A simple question...
I'm tired of seeing the word "communist" or Marxist banded around by the ignorant. So I'm inviting people to prove thier stupidity (or intelligence) in thier depiction of Marxist Communism. Here 's a hint, stay away from Russia (unless you want to argue about Lenonist revulotion vs Trotskyism). I think from today if you use the word communist or marxist and you haven't proved that these theories are incorrect then you're an idiot. Truth is experience, logic and reason, use it
Submitted by Martin Da Yoica on Sat, 2007-04-28 14:25
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And the Soviet/Cuban system would be?
I agree that they were never much on the original model, just as the present GOP has not much to do with "conservatives", but each had claimed (falsely) the label and it became common usage, and a (newly defined) ideology.
I have always used Marxist to describe the original Ideals and Communist to describe the Leninist result. Korea is its own special brand of weirdness, of the same family, but even beyond Stalin.
Your complaint sounds a lot like those of strong Christian belief who wish Dominionists would not be called Christian. (or Islamists, Muslim) They have a good point, but it is hard to talk about anything without including the larger families of the definition.
And when noting the work of others it is even harder to require them to be that PC about it.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
And so the mis-conception spreads
What has happened in Russia, Cuba, the "communist" bloc, Korea, pretty much every "communist" "ascociated" country or region is not and has never been Communist or Marxist in recent times (ie; 17th century and onwards). People can ascociate these countries with communism, where's the harm in that? Where's the harm in believing the world is flat or that trolls live in caves riding unicorns? The harm is that it is not true. Reality does not have an agenda, but it has a reality reached by logic and reason in the evaluation of our (and more commonly "others") perceptions, this we call truth. It is not about being politically correct, it is not even being ideologically correct, it is just about being correct. The mis-conception of Marxist Communism goes hand in hand with the mis-conception of capitalism, or more precisely, capital.
"Ideal" maybe unachievable, but it is to the ideal that we must aim if we want to change this world for the better. Equality, freedom, liberty, all are possible when we understand and accept the truth behind the concept. And again we return to truth, and truth in the understanding of Capital, the economy, society, is Marxism.
The issue is that Communism is not a single thing
Many supporters have, what they call "Communism" and those opposed have a few other definitions. It is not very useful to argue which is "Pure" and which of several applications is the more pragmatically "correct".
Many here discuss Socialism as if it were a "lite" version of the Soviet system, yet you would find few "State" owned businesses in such Socialist places as Northern Europe, or New Zealand that are not societal in scope. (i.e. roads, medical, schools, etc as opposed to food, gadget production, housing, and most jobs in the economy).
This interferes with discussion because it mischaracterises what actually is, rather than the theory, and that is different.
To accuse anyone who tries to use the Soviets as an example of Communism as promoting a false picture of Communism, is more like those of one Christian sect claiming all the others aren't "Christian". It is not useful to the discussion, though perhaps one might need to revert to "kind of" rather than deny the broad name. (IE Dominionist, Red Letter Christian, Southern Baptist of the 1886 reform, or whatever.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Black and White
Head, brickwall, headache. How does this example work? The two (or more) groups of christians can argue about technicalities or trivialities, but the first to say they don't believe in Christ ceases to be CHRISTian. The same is true of any belief/ideology. The core belief is unchangable. When I debate with other socialists it is a case of which theory would best work in practice in relation to the truth, as opposed to your example which would mean I discount anything but my original belief despite the truth. Interpretation is one thing, fact is another.
Fact 1: The Earth belongs to nobody
Fact 2: Man creates ALL things of human value.
Fact 3: Money/Currency is a physical representation of human labour, its' intended use in exchange for other commodities within a given society/economy.
Fact 4: The working class are the fastest growing amongst all other classes.
Fact 5: Around one sixth of the world population lives in abject poverty
Fact 6: Capital inveriably concentrates.
Fact 7: The means of production, most notably the land itself, is owned by an ever decreasing minority, mainly of the capitalist class.
Fact 8: Those who own the means of production tend to be those with the most money (or capital).
Fact 9: If facts 2 and 3 are both correct, then the money/capital referred to in fact 8 is taken from the labourer.
Fact 10: Theft is to take something which is not yours without the express permission of the owner.
Fact 11: Slavery is a social-economic system under which certain persons - known as slaves - are deprived of personal freedom and compelled to perform labour or services.
