century was the boom in prevalence and use of electronic communications and media, it has quadrupled production in the capitalist world and it has removed many production discrepancies, because of this I think we all can agree that this same network of communication needs to be heavily used for societal administration as well. This network provides the following useful things for any real socialist organization:
-more accurate statistics of production and of demand
-alleviation of bureaucratic duty, as many functions are replaced by machine computing and at the same time constraining the bureaucrats, making it much more difficult to exploit the socialist system and making them far more replaceable
-politicization of the wider people as it would give them direct input to societal and economic administration, where they no longer have to be alienated by bourgeois electoral politics where you effectively vote for a reality star with no guarantee of him representing what he campaigned for. This also means possible implication of worker self-management.
-excellent application in central planning
-possibilities for direct democracy as Cockshott himself laid out, although I am skeptical of this
-direct and live co-operation with other places of industry by workers there, possibly removing the shitty tendency under worker's self management for the workers themselves to fall to nepotism, or where they lack the ability to see beyond the factory fence.

We should also consider the possibility of bringing about reforms under a parliamentary system if a party would get in power, which would install a more direct electronic democracy, in an attempt to make parliamentary politics obsolete while we are holding temporary monopoly over the new system. Neither Marx nor Lenin denied the importance of parliamentary democracy, even if the system is rigged against us.

Aside from Cockshott's theories we need to discuss some realities of socialist revolution;
-Despite Maoist-third worldists being retarded in most regards, there is truth in the fact that revolution is nigh impossible in the first world, or is becoming obsolete as we speak. The reason for this is that the productive forces of these countries is being closed down locally and exported abroad where labor is cheap, were the revolution to come in the USA for an example the proletarian would seize their staplers, printers, computers and stores, as they work largely in the service industry, and would easily be quarantined and starved to death or killed. They are also unlikely to rise up because the first world funds the welfare of it's citizens and it's society itself trough imperialism on lesser countries. This means that crisis is effectively delayed as long as they are successful in their subjugation.
-Revolutions in the second or third world, or more specifically in countries with 10M< citizens. These countries cannot effectively eliminate capitalism or implement socialism as they are not self-sustainable. It is why, for an example, Cuba has a market sector of up to 30% of it's economy, to do otherwise would be either to deny your citizens some extremely necessary resources/products or to fall to stagnation as you have no resources to keep up or build your own economy and watch it collapse. This is a very existential problem for me especially, since I come from one of these countries that do not have large industrial capacity, and it must be recognized that the majority of the world's countries are these countries.

So comrades, what is to be done? We need a contemporary plan.

Other urls found in this thread:

marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/mar/x03.htm
ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

selfbump, fuck you there are literally 3 shitpost threads on top serious things need to be discussed like organization.

>Revolutions in the second or third world, or more specifically in countries with 10M< citizens. These countries cannot effectively eliminate capitalism or implement socialism as they are not self-sustainable.
I don't think you need more than one million people to have all sorts of specialized jobs that exist in a modern economy. I see the issue is rather having an agricultural sector strong enough to feed the population and having your own energy in case of a blockade.

>-Revolutions in the second or third world, or more specifically in countries with 10M< citizens. These countries cannot effectively eliminate capitalism or implement socialism as they are not self-sustainable. It is why, for an example, Cuba has a market sector of up to 30% of it's economy,

nazbols and tankies BTFO, there is no way they will recover


either they accept nationalism is inherently flawed, or they accept we cannot achieve a planned economy within the current national world divide

BTFO
T
F
O

OP here

planned economies can function and are in my opinion the only way to maintain economic sovereignty as well as efficient resource allocation as a weak country, it is literally the only way to preserve independence. The issue arises in the fact that most small countries do not have all the sufficient resources for the upkeep of production and of modern production itself, so you need to have a sector of the economy exclusively set up for creating goods for global exchange, so you can attain the resources you need so badly. This isn't an issue if there is a larger socialist state/country, since it then serves as the base for your own industrial development. This was the case with the soviet union and the eastern bloc, as at least initially most of the industry in these states was soviet. Read Cockshott.


well, consider it this way; most of these small countries have to import their energy from other countries for production, this is by far the biggest import that these small countries make. Depending on the material conditions the second biggest are usually food and construction resources. In the case of my country, agriculture is plentiful, but we both do not have the established energy production to upkeep our factories, and we could not cover the expenses of production in the long run, like repairs etc. since we do not have a reliable source of iron. We have coal which is good, but a modern economy cannot subsist on solely coal and grain. Even if we nationalized all industry and managed to run it, we would quickly fall behind other regional industrial countries, simply because we would not have the resources or industry to create better machinery/tools. I've studied this a lot, considering I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I work in industry myself so I also have certain consciousness about it.

so basically you would have to have production for exchange as said nations won't be able to satisfy their needs due to the intricacies of a global market.

nationalism BTFO

I do not argue otherwise, nor do I argue for nationalism, but rarely do I see tankies/ML's vouch for nationalism, I do not see the relevance in this.

