Re: Socialism: A Hypothesis of Working Conditions

Zeborah wrote:
James A. Donald <jamesd@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

David Friedman
But a group isn't a person, so a group doesn't have intent. Individuals
have intent. You haven't, so far, been willing to say how individual
intent converts into what you think of as group intent
Zeborah
You haven't so far been willing to say how rainbows are formed. Not
that I've asked you to, but apparently this is irrelevant.
The problem is that we have no good means to convert individual intent
to group intent - therefore if the group makes decisions about the
individuals life, these decisions are apt to be harsh on the
individual, limited only by the power of the group over the
individual, which power in socialism is enormous.

I'm currently pondering the idea of constitutional socialism.

It's true that it's in the interests of The People to condemn Mr Smith
to slave away on the farm to feed them. OTOH, it's against the
interests of each person to live in a society where he or she might be
condemned to slave away on a farm to feed The People. Therefore it's in
the best interests of each person to agree that slavery etc should not
be under any circumstances a permittable action of the state, and I
think it would be fairly straightforward to achieve consensus on this.

(It would also be fairly straightforward to achieve consensus that an
exception be made for [insert despised minority here]. However if a
group wanted to convince the population at large to permit such a thing,
they could do so in a regular democracy too, so the problem is not
unique to socialism and is therefore beyond the scope of this thread.)


I think the problem with that is that socialism asserts the primacy of the pack, whereas individualism's default case is that every cat does their own thing. Therefore, even if somehow not captured by the Chief Wolf and his Council, socialism is inherently prone to squashing the individual in the interests of the latest Big Idea.

What you really need is a school of propaganda -- and successful example, leading to reputation, is always the best kind! -- which promotes *both* voluntary civic-mindedness *and* a bolshy unwillingness to be trodden on. My Darkling Commonwealth is an instance of a grievously unsuccessful attempt to achieve this, and was partly inspired by the tone of some of William Morris's fiction. Katj is both heroic and dangerously conflicted because she is very much what Commonwealthers are supposed to be, instead of what they are mostly required to be, and she has a lot of trouble acknowledging the difference or the contradictions.

A fictional instance is the weakest kind of successful example, since it suggests that the proposal can at least be imagined in more or less convincing detail. Perhaps a good rollicking yarn set amongst the Social Cats, by somebody more sanguine about the prospect (and preferably a better writer too) than I, would be as good a first step as any.

So much for tyranny.

That can more clearly be mitigated by leaving an exit, and/or renouncing the initiation of force as a means of planning. If the socialism is really a tool for doing good stuff, rather than a religion which trumps all other potential good stuff, then one of its main requirements is also an exit condition -- that is, a *collective* exit strategy in case it stops working, or never starts. Since its proponents believe that it will work and be popular, they ought not to have a problem with that either.

This leaves the problem of famine.

Now, most attempts at a socialist state that I'm aware of have begun in
poor countries and have been achieved through violence. This is not a
promising start to any new social order, even democracy and capitalism.
It's hard to build a state and an economy from scratch, especially if
you're already hungry and afraid of bloodshed.


Granted.

So, what if we instead start with a rich and peaceful country. One
which already has schools and hospitals, farms and supermarkets,
factories and museums, all set up and all adequately staffed. And say
after much propaganda(*), we hold a referendum (does the US have such a
concept as a binding referendum? New Zealand does and has successfully
used it to change our political process) in which it's decided to
peacefully rewrite our constitution such that the country is now
operating under socialist rules (in which slavery etc is not permitted)
and to do away with money and property.

(Let's posit some basic rules such that no-one may take anything that
some person is holding or is interacting with. Thus, if I'm sitting on
my beanbag watching TV and typing on my laptop, no-one may take these
things. The definition of "is interacting with" will need to be tweaked
a great deal to allow people to start a jigsaw puzzle, go away for a
reasonable length of time, and come back to finish it, but this is not a
problem which interests me so I leave it to those who care.)


I think this is a big Underwear Gnomes moment, personally.

Suppose, frivolously, that everybody has one personally-keyed rope which we might call an 'oxhide'. They can put that around anything not already enclosed, in any shape that the length will bear. It can be moved at will, but only by them. This is not exactly ownership, but no uninvited persons may meddle with anything enclosed -- sort of a portable right of privacy. Hides can be chained to create a circuit by co-operating groups, for as long as all the owners stay in. Non-enclosable areas (commonhides?) can be pre-marked by collective decision.

For added fun, allow cyberhides also.

If you don't have at least that much privacy/quasi-property, I'm pretty sure that you don't so much have a society as an ongoing mass brawl. That is not the sort of thing that normally engenders community spirit.

