My view of things

[Thomasio]

First let me say hello to this community, I'm new here.

My name is Thomas, I´m a 52yr old German living in Italy.

I've been through a lot of things and I've spent about every spare minute of my last 5 years with research, trying to find out how to secure my future, on top of what I've done in the past.

I've been employed for a while, paid into the public retirement funds, so I'll have a small pension, I've been self employed for a while, paid into a private pension plan, from where I'll get some more one day, Italy has a state financed health insurance, so for the basics I'm all set, but of course there are always things one could do to improve something.

 

On the way of doing that, I stumbled into these huge discussions, capitalists, socialists, communists, liberals, conservatives, greens and all that, mostly through YouTube videos, where I found this forum as well.

I've tried cross viewing/reading, sort out obvious nonsense, remain as objective as I can and build some kind of average of all the extreme opinions as the most likely truth behind it.

 

There's one thing that strikes me more than anything else, where I´m not even sure whether or not I got that right, so I´ll make that my question for my first post here, maybe we can get a discussion about this going.

 

This world has built up the capacity to produce enough stuff to supply the whole galaxy and the workforce required to produce way more than humans could possibly consume is apparently less than half the world's population.

From ridiculous expiration dates, such as a 2 year expiration on salt, over planned obsolescence, discounts for replacing an old product before you really need a new one and state subsidized products, up to large advertising campaigns promoting of why the latest version of some new product is better than the previous one, politics and industry have come up with an incredible amount of ideas, of how to make people consume more and faster, still about half the world's population is left out of the production process and remains in poverty, simply because industrialized production can do the job without them.

Furthermore the poverty of these people and their hunger driven willingness to work for ever lower wages is abused to press down wages for all other workers.

Big industry has moved to the far east, where people work for $30 a month, leaving behind unemployment, sinking wages and increasing poverty in the western world.

By now we're approaching a situation, where the western world is becoming the poor half of the population left out of the production process.

 

Now, as always, there are 1000s of suggestions around, of what to do about it.

The libertarians keep voting for entirely unregulated open markets, where it's easily predictable that worldwide competition for a place in the workforce will through decreasing wages throw every more people into poverty.

The conservatives believe in making the rich even richer, the socialists believe in government spending to create jobs for the unemployed and the greens believe in taxing the hell out of everyone, just to save the planet from the humans.

 

To my mind there can only be one solution to this, but I wouldn´t know, how to achieve it.

If half the available workforce is more than sufficient to do the job, it doesn't matter what kind of rules or no rules the system has, there will always be half the population in poverty, the only question is, who that is and right now it clearly looks as if that's the future of the western world.

Frequent redistribution of wealth, like capitalism driven inequality evened out every now and then through taxing the rich seems a rather hard thing to do, because the rich are usually also the powerful, doing anything in their power to prevent or at least delay a redistribution.

Permanent donation funds for the poor seem to be by far not enough.

So the only possible solution would be to limit the amount of hours a single person can work so drastically, that companies struggle to find workers and are forced to increase wages up to a point where production matches demand and workforce matches available jobs.

 

I'm aware, there are movements even in the US, demanding a 20 hour week, I've even seen some German professor claiming 10 hours a week would still be too much.

Either way, this would have to be done worldwide simultaneously, otherwise China would still outcompete the rest of the world and I really have no clue of how to organize such a drastic thing throughout all the different forms of government in the world.

 

So what do you guys think?

Is it possible to organize the world by plain free competition, or would then everybody end up working for $30 a month, where 99% of the world would drown in poverty?

Is it possible to print your way into inflation until state debt gets dissolved in devaluation of currency, while ever lower wages result in ever less products sold and therefore lead to deflation?

Should we all buy physical gold and silver or whatever else of value and wait for the unavoidable crash after which our property makes us the winners of the next crisis?

Or what's your solution to make this world a better place?

[LibertarianSocialist]

Hey Thomasio, you grinding through the moderator approvals too?

 

First off, let me state that I am an anarchist and therefore a socialist, and not a propertarian. Hence my views are not in line with the others here.