No cockshott's solution is still flawed
-Must a priori have only one way to produce every commodity and each commodity must require fixed proportions of inputs in production
-Inability to use diffuse knowledge for dynamic resource allocation towards new projects

elaborate? I am a brainlet.

I'm unconvinced that a revolution is impossible in the USA. What about the outrage that automation of jobs and the next crisis of capitalism will cause?

This, the point about welfare is nill because neolibs will attack every keyenesian effort, no matter how small or how vital, as wealth concentration at the top reaches the highest it can go the US will be susceptible to revolution as well as fascist coup

most american brainlets will blame all the wrong things.

Are you kidding?

50% of kids under 30 outright reject capitalism, if that's not a solid revolutionary base I don't know what is

OP here

OK so the various service industries are automated, but at the end of the day most of production will still need labor input, also I legitimately think there might be a 'red tide' so to speak due to the discrepancies and contradictions in american society but the people facing the full brunt of this are in the service industries. The only thing I can see potentially happening is if people in the transport industry massively joined the movement because it would cripple everything, but otherwise if all of the service industry rebelled tomorrow they'd just get crushed by the state because they can't produce jack squat for their revolution.


historically keynesian policies have been taken up under threat of communism, because it diffuses class conflict somewhat. It is this opportunism on which social democracy is built.
however
is right there is a lot to build on there is a lot of potential but we need a different approach than open soviet socialism.


I am not kidding, most MLs are patriots but I've only seen maybe 1-2 retarded tankies who have nationalist tendencies. One of the reasons I became a communist was because I despise nationalism, but becoming a communist has also turned me into a patriot because I started to look out for the common good of my people and not just my individual interest. This sympathy for the workers of my country does not cut me off from showing solidarity or sympathy to workers abroad.

Who, in your opinion, should rule your country?

the proletariat

What proletariat?

it is irrelevant, the proletariat is defined by someone's relations to production not their nationality. A Hungarians or a Romanian's voice should account as much as a Serbian's voice in the administration of the state.

So who should rule your country?

people that live within the countries borders and who work in the countries industry, I have already defined this. Why do you repeat yourself?

And that's not nationalism how?

Because it does not put our nationality above others or show contempt for other nationalities or nations, nor does it justify any antagonism against neighboring states based on this. Nor does it bar people who've been allowed to immigrate from any rights due to their nationality.

But it bars the proletariat from ruling your country for the sake of the revolution.

Also:
Are you French?

I am not french, but the quote very well defines the difference between nationalism and patriotism, as I have seen both in my country.

How does it bar the proletariat from ruling my country 'for the sake of revolution'? What does that even mean?

you are not talking in clear terms and your questions are ill-defined, how about you clearly state your concerns/criticism and stop derailing the thread? You sound like Unroo and 'doing revolution'

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I like this idea. A radical reform in the form of a democratic one both 1. easily appeals to people as a good thing because they like democracy and 2. helps make permanent a socialist reform as you can't take this feature away without attacking "democracy"

that is not a question of nationalism, that is a question of practicality. It would be retarded if the proletarian from a foreign country managed the countries economy, why the fuck would anyone want that? From an economic perspective it is stupid because these people are separated from the local industry and production, the economy of my country doesn't affect them directly but only trough exchange/trade, while the production of the country directly affects and concerns it's proletariat. Societal administration should also be handled locally for the same reasons. Another reason is the fact that while the proletariat of the country in question is revolutionary a neighboring countries proletariat might not be revolutionary at all and might be protecting the liberal system. Why would you let them administer the economy? It is a different question with international socialist movements and organizations, where you meet with them and take criticism and discuss issues of the socialist country. But at this point you seem to be just a low effort troll trying to derail the thread.


yes, these were exactly my thoughts as well, and you could keep socialist praxis and theory but push for socialist change trough democracy. The original bolshevik movement, for an example, were called the Social Democrats. They only changed their names when reformists overwhelmingly took the movement's name.

Instead of socialism, it is 'workplace democracy', even though socialism itself is far more of a complex issue.

The state in order to preserve capitalism would either have to enforce fascism, which will further radicalize people, or would have to try to adapt to the reforms, thus weakening itself as it's political representatives lose authority.