Fact 12: The working class are compelled to perform labour and services, whereas the capitalist class has no such compulsion.
Fact 13: The capitalist system is prone to the worst crises in relation to the average humans' condition, Wallstreet the most infamous example.
Fact 14: Profit, more often than not, comes before humans in societes priorities.
Fact 15: Capitalism is the only known system in which over production is almost as bad as no production.
Fact 16: You only sell something because you do not need it.
Fact 17: The worker, having no land or materials to create value, has no use for his labour power and consequently no need of it.
Fact 18: Man cannot live (for very long) on fresh air.
Fact 19: Within the capitalist system man either sells his labour (himself) at a rate considerably lower than its' worth, or he starves.
Fact 20: I'm getting bored of writing facts.
Fact 21: Capitalism is a system which allows a small minority of nasty bastards to manipulate the basic laws of exchange at the expense of the majority of hard working, good natured people. It creates societies of double standards due to its' class divides. It makes a mockerey of democratic rule. It puts the interests of the few above the needs of the many. It allows massive wealth gaps between rich and poor. It causes wars, ignores global health epidemics, inspires racism, damages the enviroment irrepribably, breeds crises and uproots millions of people from thier homes. It maims, it kills, it destroys.
A belief in a world where people co-operate with each other and economic competition is erradicated, where production is focused on need rather than profit, where our enviroment is protected, where words like democracy, freedom, equality and society live up to thier original conceptions. Where there are no poor and no rich, that is what socialist and socialism mean to me, and one place that it will NOT be found is within the capitalist system. Christian vs Christian? No, Agnostic vs Christian. Two different beliefs, but only one corresponds to reality.
There are more than a few illogical "facts"
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/
Logical Fallacies
http://academic.cuesta.edu/acasupp/as/404.htm
Recognizing Propaganda--Guide to Critical Thinking
If I were teaching a class I would use your list as a test, but I'll leave it to you or other readers here to fill it in.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Illogical?
If you can't point to where the logic of the premise becomes fallable then you have no choice but to accept its conclusions as true. Prove the fallacy and prove me wrong.
I say that it is you who is using propaganda by claiming that I am. It is an empty statement designed to fool the less intelligable into thinking that behind my words there is a hidden agenda.
Illogic is illogic
The propaganda noted is simply a form of illogic for greater depth of understanding. Both can be used deliberately for nefarious purposes, but can also be used because one is not thinking clearly, and the illogic is not apparent to the speaker.
You could print them out and try and makes sure you do not use them or you could print them out and use them as a primer on how to fool others*. An honorable person would do the first, and then be a much better thinker as well as a more effective writer.
I don't have a convenient place to place them, but I have read and try to use them in an honorable fashion. However I am not your mother to grade or fix your homework, nor is this a competition where the last poster is proven right by process of endurance.
You are entitled to your beliefs, but like believers everywhere, you are not entitled to enforce them to be mine.
*of course they only fool those who cannot think critically, that is the Platonic trap OSC misses in Ender's Game.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
And logic is logic
Again you merely point to fallacy without stating the illogic of my logic, illogical or what? Belief is one thing but logic is another.
There are no values except human values, there is no point outside of the meaning we create, we have no real knowledge of what we know and even if we did we probably wouldn't know it. All we really know for certain is that we are a thinking thing. The Earth, our bodies, everything outside of our thoughts is "something else". One individual may own the Earth "divinely" (or in some other way) but the fact is the fallacy of knowledge is incapable of proving this either way. The Earth therefore belongs to no one due to the fact it is indeterminable whether it does or doesn't.
Using some of the logic from above and the fact that nothing comes from nothing, ie; if you don't pick apples you don't have apples, if you don't build a house you don't have a house, then all which has value is that which is given value, and all which can give value is you (or me if we're getting technical), humanity. Therefore man creates ALL things of human value.
Money is exchanged for things of human use, ie; things of value to the human. Since what makes value is humans, humans exchange commodoties produced by humans for commodoties produced by humans. We call this production work or labour (labor if you're American). Money was originally used as an intermediate so that the man with corn didn't have to trade with the butcher, then the baker, then the candle stick maker before he had a candle he could trade with the man selling the shoes because he had no want of the other commodoties. It is only in capitalist development that money takes on a new character through private ownership, but lets not jump logic just yet.