Now, institutions 'know' where their supplies have been coming from and
their products have been going to, so they can carry on like this.

See my answer to David about the possible effectiveness of socialism in static societies. The trouble is...

The
problem is keeping these institutions sufficiently staffed to be able to
keep running.

....not that, but the fact that you're living on your informational capital. The information bequeathed by capitalism is rapidly going to grow out-of-date, and the more complex your society, the quicker it's going to do so. So you need corrective resource-allocation signals, too. One place these could come from are all the neighbouring socialist (or other) societies which have different plans and tastes to your own, and have therefore not elected to join your collective -- so, as a collective, you are presumably trading with them in the traditional manner.

Otherwise, you may keep everywhere sufficiently staffed to keep running all right -- but keeping them all running, and in the same way as before, might turn out to be a very bad idea indeed.


My guess is, Monday morning some people turn up at work because they
actually enjoy their work. Some people turn up because propaganda(*) or
their own inclination has convinced them it's necessary for society.
Rather more turn up because they want to gossip around the water cooler
about how socialism is going to affect the rugby this season. Some take
the day off because they can. And some complete strangers turn up
because they've always wanted to work in a [library|paperweight
factory|shoe store] and/or because propaganda(*) or their own
inclination has convinced them that they're needed to make sure the
[library|paperweight factory|shoe store] keeps running.

Let's throw in a giant wiki so that those institutions which have fewer
staff than needed can advertise vacancies, and those individuals who
want to work somewhere useful to society can check where they're most
needed.

Now, the problem comes down to the (*): propaganda:
a) what kind of propaganda could convince people to vote for a
socialist society; and particularly
b) what kind of propaganda could convince people in a socialist society
to keep working?

Or put b) this way: imagine you're in a country which, against your
better judgement, has voted in a binding referendum to become a
socialist society. Imagine that patriotism or the love of a beautiful
woman or some such are keeping you in the country. You'd much rather
have democracy but you're stuck with things the way they are, and so
it's in your best interests that as many people in the society as
possible want to keep working so that the supermarkets keep producing
food, the hospital keeps healing people, the electricity and the
internet keep running, and the schools keep keeping children off the
streets.

What would you say to convince them?



Possibly slightly against the spirit of the question, but pretty relevant anyway:

"This is a crock! We are so screwed. We have just turned ourselves into the biggest and most pointless conglomerate in the world, and it is not going to last. It is going to go smash. But...

"There are two ways this can fall down -- the hard way, or the soft way. The hard way, there will presently be starving and blackouts and rioting, and then goodbye to socialism and civilisation together. Maybe we get anarchy, maybe we get a Kim Il Bob to 'save us' from the emergency, maybe some kindly neighbour intervenes and occupies us out of the goodness of their hearts. No, I don't think we can afford the hard way.

"Suppose, though, that most people 'do our bit', putting in the best we can with as little change to our previous course of action as possible. That will hold for a little while. Things will still get perceptibly worse, because this is a really dumb way to run a railroad, but not *desperately* bad all at once. People will have time to get uncomfortable before anything too important irrevocably breaks down.

"Then those of us who saw this coming start collecting signatures to trigger another binding referendum, to restore the _status quo ante_. Since The People have now enough experience of socialism that they wish it to stop before they actually start starving or watching the constitution fail under stress, we win. We are all now poorer but much wiser. If we are really lucky and work really hard and smart, we might even get a fair few of our toys back.

"Should I be completely wrong and the new system catapult us into the Earthly Paradise instead, hoo-bloody-ray, and we won't even have been doing anything to impede its so doing. Memo: I'm not going to be holding my breath.

"It is, of course, tempting to defect at the outset; but that means leaving behind a lot of people and things that I love to the mercies of folly, famine, and probably Kim Il Bob come smash-time, and somehow I can't quite bring myself to do that while there's still some hope that a holding action might buy them time to pull up short of the abyss."

That is, I think, something like what I might say, if I were the sort of romantic to whom (b) is addressed. I don't know that I am. I suspect I'd more likely sell up once I saw a serious chance of the referendum going against my side, and get the hell out for the best place that would have me -- along with anybody I cared for whom I could talk into it. For the rest... well, maybe I might be in a position to offer some of them a bolt-hole, by and by.

My inclination to skip would be seriously increased by my native disbelief that any government would really surrender as much power as your constitution suggests it would; and my consequent suspicion that a proposed constitution such as you might vote for would bear small relation to such a _de facto_ constitution as you might be surprised to find yourself getting. So I would probably get, myself, whilst the getting was still good!


--
Cheers,

Gray

---
To unmung address, lop off the 'be invalid' command.
.

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