Oh yeah, I forgot the (in)famous "socialism in one country".

this electronic democracy could would by basically establishing websites where you can access local councils or soviets, and if a decision was being made you could vote on it from your PC or off an application on your phone. Many people work for most of the day, especially in non-first world countries, and are apolitical simply because they are too tired or timeless to vote. This would be alleviated if an important decision in the administration of your local region or country 'pinged' to your phone, and allowed you to vote from the workplace. Other ways this could be established is maybe having the worker's organized regionally, having them elect representatives among themselves who are only one step above them, so they can work and do shit and not have to be called to parliament non-stop to vote (this is my issue with most anarchists)
These representatives could put forward issues and people would vote on them, and people could send their issues digitally to these representatives. These representatives would also receive data input from the regional factories and other workplaces, to see how much was being spent/etc and how much was being produced. You could also leave it up to the workers themselves to organize online polls and shit since the regional economic information should be open to the citizens and they'd have a rough idea of what was going on, but I am afraid that people would be irresponsible as with the cases of worker self management, because if people have a choice of having responsibility and not having it they choose not to most of the time, at least as is for now. This is why I think this responsibility should be the burden of these representatives.

Homework for my comrades.

Kys

what book is this?

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In addition to your points, having holidays around voting times is important to give citizens last minute chance to study the issues to be voted on.

But instead of elections what if we adopt random selection for representatives instead? In a way it is gives more initiative to more citizens since anyone could be selected. Thus more citizens may make an active choice to enter the selection process. Random selection could also be seen as decreasing the participation of citizens since the decision of who gets into political office is decided by chance, however if voting still occurs for the proposals made by representatives then I don't see random selection as a step back in democratic participation.

>National. socialist

this is great, but I don't look forward to reading it lmao. I am bad at math but I have to overcome shit like this in order to build a functioning movement.


classical econophysics.


I understand what you mean and Cockshott actually argued for exactly that, since it would make forming a political clique extremely difficult, because no matter how opportunistic you were you'd have no real chance of cheating the system. I am worried a problem will arise however out of worker nepotism, similar as it happened in ex-Yugoslavia. Basically someone being a worker doesn't magically make him nicer or more conscious than your would-be boss. I agree totally that a socialist system of governance would produce people with socialist values, but that is 3-4 generations from now and you can't wait to have elections since then. So I am not saying it is a step back, but I am worried that with the system of chance let's say an abusive alcoholic gets elected/etc, and the vast majority of the citizens couldn't know this, and the small minority who would know this would have no real power to veto him, nor should they have a right to veto him because then you'll have petty people trying to veto candidates over spite (because they are bad neighbors or vice versa)
Now I know what you are thinking; these candidates can be easily recalled if they prove to be shit. This is correct, but I think that under this system so many recalls will be made in a small period of time that it will make the whole system arbitrary in the eyes of the people. Maybe it should be mixed, with a small body of elected officials and 3/4ths or 2/4ths being randomly selected, so they can keep the elected ones in check? I would like to see your response.

You are pulling words out of your ass. De Gaulle wasn't a reactionary, he was a typical bourgeois, and while Tito had his deviations his stance on the nationalities of ex-Yugoslavia and his definition of patriotism both stand up, he literally did nothing wrong in that regard.
also
you are being undialectical, comrade. I could probably ass-pull quotes from Trump or Reagan that are objectively correct in the communist sense, despite them being neocons.
see pic related

What did he mean by this?

you took a basic refutation of third worldism based on a line similar to that of Trotsky's refutations of socialism in one country in relatively backward countries and somehow extrapolated it out to somehow be a refutation of nationalism in and of itself. not only this, but you then strawmanned anyone with nationalistic sentiments or positions as being supportive of permanent national divides. this is what pure ideology looks like.

this

stop samefagging, no actual intellectual takes nationalism serious

carying that a post is "not an argument" just show the fact that you are unable to look at things objectively in order to form a refutation

nationalism is inherently flawed, deal with it faggot

saying*

christ man sorry for the double post but i didn't scroll down enough for this. you are completely missing the point here. this isn't even close to being something to refute nationalism itself, it's just a refutation of third worldism. in the third world where there are countries of less than 10M population or very poor resource/industry base you can't have socialism in one country or pure economic nationalism and autarky because of the insufficient base. to reiterate, this is against a conception of THIRD WORLDISM, there is nothing contradictory about this point to a position of say a nazbol or a tankie who proposes a planned socialist economy in one country in say a pan-German state, where the nation possesses the largest economy in Europe, the fourth largest economy in the world, and one of the greatest industrial sectors in the entire West.

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you should probably ignore the black flag shitposter, considering he only entered the thread to le btfo xddd and didn't provide anything constructive towards it, however I think you should provide the thread with something constructive to the topic yourself.