As we have seen above, someone who produces things of use is said to "work" or "labour", in general this refers to a wide range of different class of workers, peasants, slaves, nomads, wage slaves ect. In relation to capitalism the term "working class" are a group of people who produce commodoties not for thier use or personal sale but for a wage or sallary. This class of people is distinguished from the capitalist or bouguise who do not produce but own the production, materials, labour and the final product. As capitalism spreads it requires new markets which in turn require more workers in order to fulfill the new demand. If capitalism is growing then so is the work force.
Since to not labour or work would mean to not produce, and to not produce would be to have nothing to exchange, and nothing to exchange means no money or other products, the capitalist's who do not work obtain thier money... how? Survive... how? Since value (and therefore that which represents value) can only come from a human that works the value or capital generated is from the labour employed. Logical enough? Or is there a flaw in my logic I'm not seeing?
Curious about the aside
Can you elaborate a little on what you mean here? Thanks...
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Plato's trap
A central part of Plato's Republic is the idea of the philosopher kings, who would rule in the background and guide the common folk because they could not possibly guide themselves.
The trap in the logic is that there is no such group except one that is self selected or selected by those self selected.
While those folk may very well consider themselves to be superior, that very trait is an indicator of bad judgment and makes them unqualified. While the self selection issue should be obvious, there is considerable actual psychological research that it is worse than is immediately apparent.
Actual research has shown that these people are actually worse at solving social problems than a random person picked up off the street, even as they believe that they are very much better.
It is in this thinking that they are quick to reach out to such protective and expansive tools as the logic, and propaganda lists noted above, and try to turn them into a weapon.
Most of the concerns of the American Founding fathers was to thwart just such people, and in general it worked very well.
That Leo Strauss made the Platonic fantasy an ideology and launched (with others) a long term group assault on that system, has nearly undone it, (and they may succeed yet) was beyond the understanding of those men. But it is things like the Iraq war, much less the other clusterbungles, that illustrate what the research has shown.
In Ender's Game such ineptitude is presumed away, as indeed it is in many Sci fi novels , Isamov's Foundation series ranks high in that list, but there are many others.
By contrast in most of Barry Longyear's novels ( and those of such ilk) the heros screw up, learn, and eventually find that they have reached a superior goal that they could not have conceived of at the start, usually learning how to be human from understanding non-humans.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Point 6,7 and 9 are not facts
Any more than "Man gives birth to Baby" is a fact.
6 and 7: Large companies very often ossify and their capital is eventually lost (due to the marketing equivalent of entropy). Additionaly, the French Revolution is certainly a counter example of 'even increasing'
As for 9, that is based on a zero sum view of an economy that completely discards the idea of synergy. That someone could provide value not based upon independent labor, but instead acting as a force multiplier.
If person A builds a box and person B builds wheels, and person C says "hmm.. boxes plus wheels are more valuable than the sum of either alone" then A & B may grant/trade him capital for his foresight. Both A & B get more than they would alone and are still 'winners' in this exchange even if C ends up with more than both of them. Capital is concentrating with C even though he has not taken anything from A & B
O.K
Point 6 and 7 first. http://hussonet.free.fr/wealth.pdf
, the wealth list, Bill Gates, oil barons, ect.
As to point 9 this will depend on your view of value, ownership and the make-up of society. If you can explain to me how a commodity aquires its' value other than the work which is incorporated in its' production then I can better explain why you're wrong.
Thankyou for the link
I had found The L-Curve: A Graph of the US Income Distribution and many references to Chris Anderson and his "long tail" arithmetic and knew that the math was the same, but had not found anyone actually running the math.
Your link does precisely that.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Box on wheels
Isn't really a true example on what you call "synergy". It is an amalgamation of production (the work done to fix the wheels) and innovation. My view on such innovation has been covered in my most recent dairy, which just leaves the production. I could go on to prove how the price of a product will fall below its' production cost once the technology becomes the standard for a society, and how the opposite of "synergy" will actually cause economic and social crises through over production, but I'll save that for my next dairy.
I'll assume
by your silence you havn't got an answer.
I'm not sure
who the 'your' is in your comment, but, as for me, I already stated my thoughts in your previous (well-written and argued for the most part) diary on the subject
.