 

I feel like you already have a good understanding of the issues at play and of the various proposals to deal with them and their likely outcomes, am I correct? Nevertheless, I would like to clarify what socialism and communism are. Socialism is not state wealth redistribution, nor was Russia communist. Both are state capitalism, that is the holding of wealth by a minority (government in Russia's case), though the former (what we have) is a hybrid state/market capitalist economy, whereas Russia was pure state capitalism. Lenin himself admits Russia was state capitalism.

 

Are you aware of the various crises of capitalism (over-accumulation, under-consumption, capitalist business cycle, the profit motive and profit-driven unemployment etc.)? All are fruitful areas for understanding the period of instability we are going through, and of which I can elaborate on if you wish.

 

The views held on this forum are very much in line with the libertarians of which they are Austrian bed-buddies, albeit the libertarians seek to uphold those state functions that serve to maintain a class society (military, police, law), whereas the an*-caps seek to give those functions into the hands of democratically unaccountable private tyrannies (corporations).

 

Is it possible to organise the world by free market principles? In a capitalist society, no, mutualism, perhaps. Capitalism is a absurd ideology whose contradictions lead to its own collapse. As a system that mandates continual capital accumulation, it eventually consumes itself as the winners of capitalist accumulation destroy the real foundation of society, the working class. Inequality followed by economic collapse then a massive destruction of capital is an inevitability. This will likely play out one of three ways, the collapse of the Roman empire, another world war, or social revolution. The former two will merely reset the clock of capital accumulation, it is this last that holds any meaningful chance for a solution.

 

Pickety's Capital in the 21st Century talks about "conventional" ways of reversing inequality, through taxation or inflationary redistribution. These are misguided in that they neglect, as you point out, that those with an interest in maintaining the status quo are those in power. Regardless, read that book, it is amazing, best book I have read in years.

 

Buy gold if you want to win in the system. In the face of inflation during crisis of the third century, only real capital survived due to its inherent worth outside a monetary system of international trade. Hence why feudalism took hold in the latifundia. However what's a fortune worth in a world destroyed by war, poverty and an environmental crisis?

 

It seems crazy that the world is being thrown into poverty and war and misery simply because we produce to much stuff, have to many things! But that is the fact of the matter. The solution however is simple. All men should enjoy the fruits of the earth and of man's vast legacy on it, whom no one man can lay claim. Whose right to provide for himself, and only himself, should be inviolate. A system where work is not undertaken with the necessity of crippling and extorting the next man, but rather uplifting him in mutual aid. In this only anarchism will do.

 

I am myself keen to see a propertarian response to your or my posts.

[Thomasio]

Hey, thanks for your answer.

Yes, those approvals by moderators make things a bit slow on start, but I don't mind, I believe it's better than a forum drowning in the bashings of some ..... (fill in a word of your choice).

 

What I don't understand about anarchism is, how would it make a difference on inequality?

You would exchange the power of money and government by the power of brute force, but exchanging the one in power doesn't resolve the problem that they will abuse their power.

How could all men enjoy the fruits of the earth, if half the population doesn't own a thing and doesn't have the strength to conquer anything?

Do you believe the forces of anarchy would honor human rights, if no one has the power to force them, or how would an anarchy force the powerful to obey some basic principles of social behavior?

How should an anarchy make sure the handicapped aren't drowned in poverty?

 

You haven't commented on the idea of restricting the working hours per worker in order to let the poor participate in production.

Do you believe an anarchy would automatically spread the available work evenly among all available workers?

 

My questions at the end of my first post do not reflect my opinion, those were just meant to give some basis for discussion and show what theories I have been reading about.

 

I personally believe, we will see several further crisis, with or without war, but capitalism will survive, unless a real strong socialist movement captures all governments worldwide and does what socialism was originally supposed to do, which is making the workers owners of the company they work for and have the workers decide what the company should do.

But unless we reinvent borders in way smaller scales than we have today, charge huge import taxes and create real tight laws to protect local wealth from low wages in other parts of the world, there's nothing that can prevent capitalism from outcompeting itself until the whole world is ruined.