Surpirse surprise, the so called "Marxists" are fucking clueless and don't even understand capitalists
economics


nope, it is clearly a refutation against maintaining a nationalist and isolationist ideology under a planned economy

would be fucking shit, literally basic arithmetic

Do you think Germany is self-sustaining, speaking of resources and so on? Where does the iron, oil and other materials used by the german industry come from if not from the exchange of commodities with nations that do have these resources, and are lacking in others. that is the whole basis of market exchange brainlet

you cannot have a planned economy inside an isolated german state because the very same german state is not self-sufficient, it needs resources from other countries, and this is NOT about third worldism at all, as germany exchanges labour and commodities with other first world nations


top kek nigger


I stated my argument clearly engouh, isolated planned economies do not work, it is a very basic catch 22, if you cannot make sense of it you should just kys

Industrialized countries, like Belgium The Neteherlands, Ireland and so on do not have the resources to mantain an isolated planned economy, there simply aren't enough sources of energy and raw materials to mantain this production of commodities, so they would have to engage in production for exhcnage, not for use.


look at this autist having a total meltdown because he can't deal with the fact that nationalism is bourgeoisie and inherently flawed

sperg more

Understandable. I will try to address some of OPs mentions here in no particular order.


I think perhaps what the introduction of cybernetics and rapidly increasing computing power of technology owes to democratic potential is merely the ability to develop a system of information distribution. Many political theorists argue that the greatest problem with democracy and trying to make it more direct is merely developing an informed electorate. However, for me a more important question is why direct democracy is a more preferable system to any other form of democracy like Soviet republicanism or councilism. To me the greatest issue of democracies lies not with trying to properly inform the electorate, but the internal biases of the electorate that make them easier to sway and more susceptible to mass politics strategies that take place today where parties focus more on whatever tactics garner the most votes, the "big tent" approach if you will. This problem of internal biases or irrationality is something far more base a problem to the electorate than mere information, and is something that needs to be solved by accounting for it with a proper political structure that weakens the possible negative effects this has on political progress and thought.


If a socialist political movement has the power to arrange a situation in which they can take power through party politics, it is likely that they are in a position to arrange for a situation in which revolution is just as possible. Between the two, revolution to me is a far preferable alternative to reform, which itself consists in a different debate entirely.


I don't know about Marx but I know for certain Lenin was against parliamentarianism, not only for the sake of the Bolshevik party structure in the political organisation of the proletariat as a whole, but he actually doubled down on anti parliamentarianism when he took on the line of "All power to the Soviets" and abandoned a previous Social Democratic slogan of "the democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants", which indicated the revolutionary masses implementing a bourgeois democratic state and capitalist economy in order to adhere to two-stage theory and setup the requisite conditions of capitalist development BEFORE socialism.

Yes but you haven't indicated as such, you just say "no you're wrong i'm right", you provide no reasoning why

This was a hypothetical thought experiment to illustrate why the point about planned socialist economy not being able to function in

also for anyone here wondering about the image he posted citing an argument against Lenin and Leninism, I found the cited passage and what the meme is saying Lenin did and believed to be suspect, so I have found the source material the author cites and identified the passage in its entirety without the dishonest quote mining performed by the elipses which leave out huge chunks between words in the key parts of the passage. The text itself can be found below:

marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/mar/x03.htm

why do I have to remind you that, on a general basis, industrialized nations have higher energy imports than exports?? this is fucking basic shit my man, and let's not forget about labour, rare earths, food and so on. on this basis we can see that industrialized nations cannot maintain the same level of industrial output if they became isolated, even if you plan the economy

>This was a hypothetical thought experiment to illustrate why the point about planned socialist economy not being able to function in

you still haven't really addressed the argument, I am pointing out to you examples of autarchic economic policies that were successful and national economies which possess the potential for self sufficiency, as the point about the >10M pop third world countries was concerning their potential for self sufficiency. You are merely stating arbitrarily that nobody can attain self sufficiency without substantiating the claim. As for saying that industrialised nations cannot maintain the same level of industrial output if isolated and planned, again, nobody here is actually proposing that, but in the case of a country like Germany compared to say Cuba, the point is that Germany possesses an internal national economy and resource stockpile that would allow it to, in the case of absolute isolation, remain economically stable while getting rid of the market sector. Cuba, as OPs point is illustrating, does not.

I would say this is equivocating but it's even less, you're still just saying "I'm right you're wrong" with no substantiation.

I don't understand, do you think that I am supporting Imperial Germany? If you think I am you are sorely mistaken, I bring them up to illustrate a point, that a country can and actually did attain self sufficiency even in times of total mobilisation and all out war with trade limited to an amount of countries you can count on your fingers.

Who do you think you're talking to? Four years is a massive achievement considering the near complete isolation they ACTUALLY experienced, as opposed to the hypothetical one I mentioned before. I don't know where you are getting this notion that autarky or self sufficiency is some independently specified ABSOLUTE standard where you can import literally nothing. It's merely an evaluative standard by which you try to optomise the economy to remain prosperous while minimising dependence on foreign goods and capital as much as possible. Both Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany attained economic self sufficiency and near complete autarky, but nobody ever said this means literally importing nothing.