Not you
Freedem. Although technically it's a different question, was Marx right in his ecconomic theories as opposed to the previous question, did Marxist communism ever exist.
You can assume by my (temorary) silence I have a life as well
If you look up what is really said by many philosophies, (anarchist, communist, epicurean, libertine, wiccan, heck liberal for all that) and what those who have painted the popular picture, there is extreme disconnect. Where that misconception is presented by people who purport to support or act as the new definition, then a problem of definitions naturally arises.
There is a lot of gaming of the naming that is not useful, even now many conservatives are finding themselves in the same boat. The Gang Of Pirates need a name that is different than the Barry Goldwater Conservatives.
Perhaps Paleo- would work. We could have Paleo-conservatives, and Paleo-communists, Paleo-Liberals, and Paleo-Anarchists. But then folk would be arguing about how far back you had to go to be Paleo.
I don't have any answer to that problem beyond goodwill and tolerance among those having the discussion.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
A couple of criticisms:
1. You're good about warning people that so-called Communist states haven't been truly communist, but you turn around and assume that so-called Capitalist states are truly capitalist. Find me a single country on this planet that doesn't have a mixed economy, and I'll eat my shoe. At any rate, it doesn't do your argument any good to battle one set of stereotypes by erecting another.
2. The failure of communism is one of supply - except in small and self-contained societies, the market (which still exists, regardless of what economic system we're using) adjusts far more rapidly than the producers. And as the size of your market increases, so does the need for some form of centralized decision-making process. In communism, that invariably comes from some sort of planned economy, which is why (even half-hearted) attempts at nationwide communism fall so quickly into authoritarianism. In capitalism, the fact that one person owns capital means that that one person can shift that capital to another market quickly and efficiently, workers be damned. Neither is exactly an ideal situation.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
That is close the point I have tried to make
If one person has total control, they will act the same not matter the "system" that gives them that control. In a system that call itself "Communist" or "Religious" there are some "moral" discussions about accountability, but whether they have any weight can be quite variable.
A Capitalist economy can be just as authoritarian within the context of the company involved. At best there is a Union that is a very junior partner, and perhaps the Investors have any actual clout. It there is any other accountability at all it has to come from some sort of Government oversight. But in practice these have also proven to be very thin controls.
Many of those companies that have experimented with more democratic or anarchical internal government have succeeded very well, but there is little enthusiasm among the royalty in other companies for such revolutions.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Society is exchange
Society is exchange, what makes any exchange equal is the labour incorporated in the commodity. If a raw material is rare and hard to find and/or extract then it aquires a higher value than something which is easily produced or found. It may cost pennies to produce 1000 grams of tea, but if it needs to be transported 50,000 miles away for consumption its' price naturally increases due to the work needed. Marx made a spot on prediction, if man could find a way of making Diamonds from carbon the price would plummet. The problem with capitalism is this; those who claim ownership over the means to survive do so illigitamatly. If fact 1 is correct the rest is indisbutible.
Man makes value in order to live
Societies are more productive and successful than nomads.
To create value without work is to take it from other existing value.
We would not knowingly exchange something for less than it's worth yet that is what anybody who works does with thier labour power. It isn't our fault, we have no choice, sell ourselves for less value than we create or... or what? This is the capitalist trap. The fact is this, even if you wanted to seperate from capitalist society you couldn't. The means of production extends to almost all things of human use. You produce for the capitalist or you have nothing to produce with.
a few bits.
First Diamonds Are common, but a murderous gang has control of them, and will go to any length to maintain that control.
When they lost a bit of control, they pointed to the Rebel's brutality, and did a big marketing campaign to call them "Blood Diamonds" as if that was not a description of every stone that comes to market, and why when I was a jeweler I would have nothing to do with them.
Which gets to the second point. Free Enterprise and Capitalism are not the same. In my hippie days, I lived in a school bus and made jewelry, sometimes selling wholesale, sometimes sitting around a bar selling rings off of a long sock.
It was like printing my own money, but it did not last as Capitalists created huge volumes of schlock for less than I could buy the metal, and by marketing devalued the artistic element that I had and they did not. In the end nothing was worth much and jewelry mostly fell from fashion
In the end there is no natural value, there is no magic ideology that will make things "turn out right". The best you can manage is to fight Rankism and create transparency and accountability, but above all do what works. Fairness (and perhaps the other points as well) are like a sunrise, a direction and not a reachable destination.