After all making the workers owners of their company is still a system based on property and capitalism.

I believe we will for a while longer see a stream of wealth moving from the western world towards the far east, but once wages in China reach a given level, capitalism will move on to Africa, where more profit can be made at lower wages.

I believe the western world will experience a complete collapse of all wealth, up to a point where 99.99% of the population live from food stamps, before the capitalists realize they cannot sell anything after they ruined their customers.

 

I believe gold or any other form of value isn't the solution, because it doesn't improve anything.

Gold is a way to protect yourself from decreasing values of currencies, but it only keeps its buying power, you will be able to buy about the same amount of food for an ounce of gold at all times, but once you spent the gold for food, it's gone.

So once you're out of any other form of income, or if your income isn't enough to live from it anymore, you'll start to eat up your gold reserves until it's gone and then you fall into poverty anyway, which is what I believe western banks are doing right now.

So gold might delay the downfall, it might even be sufficient to help me personally long enough to reach the end of my life, but it will not prevent the collapse.

But then, I don't have the money to buy a lot of gold, so thinking what I could do with it is pointless.

[LibertarianSocialist]

Anarchism is not the exchange of economic power for the power of brute force, it is the negation of all systems of power over the individual which infringe on his liberty and well-being (the limit being the liberty and well-being of others). This is achieved through the dismantling of all unjustified hierarchical power structures.

 

Half the population do not own anything and a rendered powerless due to our current social system, capitalism, where private property allows the co-opting of the real power base, each individual. You see, all strength lies in the working class, the producers. The king is only strong because his soldiers have consented for him to co-opt their power. So too is true of the capitalists and the state.

Social revolution allows the realization that only the producers class creates wealth, holds power. The statesman, the landlord, the manager, all are unable to produce anything at all, and their little pieces of paper and laws, which formerly entitled them to so much of the producers wealth, show themselves for what they are, completely irrelevant.

 

This is not to say a social revolution will succeed, they have failed many times before. The problem when dismantling all power structures is to not allow another to take its place, as happened in the Russian revolution under bolshevism. I agree that capitalism will likely be around until the end of time.

 

For a revolution to be successful then it must abolish all forms of inequality and privilege. Of these the most important are political & legal, economic, and coercive force (military, police etc.).

 

The political and legal aspects are controlled through a decentralized system of local, voluntary, egalitarian grass roots democratic organisations, commonly referred to in anarchist societies as community and worker self-management.

 

Economic aspects are ensured by the abolishment of private property to be replaced by a system of social and personal property based on usage rights (usufruct). This ensures the access of all to the means of production. Communism, as a voluntarily chosen evolution of socialism, ensures all men are able to freely satisfy their need, no matter their productivity, by taking freely from humanities wealth. Either are workable solutions. Usage rights ensure newcomers have as much power as the current owners which they join.

 

Communities control the means of force as they do the other aspects of society, democratically, through non hierarchical organisation of volunteer militias and juries.

 

The idea of protective borders is a big one, of which has caused me real trouble regarding a market-based socialist society. Weaker economies (and class components) given power back in their hands will naturally protect themselves. But we cannot expect stronger economies or classes to refrain from preying on weaker economies or classes. Even a system of socialist production on the market could resurrect class distinctions between countries. The Israeli Kibbutz are perhaps a fairly good example of socialist* protectionism turning into predatory capitalism once in a favourable position of market power. I would say socialism requires protectionism, for itself, and others. Communism surely would, lol.

 

Probably the best way to understand how these concepts have worked in the real world is to look at the best example of anarchism to date, the Spanish Revolution.

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Revolution_of_1936

 

Indeed during this, the workers syndicates simply lowered hours worked per person to achieve full employment. You see, the function of unemployment is to lower wages (hence maximise profits) through artificial job scarcity. Full employment causes a crisis of profits for the capitalist. No capitalist profit motive, no unemployment. (Workers cooperatives within capitalism may also maximize individual profit at the expense of newcomers by essentially becoming worker-capitalists, though the incentive is not as high).