First of all, chemical resources are artificially refined, so that's not something unique to any particular nation. Secondly, in the cases of both chemical and raw natural resources, the idea/theory behind the autarky principle is that wherever possible and benefit reaping, you artificially refine or substitute a missing resource or product with one that you can easily produce. In the case of oil, rubber, etc., it would be synthetics, the production of which would be made simpler by a planned economy.

In addition, by stating that bigger nations with vast resources will have both the raw resources and industrial output to produce their own commodities you have committed a Freudian slip that contradicts the pseudo-points you've been making thus far to needlessly attack the autarky principle from a flawed angle in your arbitrary contrarianism.

(1/?)

If you have a """planned global market""" that's just international socialism, and as such can rid itself of the law of value's operation…


literally in a cockshott thread lmfao, i deign to even attempt a refutation at this as anyone interested in a cockshott thread should find it so self evident, not to mention the fact that to address this as you put it would be to accept your premises the introduce it which I already showed to be ridiculous.


what did he mean by this


Sweden and Portugal actually possess quite a lot of minerals fun fact, but that's kinda irrelevant. These countries you listed are pitiful examples, because you don't even need to look for such prosperous examples to try and make this shitty point. Just look at North Korea.

North Korea has half the population roughly of South Korea, an incredibly low total area of arable land for agriculture, a national founding scarred by a complete decimation of one fifth of the population and nearly all of its economy, requiring massive reconstruction efforts, and problems since reconstruction of shortages of skilled labour. Despite all of this the North Korean economy managed to remain consistently growing (with the exception of minor 60s stagnation and the 90s famine), reaching all time highs above the development levels before the Korean war, a medium level of HDI (.733, comparable to that of China, the world's second largest economy, at .743), and all while maintaining a command economic structure and vastly limited foreign trade performed, with China composing a whopping 89% of its external trade. North Korea is both the best and worst example for your argument, best because it has the absolute shittiest internal conditions, and worse because it has achieved the greatest level of autarky and self sufficiency the world has yet seen.


No, I've been the one arguing from a standpoint of basic economics, and any bystander should see this clear as daylight. You have been merely equivocating on every topic you are challenged on.

I see now where I was once blind. You're totally an ancap poster disguised as a black flag lmfao. I'm going to continue to take you semi-seriously out of boredom but assuming you are arguing in bad faith, as it makes much more sense to explain how fucking garbage your reasoning, if it can so be called, is. Anyway, the reason Germany shills for the EU isn't because it isn't equipped for pursuit of self sufficiency, it's because it has no political or ideological reason to do so, and equally lacks a reason to be against the EU in its current political status. This is self evident.


You're still equivocating, this offhand remark can be dismissed out of hand as I have addressed the core of this non-argument within this and other posts.

(2/3)

I already addressed this, you're still equivocating. If anyone here is proposing a nationalist planned economy while simultaneously arguing that they aren't proposing for the voluntary isolation of a country, then obviously they have a reason for believing the country wouldn't be politically completely isolated. What you are saying would only occur in an absolute SIOC ideological scenario where the country has voluntarily set itself up for establishment in isolation from other socialist countries or in a global situation where there are no other socialist countries. This is ridiculous and demolished by the fact that not only do SIOC theory proponents actively promote world revolution and international action at least nominally, but I am coming from a permanent revolution theory perspective.

your mental health appears to be deteriorating as time passes, do you need someone to ring an ambulance? anyway, I will refer you back to the fact that in a cockshott thread it should be self evident to others here that this is a bunk argument.


You are either shitposting or completely willfully ignorant. Judging by the pure level of your retardation exhibited in your consistent "top kek", "you autist", and "kek nigger sperg more" usage combined with your shit tier taste in women (Ksenia is edgy suicideboys/xxxtentacion "i'm special cos i watch eva x3" tier), I'm guessing it's a cocktail of the two mixed with a woefully hampered mental capacity resulting in second, third, fourth, and fifth hand embarrassments for anyone even remotely associated with the physical existence of a screen or monitor displaying your words.

(3/3)

They measured GDR from anus?