Too much Ideology always suffers from insufficient thought because it suffers Belief over consideration, and that never works out well.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Rankism? You are joking
Rankism? You are joking I hope. This is exactly the type of philosophy I am against. Fair enough it works for humiliation but how does it help in regards to exploitation and manipulation? We can trade insults but once we have left the keyboard the insults only go as far as you think about them. You are in control just like you're in control of "dignity". But this as far as it goes. If I were constantly smacking you in the face because I found it funny would ignoring me improve your position or give me any inclination to stop? It's all good preaching the "do as I do" message, but where has that taken humanity? You saw what happened to Jesus. There may be no natural value than what we create, but human value is all around us, and why is it valuable? Because instead of living the easy life, someone somewhere decided to concentrate thier energy into producing that car, mining that gold, growing that corn. Why would I grow corn if doing the same amount of work mining gold would produce twice the return? I wouldn't, nobody would (unless they loved corn growing and were willing to work twice as hard). But the fact is a society full of miners is going to starve very quickly. It is nessacery that society be divided into specific areas of work so that we can enjoy all that we have created by actually being able to create it.
Is this fair? Two people stranded on a desert island. One gathers food, builds the shelter and makes clothes. The other does f.a. Now although the working man watches the other do nothing, he still gives him food, makes him clothes and allows him the use of his shelter, not because he wants to but because m.r idle has a gun and has claimed the island as his. Now imagine an island with 5.5 billion workers and 0.5 billion lazy bstds. Except the number what is the real difference between the two societies? I have said it once and I'll say it again, if you create nothing then logically, morally and ethically you should have nothing.
If you had checked my last link
They have taken the Marxist Ideal as I would think you might agree with (not being you I don't know, but it tries to go there) and immediately they run up against many fundamental issues inherent to such ideology. Being small and "volunteer" it stumbles along, but the structural problems would only get worse with scale, and the high turnover indicates it is not so good for users either.
As for Robert Fuller, my biggest problem with him is the lack of effective enforcement of accountability, but the framing is spot on in my estimation. Your desert island example is certainly a case of ultimate rankism no matter how pleasant the conversation, and not a stable one either, as one does need to sleep occasionally.
Fuller has a longer lecture here but he does take it from the top down view, that it is against the interests of the capitalist to have abusive organizations, and evidence is that he is right.
Rank, leadership, and many "non-productive" support jobs (like sales) are necessary and ultimately evolve even as you try to suppress them, because they are necessary for effective action. The problem comes when some of those jobs give some power or leverage, and they use it for "rankist" behavior, "feathering their own bed" being high on that list.
If the job were not necessary it would have no leverage, and when the leverage is shifted, the new leverage becomes just as rankist as the old, it is all well and good to say this person or group should have such a percentage, but as soon as there is a decider in the list they will decide to double their income to the detriment of the rest. And ultimately there must be a decider even if they only count the votes, or it will be a committee that can't make a decision.
And if you only need accountability of one decider then that is all that is wrong with any other, Fuller notes the problem but as I pointed out I agree his answer to the problem needs work.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Now take everything you've written
And apply it to the capitalist system we live in. There are votes being cast and people taking double thier "regular" income, all "volunteraly". Socialism isn't a magic wand, it can't force people to be something they are not, nor will its' deciders be any more effective, thats just human nature. But at the end of the day, a system which is exploitative and can be exploited, or a non-exploitative system which can be exploited, which would you choose?
Which is why I am a revolutionary and not a reformist. They are only nessecary because of the system they are built on top of. A bandage is only nessecary if you cut yourself. If you could change your actions in someway which would mean you never cut yoursef again, what use would plasters be? We can spend our time inflicting more injuries on our society, and making bigger and more effective plasters, but sooner or later we're going to cut too deep.
Maybe rankism is the problem with society, but until we are living in a society which doesn't support such behaviour, there is little hope of beating it, and Fuller for all he's worth, doesn't seem to know how to achieve this.
