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What's some really unpopular opinion you have?
(lemmings.world)
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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy
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Communism as drafted by 19th and 20th century thinkers will never work, predicated on the idea that labor is inherently undesirable and will not be performed by humans without immediate incentive.
We will need to rethink our approach towards communism with consideration for the growing spread of automation. Like it or not, automation is going to lead to the end of capitalism when the majority of jobs we have today are rendered obsolete and the unemployed masses are forced to subsist through some sort of UBI.
The goal is to keep the automation out of the hands of billionaires, however. If a society begins to approach post scarcity, which will finally render capitalism obsolete, the oligarchs will do whatever they can to re-engineer scarcity and bring us back to feudalism before they'd ever consider giving power to the people.
I would say a good argument for communism is the worsening side effects of capitalism. These problems simply cannot be fixed in a capitalist framework because they require global cooperation and capitalism is based on competition. Problems like over exploitation of natural resources (overfishing, carbon emissions) and the failure of the market to adequately provide services for which there is a fixed level of demand (housing, education, healthcare. The scale of college and medical debt is getting ridiculous). Many other problems like these.
The solution is more democracy and yes common ownership of the means of production. People are just allergic to the specific term of class struggle. but it doesn't change the meaning - the ownership/ruling class benefits from the status quo even as everything gets worse. They will not give up control without a fight, and as you said they will use every tool, from propaganda and legislation up to direct violence to maintain that control.
They were fixed in the past. Trust-busting, Keynesian Economic Policy, taxing the wealthy.
It's just we've been stuck in the Reagan's supply side economics bullshit for decades now. The problems we're seeing now are because of proven economic solutions being abandoned because the wealthy have confused the voting public to think that we shouldn't go back to policies that worked for over six decades.
Automation has been going on since the dawn of the industrial revolution. You see a robot doing a job a person used to do and get excited and think it's going to be the end of the need for labour.
But look at an a excavator. People used to have to dig everything with shovels. But an excavator can do the job of hundreds of people with shovels. Excavators have been around a long time, but didn't lead the elimination of all work everywhere.
Yes, "the majority of jobs we have today" will be made obsolete just like how having a big crew of strong people to dig a canal (or whatever) was made obsolete. But then there were new jobs to replace those ones.
I love the culture books too but c'mon man.
First, how do you imagine transferring power to an AI overlord would sit with the people who currently have all the proverbial guns in our current society. That's the problem we need to solve first.
Second, who in our society would you trust to build an AI up to the task of single handedly managing world affairs? How would you even test something so superhuman? Not to mention that we're not close to superhuman, we're already pushing the limits of our tech building a chatbot that can't stay coherent for more than a couple paragraphs. The tech just isn't there yet and not within orders of magnitude.
It's the truth, though. Humans create hierarchies whenever they sre in a group, explicit or not. Also, working without any incentive to do better only works for so long.
because people would only want to improve their society and help eachother if they're being paid for it?
I've no problem improving society just for the sake of it, given that everybody else also does. Sadly any bigger group of people will start getting freeloaders and I'm allergic for such BS.
Focusing on freeloaders rather than those in need is problematic. There will always be freeloaders, and sure, we should always aim to minimize their numbers. But is it worth it to deny those with genuine need who vastly outnumber the relatively miniscule number of freeloaders?
I agree with your sentiment, but this thread is about communism. As someone who actually lives in post-communist country I can assure you that net effect is not what you're looking for.
There's freeloaders right now. This system doesn't solve the problem. What difference does it make?
Right now my life is significantly better than someone who decides to live on government welfare.
30 something years ago, when we had socialism in my country it didn't matter if you worked, got drunk or slept at work. Everybody had the same shitty flat and the same shitty products (assuming there were products at all).
This system has a lot of problems, but socialism sucked indefinitely more.
The problem is people think capitalism, socialism, and even communism are mutually exclusive. They're all tools, and like any tool they're better for some jobs than others.
Trying to make a society work using just one across the board is doomed to failure. As is failing to impliment and update safeguards against disparities in equity and power.
That's true
I agree with you, most if not all of the former socialist countries are doing better in most metrics now a days. I am not a socialist and do not advocate for it under almost any circumstance. I advocate for the abolition of the state, I want everyone to live a comfortable life, doing what they enjoy, without having to struggle to get to the end of the month. There will be freeloaders, but if that means that people in need can live a life just as well as anyone else I think its worth it.
I don't know how people who lived through COVID can think that communism will work. A certain portion of the population will always act towards their own perceived benefit even if it is to the detriment of everyone else around them.
You hit the nail on the head, the issue with communism is not freeloarders or lack of incentives, it's the fact that any form of hierarchy will create a power imbalance, and there will always be people who try to take advantage of it to better themselves and their friends at the expense of everyone else.
To be fair, the same is true in capitalism. It just manifests in different ways.