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pic was unrelated

You are making the mistake of only looking at what theories Lenin applied in the soviet union, while he was firmly restricted by it's backwards conditions. One of the main talking points of left communism: an infantile disorder is when he shits on the leftcoms absolute rejection of parliamentarism. As for your other points about revolution being just as possible, it is not, simply because people are not willing to risk the safety they have for a revolution, 90% of the population is not in a place of desperation, only economic anxiety. Many do think that the system is unjust, that the politicians ought to be lynched etc but they will always be too afraid to be the ones to do it. You can make the parliamentary apparatus obsolete however if you install a wholly separate system to it and people switch, the bourgeois state will either scramble to keep it's authority trough military means or they will try to adapt, but the point of creating this new organ is the fact that they will have a far more difficult time asserting their hegemony, since it is 'out in the open'. Socialism needs to be fought for on all fronts, while the illusion of choice of bourgeois democracy exists people will vote their frustrations away, because they are given an organ for their frustration. You need to give them an organ for their unaddressed frustrations as well as replace the organ that already exists.

you are obviously arguing in bad faith. First of all never in the thread did I advocate for nationalism, yet you still keep spouting this at me as if it proves anything.

secondly, having commodity production does not mean the restoration of capitalism, it hardly made for an example the USSR capitalist, as society's production wasn't oriented towards commodity production. If 4% of the countries economy was committed to production for exchange (the highest it ever was before the fall) that hardly makes the entirety of the other 96% geared towards production for exchange, as that sector was producing for use. About 1-2% of the 4% that was producing commodities, it were petty bourgeois shops run by 2-3 people, like leatherworkers who single-handedly owned their workplace and made boots for people, still working with manufacture tools. These were prevalent, and nobody really bothered to eliminate them as there was no need, their trade still was dependent on socialist for-use production, since they held no large industry. Simply, laws were passed that banned opening such stores and they slowly died out over the years because it was a struggle to open them up in the first place. So right off the bat there is intellectual dishonesty here, the same most commonly seen with leftcoms as well. Furthermore the workers working were subsided by the other 94% of the economy since as you know, production was socialized and this included every citizen of the USSR.

Germany is maybe the single worst example of country you should shit on for industrial/economic autonomy. They have oil production in the northwest, are the biggest producer of energy in europe, to the point that if it became an autarky it would single-handedly crash most of europe, and not itself. It has black and brown coal, sulfur, iron, farmable land, wood, I could go on but there is no need to. Germany, to sustain itself, would probably need a market sector of about 1-2%, assuming there are no other socialist states to trade with. And even with this, arguing that it is clearly not self-sustainable due to it's large imports is dishonest, considering they have no need for self-sufficiency as a capitalist state and as a satellite of the USA.
The EU is an imperialist organ of german capitalists, it creates economic colonies of other states. The USSR was doing very well without resorting to imperialism like it's predecessor state did. There is no interest of a liberal state to pursue self-sufficiency.

You have done nothing but shit up this thread. You came here le ebin bdfoing nationalists, who weren't present in the thread, and now continue shitting up this thread in the face of even more people, with nobody advocating for an autarkic state. You are basically just derailing the thread by making unsubstantiated claims and attacking ghosts.

bump so I can absolutely btfo of this nazbol dumb dumb when I come back

we gotta tell xi xiaoping about cockshott. imagine what they could do.

I'm pretty sure Xi banned Cockshott from China, because some organization called "the young left" was working with his theories.


fuck off and stop derailing the thread.

c'mon, let's get a discussion here comrades. What do you think about revolution in countries without a powerful industry or with little resources/population?

It depends on the particular attributes of the country. Is the country lacking a powerful industry a feudal or semi-feudal society? Is it neo-feudal, as one might describe some of the harsher warlord territories in Africa? If it is the former I feel permanent revolution theory on socialist revolution in relatively backward countries fits the bill, but the problem is that just isn't true today. I think research should be done into a proper analysis of the neo-feudal warlord societies in Africa and what their society might be classified as.

As for the latter, of a country lacking resources or population, this is a far greater problem than that of the relatively backward countries. Not only does their limit in resources limit the development of the material preconditions for socialism, i.e. developed industry and modernisation that allows for highly expansive production capacity, but the fact that these small countries still are capitalist or sometimes socialist societies means that they are at the whim of the global capital empire. As they are so late to modernisation, they have no room to enter onto the world market feasibly. This combined with their lack of resources ensures their complete vulnerability to imperialist influence, and would theoretically keep them from developing whatsoever, almost like a sort of "degenerated bourgeois state" if you will make the analogy to the analysis of the Eastern Bloc and its developmental history.

Some kind of two mutually enforcing system between elected and selected representatives is probably the way to go. But I think it is not necessary to have representative organization at the lower levels of a firm or territory. The lowest levels can should be run in a direct democracy sort of way and should be made small enough so that direct democracy is feasible (~100 people max). These lower levels can be neighborhoods or teams within a firm. Most personal disputes will probably take place at this lower level so it will be useful to keep the problems isolated and not propagate them upwards.

Representatives (both elected and selected) can be used starting form the next levels up. Say within a small town, within a district of a city, or within a firm of a few hundred workers. I do recall Cockshott mentioning that elections are better suited for getting the most "qualified" in power so perhaps positions requiring domain specific knowledge could have more elected reps (ie. fire department head) while general governance can be chosen through random selection.