Money has power. Agreed? People who have money (ie; more than the majority) have more power. Logical so far? From these premises we can deduce a couple of interesting conclusions. Firstly, democracy as it is in the dictionary should have the word "people" replaced by "capital", it is still the work of the people which creates the capital but it is not the people who decide how that power is distributed. In essence then this is a capitalist dictatorship. Secondly, capital is power taken from the economy, so those who wield the most power are those who have taken most from society, and ironically not those who have contributed to its' development. Sound illogical?
It is easy to attack what is, but magic won't help
That is the problem with almost all revolutionaries, they gloss over all the hard bits with magical thinking. The Young Castro might have thought as yourself, but once in power he had to actually address problems as diverse as keeping himself in power, to making his society work at the macro and micro level.
In the end all he did was substitute new "capitalists" for old, and while there were a few positives (Cuba has the best marine ecology in the Caribbean), as a society it has done poorly.
In the end every "enterprise" will have the same set of positions, leader, shaker, actor, etc. The titles on the doors change, but the positions do not. Those who get political power will suck up the goodies until there is something that stops them.
The larger and simpler the system, the easier it is to suck up more goodies, and the harder it is to stop it. The more complex and intricate the parts, and the cross accountability the harder it is to suck up goodies with impunity and there is no huge pool of goodies in any case, but such a system cannot be created by a single mind.
If it could a single mind could conquer it.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
In the end
There's no denying that, which is why i would like to think of myself as a practical revolutionary as oppossed to a Utopian socialist. Society may not be ready for such a change, as was proven in Russia and Cuba and many other countries and states, but this sets the socialist agenda. It is not the physical effects of capitalism that we must fight, it is the attitudes and beliefs of those who would wish to keep the system going because they believe it to be either the best way or the only way. It is very true one mind cannot create this type of system, but I havn't said that, it is something the majority of minds must do, only then will any physical revolution be achieved with any hope of success.
That is why "bandaids" can work
You don't solve a problem without defining the problem in intimate detail, and have a very good idea of all the effects of what is planed to be done or not done, and not missing any of them, otherwise you can get very rude surprises.
Society, and especially the world society is a complex system and there are studies about how systems act and don't act. Sara Robinson had a recent series on a systems teacher named Draper Kauffman who compiled a set of observations now called Kauffman's rules. Ms Robinson goes on:
Number 13 is that there are never any "simple " solutions.
Many small well thought out actions, can have a huge positive effect, as FDR's congress proved, but it cannot be a onetime thing, the war to keep a middle class and support an honest government is the only one that is never ending.
Hence Thomas Jefferson's quote “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
That is why a method of analyzing each "enterprise" and how it adds or detracts from the whole is so important. Without a tool to understand the effects of any solution, and the more the tool is subject to partisan manipulation, the more difficult it is to make accurate predictions about outcomes and the greater chance of bad outcomes.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Some interesting points
I don't agree with all of them, and further elaborations on a few contradict others (the elaborations mainly, not the rules) but in general I accept the majority.
Social Revolution over reform?
Absolutely. It is this common inability to see the internal relationship of the constituent parts of society which is part of the reason why the system continues in the way it does.
Another reason people can't see the wood through the trees. Where most people see recession and market crashes as accidental or even avoidable, this is usually attributed to an insufficient amount of data. It reminds me of when people talk about how winter comes earlier each year, or that it never used to rain as much, and instead of understand, blame. Of course humanities actions have played a role in climate change, but looking at Earths' history in the long term of ice age to warm period to ice age; 80 years of first hand experience out of 6 billion is not an adequate amount of time to predict the local/global climate.
Something I don't agree with. Isn't this the same kind of action we took with Sadam and Osama? The problem is highlighted and solutionized* (new word) in rules 7 and 11,
In regards to competition over co-operation;
The key words are "willing" and "fair". The capitalist system incorporates neither of these elements. The worker does not compete harder for his own benefit, but the benefit of his employer. It is not a willing choice, "work for less value than you create or starve", and therefore not a "fair" one either. Though both the worker and the capitalist co-operate against outside competition as a "team", it is for entirely different reasons. The capitalist must compete to continue expanding his business (and as a result of expansion concentrates societies wealth into an ever decreasing amount of hands). The worker must work to live irrelevant of what he does (hence WORKer). And in this way the majority of people become alienated from thier labour. They no longer see how they contribute to society or how thier part has an effect on the whole. The only way to counteract this is by understanding the real reasons for problems in society and the economy. The solutions won't be as easy, but then again, they won't be a as hard either.