You are correct on all accounts, but how to feasibly build socialism under these circumstances? I could only see it feasible if you opened up a sector for foreign firms so they may exploit your workers for their cheap labor, so you'd get a percentage of that modern production as well as the protection of the large bourgeois state until you have become industrialized enough to kick them out. What is to be done?

that could work and since you'd give these people authority at a lower level it would help from cluttering more important administrative duties upwards with reports/etc. But I'd say direct democracy could work with an upwards of 2000 people, depending on the organization of these people. A commieblock in my neighborhood is designed to fit 2500 people, and roughly 2500 live there. I think that just by the structure of these blocks it would be feasible to have the building in direct democracy, since life is so centralized in that one location.

It is important maybe to have judiciaries that would follow the constitution, and bring up a case for some representative stepping down, and to point it out publicly. This could be done by giving the judiciary an autonomous organ of media so he can't be censored, so people would be aware if a representative was breaking the law. It would make kicking out such a person much faster, if he started to steer in the wrong direction, since people would be more directly informed of his actions.

always expect people to bicker over petty shit and deflect blame (see: worker's self-management)
this can be countered by giving authority to some of these people, and have enforcers to punish them if they fuck up, if by incompetence then with resignation, if on purpose to scrounge resources/cover up fuck ups then with maybe jail time/etc. A big problem I saw from organizations not delegating authority over matters was that when something went wrong nobody was to blame, since there is no authority and the collective works towards whatever project is at hand. I've seen this 2-3 times working with anarchist organizations, they always devolve to this. Someone fucks up, and suddenly nobody is to blame because there is no 'authority'. Mistakes need to be openly addressed and handled appropriately.

before some anarchist comrades lynch me over what I posted above, consider that I am just saying what I saw in practice, I doubt that these anarchists had a strong ideological or organizational foundation, and I know this is not what you advocate for.

Another big problem is not to vote for everything, this is why delegation is also important. It would take way too long to vote on every issue, rather key issues should be voted on while representatives should have a degree of autonomy with what they are doing, albeit everything they do should be out in the public, so if enough people took an objection to it they could start a vote.

What is to be done indeed comrade. I think really this is a problem due to the way in which a lot of the more underdeveloped socialist nations have come about historically, nations like the DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, and some of the Eastern European satellite socialist nations, namely, through Soviet hegemony rather than through actual revolution.

Consider if you will a third world or underdeveloped and tiny country today, let's say Albania. Here you have a country with under 5M population, a tiny industrial base (a mere 14.9% of its total $36.5B GDP), a comparatively massive agricultural sector (21.6% of GDP), and a distinct lack of substantial natural raw resources and materials. How would their revolution or upbuilding of socialism survive? you might ask. I think the point here is not to ask how the revolution would survive, but how feasible it is to begin and really implement a revolutionary socialist government in the first place.

If we are going by the Marxist materialist dialectic, then certainly today, when there are remaining little to no semi-feudal/relatively backwards nations that have yet to experience industrial development, we must consider different societies' material preconditions at a roughly equal stage. When considering these societies at an equal stage, you must return to the initial Marxist postulate, that the revolution will occur first in the most advanced industrial nations and those with the greatest productive capacities, as not only do they possess the greatest quality of material conditions upon which to build socialism, but these countries' people face the most tense and increasingly tense domestic class struggle of all when compared to the underdeveloped countries of the same stage, like Albania.

Keeping that in mind, and reminding yourself of the incredibly poor level of development of our little example, Albania, I put to you that not only is it true that a Marxist analysis renders that the socialist revolution WILL happen in the more advanced industrial nations first, but that it indeed MUST occur in these nations first. What, for example, would there be left to Albania should it somehow begin a socialist revolution the day after next, and overthrow the current political establishment? It wouldn't in any way shape or form be able to ever dream of competing productively with its imperialist opponents, and it has no allies upon which to count for cooperation and solidarity in the struggle. I postulate that the previous two conclusions, that the socialist revolution WILL happen in the most advanced countries first, and that it MUST happen in the most advanced countries first, have a complementary relationship, as it is for the very same reasons that the revolution WILL occur in the most developed countries that it MUST occur in these countries, because it couldn't occur in the less developed countries, and even if it did, that nation would be almost certainly doomed to failure without other revolutionary nations to depend upon.

Read Homebrew Industrial Revolution. Its basically post-scarcity anarchism / fields, factories and workshops updated for the 21st century with spooky market exchanges

I'll read it after I'm done with my current book but in general I view post-scarcity ideologies as quackery, I think post-scarcity can't come before world socialism by definition. Seems idealistic to me but I have not even opened the book, can you give me a quick rundown?

He was a low-key croatian nationalist
The whole reason meme nations/socialist republics like Bosnia and Montenegro kosovo even exist was to weaken serbia

that's absolutely retarded, there are clear national distinctions between Bosna and Serbia, and kosovo wasn't even a state you rat, it was an autonomous province. The reason why the war in Yugoslavia was so bloody during WWII was because of these cultural distinctions, it is against socialism and national self determination to just plaster these lands as serbian, when the people there themselves vehemently fought against that label. Even Montenegrins were a tribe of there own that developed a distinct culture in seclusion.

As far as the national question goes the only thing Tito did wrong was offering subsides to Albanian immigrants, that was clearly just economic warfare against Hoxha, but it fostered Albanian radicalism in Kosovo.

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I think the real question is how you would socialize undeveloped feudal societies like India where most people are subsistence farmers on their own land

It's not really feudal if the farmers own their own land. China and Russia had large landlords that could be expropriated and their land privatized to small time tenant farmers. This wins huge support from the farmers since they now have their own land. Of course the goal is eventual collectivization so this strategy will make that more difficult down the road.

I suppose Indian peasant farmers probably have lots of debt since farmers need to borrow to keep themselves solvent throughout the year so some kind of debt cancellation program might win their loyalty. Then one could promote cooperation between farmers so they have more leverage vs bankers and merchants. Eventually this could lead to greater collectivization as long as proper political education is also applied. Debt cancellation is revolutionary but the rest of this plan is fairly reformist, if anyone has a more revolutionary idea post it.

You could just do random selection among people with certain qualifications. To prevent the formation of a self-serving hierarchy these restrictions should be evaluated (and potentially tweaked or abolished) regularly by a board that does not require particular qualifications to become a member of.

What are some other good math/compsci heavy socialist authors worth reading?

This is the best content on this board and i hope these discussions will inspire new theory in the most educated members of our board.

I really need to buy his book.

tfw socialists are so anti-progress and anti-technology nowadays that nobody here even understands what blockchain is and will parrot retarded le bitcoin ancap xD ebil capitalist plant to anally alienate your soul memes when asked

Here you have it in PDF if you want it Comrade!!
ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf

can you link me to an article or a video that will help me to understand blockchains or cryptocurrencies in general

But Bitcoin is literally a system build on the mudpie theory of value. I have no idea why you would want to imitate something like that. It looks like a tremendous waste of energy for an accounting system. When I have five apples and an apple-accounting system that consists of apples that I use to count the amount of apples I have, I think I'll rather change the accounting system to enjoy the ten apples that I do actually have.

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Crypto currencies are good under capitalism but only for strategic reasons (having untraceable financial systems is good for the insurrectionist left.) Bitcoin and the cult of idiotic grifters that has formed around are not.

Pic related. Buttcoiners don't understand what makes a currency desirable anymore.

So from my wiki tier understanding of crypto currency, it works like this:

New transactions are broadcast to all nodes.
Each miner node collects new transactions into a block.
Each miner node works on finding a proof-of-work code for its block.
When a node finds a proof-of-work, it broadcasts the block to all nodes.
Receiving nodes validate the transactions it holds and accept only if all are valid.
Nodes express their acceptance by moving to work on the next block, incorporating the hash of the accepted block.


So the mudpie criticisms apply proof-of-work based crypto currencies. From my understanding the block chain is a list that records all transactions since the genesis of a currency. Anyone can add their own record to the block chain by completing a difficult math problem and the rest of the network verifies this "work" is done. If a simple majority of the network verifies the work then that transaction is considered "official" or "truthful" and attached at the end of the transaction list.

The reason there is even this mud pie step of solving the hard equation is to prevent participants from re-writing the entire historical transaction record. Changing a record in the list requires redoing the math for all the records that follow in time. So the deeper into the past you want to modify the more math you need to do.

Of course some group that controls over 50% of the participants in the block chain could work to over write the past and wire all the coins to themselves. Further more proof-of-work block chain scales poorly with size and last I checked irl bitcoin transactions can take up to 15 mins to verify. Compared to a credit card verification time of 1-5 seconds.

There's also proof-of-stake systems which supposedly fix many of the problems with proof-of-work. I don't know much about proof-of-steaks.

Bitcoin mining does have a reputation of being power hungry but a credit card transaction monitoring network also requires huge data centers and huge amounts of energy to run. Someone should compare Visa's energy use per transaction vs bitcoin energy use per transaction. This should give a general idea of whether block chain is more energy efficient than big centralized datacenters.


Block chain could be used for decentralized record keeping but proof-of-work schemes would not be acceptable for wide spread use. However I don't think decentralized record keeping is good or useful for socialism. It's a technological solution for the issue of trusting other humans. Proper accountability of the part of the record keepers could work just as well in a centralized system.

And do explain why inflationary currency is more desirable than deflationary. And what category would labour vounchers fall under?