"The unexamined life is not worth living"
The rules are general cases for all systems, not just politics
and consequently it is certainly possible to to jump to wrong conclusions, and as you say it is possible to jump to opposite conclusions about the same thing, if the thinking is not deep or is driven too much by ideology.
But it is a good set of points to step through and think about how that rule could be applied to the circumstances that are the immediate problem, and then see what makes sense. Not as a command to apply each one in all situations.
Cooperative competition worked too well in the American car industry. The workers got quite good results, as the Union was able to hold a lot of accountability.
But when companies outside the US were allowed to compete without the same rules the American companies lived with, and the American players on both sides were to fat to act intelligently, the whole system fell apart.
It was the changing of the rules that made the American worker Middle class for the first time, and the breaking of those rules, using RW Propaganda that caused the gap that you note.
Reapplication of those rules would reverse that trend as it did in the 1940's and '50's. Something more revolting would necessarily have an unpredictable result, and only after the chaos died down would you know if it was an improvement. Under those conditions #14 & 15 are mandatory. Unfortunately at this point reinstating the New Deal rules would probably take such a revolution.
I don't think it is one of the Kauffman rules but it should be that Dramatic changes should have evidence that it would work in proportion to to the drama. (sort of the UFO rule).
I would agree that understanding real reasons for problems is the first step to solutions, but just as "obvious solutions" often do more harm than good, they are only obvious solutions because the reasons seemed obvious, when the "reason" is itself really only an effect of a more complex situation.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Middle Class
Technically speaking I don't believe there is a middle class, just a case of wage workers who are better off than (usually the majority of) other wage workers.
I'm a little unsure of point 15;
The same content is found in 14. This presupposes a "good" and "evil". Unfortunetly I don't know the author and therefore I cann't question the origin of his morality.
Overall, in terms of the above rules, I think dialectical materialism has a far better method of understanding systems, and while I can see some rules remaining true, the majority (I believe) will quickly fall from what we refer to as knowledge.
Good -everyone does better Evil - they do worse
Finally you have to take a realistic path, the situation is not simple. Simple solutions have major blind spots that will always result in big surprises. Those with power, be they "owner" or "manager" or "committee chair" will pay more attention to themselves unless there is a reason to pay attention to others, and that will only happen with careful thought as to how to get there.
Launching a new system is what bad managers do to make it impossible to judge how bad they are doing. Making the existing system work well despite the warts, is the mark of a great manager. You can hate the existence of a manager, but no enterprise can manage without somebody able to lead in some capacity.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
No simple solutions
Simply observations and understanding. As societies wealth concentrates (which hopefully we have established) the majority of people will actually be worse off, what you call "evil". On the other side of the coin, the rich get wealthier and fewer and do better, "good". Society then, under the capitalist system, is predestined to become predominately evil.
Social revolution is not going to be as easy as flicking a switch (as I think you think I think) but should we give up trying because the solution is beyond our grasp? Never. Most social revolutions have come about almost behind the scenes driven unconsiously by the means of production, which is where Marx was spot on in saying, "the point of philosophy is not to interpret the world, but to change it." The first step to change is knowing what needs to be changed, not individually but socialy. If people don't realise the fundemental rules are actually the fundemental problems, we can kiss freedom and equality goodbye and welcome the new era of evil.
Unfortunately revolutions do flip a switch
The problem is what happens afterwards.
The point I have been making is that wealth/power tends to concentrate in ANY system, it is the nature of (political) systems not the window dressing of a particular Ideology.
One solution is to toss a bomb in the system every twenty years or so and thus keep everyone poor and scrambling. The US has tried this on a lot of third world countries, and the results are never good, and after a while even that becomes the "System".
Far from being predestination however, a dynamically open Society should be able to tweak issues as they come up. We have fallen down badly at doing this and course changing will be difficult. If we fail at doing so, we may be back to the technology (and population levels) of the 1700's before we can try again.
But we are where we are, and only Kauffman's last rule can save us, presuming that anything can. They have increased accountability and retarded concentration before and they may yet be able to do so again. It succeeded somewhat here for a while and very much better in Europe where it was better established (physically even though not historically). But the game is never over, and there is no final fix, and even many Europeans have forgotten that.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Any or those?
Just because it does doesn't mean it always will. Power and wealth have concentrated in some systems and in others they havn't, but to simply accept this as the rule is to condemn mankind (or a great proportion of it) to an eternity of oppression, destruction and a slow ride back to oppression (if we're lucky!). Democracy, then, is therefore unachievable and inequalilty inevitable if power and wealth are predestined to condense, and the only way to balance this out is by sacrificing a part of society (ie; human lives, be it actual or quality). Not a philosophy I would choose to adhere to if only for its' fundemental pesimism, inequality and cruelty.
Which is why I have difficulty in understanding your objection to Marxism. It is able to understand and predict the effects of our economic and political systems. How? Not from a philosophical standpoint (although it does have one) not from guess work, but from logic and reason grounded in reality. Although minor things have occassionly been proven innaccurate, the main point, what makes Marxism "Marxism", has remained true, economically, socially, politically and philosophically. The problem is that people don't seem to see this, blame the problem on something else and instead break "rules" 1, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 23, 27 and of course 28.
Here's a little test for you. Explain to me what is capitalism, what are its' constituent parts, how does it function? It should be easy enough, you do live within it I assume.
Under what system did it not happen?
I cannot think of one where the leadership did not snatch most of the goodies. The Inuit and some Pacific Islanders, come close, but both are small enough groups that any three guys could overthrow the "king" and thus are all held accountable. And even these groups were pretty divided by sex and status.
When the Pacific Islanders got numerous enough, they were as "capitalist" as anyone in the sense that the guy in charge got all the girls and food he wanted, and others did the work.
Even though in theory nobody "owned" anything.
Kauffman's rules are more like Murphy's laws with more detail and precision. Clear views are difficult, and it is easy to construct fantasies that work well in the imagination, or some writers book, because in either case the reality doesn't bite them there.
You can say that "all is commons" and dispense with deciders, or try and run the job by committee, but unless a leader rises up in the committee, they will spend forever deciding nothing, and those who misuse the commons will not be prevented from doing so.
It was tried in a thousand hippie communes, and in every case the most low minded drove out the most high minded, till after many generations of this (sometimes within a year sometimes many years) the group was the lowest sort of thieving, druggie. child molesting scum you could imagine. Then the cops would show up and the news media claimed that what it had always been. But I had seen the whole process and could see the errors that lead to the result.
Many of these just exploded before the cops came, particularly when there was no land or similar "capital" involved.
Where leaders did rise up, mostly they set about decreasing accountability, and getting more goodies for themselves, till eventually they became "capitalist"
Even in a very few groups that had mechanisms for accountability, the politics is still quite heavy, and they have still lost that innocence becoming heavily bureaucratic with the most high minded giving up in disgust anyway, but not degenerating further. The bureaucracies of course become power centers and the goodies flow there first as well.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Wealth and Power
What is wealth but what (individuals within) societies have produced, firstly to survive and secondly to enjoy. I would say that for the most part of human evolution co-operation and wealth distrubution would have had to have been a nessecity for survival and progression. But even if humanity has been forever in a continous cycle of power grabbing and wealth concentration from day one, why does that mean that it always will be? The word defeatist comes to mind.
If Marx was right, not about the communist ideology, but the pure Marxian economics, then we aren't going to get anywhere by using out-dated and false premises about society. Any attempt to improve our lives and society will therefore be doomed to failure and any achievments will be purely acciedental. I do not argue for Marxism, or communism, I argue in the name of truth
Obviously nothing grows forever #9
The question is how can you effect change in a positive manner that does not make the situation worse.
Left to their own devices wealth/power concentrates. It is not defeatist to notice this, nor will magical thinking from the Left or Right fix it, nor will it ever stay "fixed" if it is fixed for a while.
A tool that highlights specific issues is a very valuable tool, as is one that can retrieve the commons once grabbed. Like protest marches, some of those tools get shopworn with time and have to be exchanged or modified, as indeed power will change tactics as well.
I think that my tool for identifying issues (as per my Blog) is new, powerful, and will likely have legs, but even if it is fully realized, some sharpy will figure a way around it someday, and then the tool would need to be changed also, it is the nature of things.
As for a better mechanism to make the changes I wish I had a lot better answers.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.