Path toward socialism
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Humans haven’t got hundreds of years left if they don’t make socialism!
We haven’t got anywhere near that sort of time; I’d say not even one hundred!
For every idea to become reality an operating plan is needed. I think the problem is not much in the support for socialism, as it is having the mechanisms for such a society to function. I am sorry to say but, beyond the wonderful idea, there is nothing to make it become reality. I joined this thread to see what are the plans toward building socialism. I want to actively start building the society you dream of. Here are some points why I say there is nothing concrete on the path to socialism:
- democracy is a very difficult environment to work within. I am an advocate of democracy, I want the society to work democratically but it does not happens naturally. It takes a lot of effort for a small organization to function democratically, but how about an ecosystem with a large number of organizations where personal ego and views on issues conflict?
- cooperatives are the best economic entities to support a socialist society. Even they exist, they never reached a level to make an impact. The total cooperative’s share of economic activity in UK’s economy is less that 1%. It should be at least 10-20% to have a real impact.
- How would you balance supply and demand of goods and services in society? How would you determine who produces what, so everybody can have enough? – whatever solutions you may propose, and I am quite interested to hear them, they would need to be tested in the real world on pilot communities.
The immediate task is understand what socialism is and is not, then to make socialists and become the immense majority. There are no short cuts.
This pamphlet goes someway towards answering some of your points. Here is a PDF Version From Capitalism to Socialism. . . how we live and how we could live
Hi radu62s
To take up your various points…
democracy is a very difficult environment to work within. I am an advocate of democracy, I want the society to work democratically but it does not happens naturally. It takes a lot of effort for a small organization to function democratically, but how about an ecosystem with a large number of organizations where personal ego and views on issues conflict?
We would say a socialist society would be a polycentric society which would operate democratically at different levels – global, regional and local – depending on the nature of the decision to be made. See here https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2019/no-1379-july-2019/socialism-and-planning-what-can-work/
cooperatives are the best economic entities to support a socialist society. Even they exist, they never reached a level to make an impact. The total cooperative’s share of economic activity in UK’s economy is less that 1%. It should be at least 10-20% to have a real impact.
Cooperatives are geared to producing or distributing goods for market sale and as such are subject to the need to secure profits. In other words, they dont actually function outside of the capitalist economy but are part of it. Yes there may be some benefits to workers working in cooperatives under capitalism such as a relatively more congenial working environment and also having more of a say in the running of the business. However, and paradoxically, the more successful cooperatives become, the more they tend to converge with their more conventional mainstream competitors in outlook, organisational stucuture and ethos as the case of Mondragon demonstrates . See for example this critique from Libcom which you can download https://libcom.org/library/myth-mondragon-cooperatives-politics-working-class-life-basque-town
How would you balance supply and demand of goods and services in society? How would you determine who produces what, so everybody can have enough? – whatever solutions you may propose, and I am quite interested to hear them, they would need to be tested in the real world on pilot communities.
Actually, the mechanism for matching supply and demand in a socialist society does not need to be tested because it already functions in capitalism – a self regulating distributed system of stock control using calculation in kind. The differnee is that socialism will dispense with monetary accointing and use only calculation in kind. See this https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2019/no-1380-august-2019/socialism-and-planning-part2-feedback/
Hi Robbo203,
When there is scarcity of several goods and services, isnt the conditions ripe for corruption to creep in? Like engaging in some quid pro quo with ‘friends’ to secure the scarce goods/services that you the allocater of these g&s need.
I know i would curry favour with the ladies in exchange for sex if i had influence over the allocation of those scarce goods & services that are in demand with the ladies… yeah mostly because i dont get much of it 😁.
Subhaditya,
I am not quite sure what to make of the scenario you paint. How you would come to be the “allocator” of these scarce goods and services you refer to, in the first place? That presupposes private property inasmuch as you have the right to exclude others from the goods and services they need at your whim – or include them on condition that they perform certain sexual services for your benefit.
So we are not really talking about a system of common ownership are we? In such a society if you are so desperate for sex you may well find you are gonna have to drop the kind of sexist attitude that regards the “ladies” as a peice of meat that can be exchanged for some good you are in a postion to “allocate”.
Okay, so what happens with the goods & services where demand far outstrips supply? How do you allocate them?
About me being sexist, maybe i am maybe i am not i dont know.
In a socialist soceity i will probably try to get into a ‘free love’ commune like the one the Rajneeshis were founding in Oregon. Heck if i was alive at that time and had the means, i would have joined them.
Nevermind the guru’s inability to stop himself from using the commune’s fund to buy Rolce Royces and luxury watches for himself. Why ? Because his was the only free love commune out there that i was aware of… getting to have sex with hundreds possibly thousands of women without condoms outweighed the failings of the guru haha. Sounds pretty close to paradise when all the women allow you to have sex with them 😉. They even turned a desert into farmland, focussing on sustainable living. Osho might have partly been a businessman, but his people were great.
There are shelves in a distribution store where people will help themselves to what they need and they will scan what they take as is done now. That will communicate automatically when a product is required from the warehouse department to re-fill the shelf. The warehouse logistics software in turn will notify the regional distribution point when it requires re-stocking. Again this is what happens right now. When the regional or central distribution centre requires more orders it goes to the various sourcing enterprises ie the manufacturers or processors or growers or assemblers requesting that it is supplied to replace what has been taken by the consumers. Again this is in line with customary practice. In food, it is called “from field to fork.” That summary may seem over-simplified to you but it is the basic principle which can be turned and bent to fit various circumstances. Overall, choosing what to make and how much to make and where to make it and where to send it, however, are decisions for the community and society as a whole. That’s what meant by social ownership.
You hypothetical proposition that a bureaucracy may arise and corrupt the procedures for personal gain is not very likely because no individual is under any obligation to anyone. No class power or personal abuse of power can arise if it cannot withhold the means of life or restrict access to society’s wealth from those it wishes to subjugate or exploit or take advantage of .
I guess insofar as the demand for certain goods and services that persistently outstrip – which are likely to be on luxury end of the product spectrum because of the way the production priorities of a socialist society are likely to skew the allocation of resources in favour of satisfying basic needs – then probably some sort of rationing will be introduced for these goods and services which will operate alongside free access for other goods and services. There are of course a great many different kinds of rationing procedures one could chose from. I have my own preference which basically involves the grading of housing stock as a criterion for priority access t rationed goods. Its what I call the “compensation model of rationing” (compensation for the some people having to put up with relatively crappy housing for the time being)
The most commonly applied rationing system for non-essentials is simply – “First come – First served”.
But as you say we do have much better means than what was applied by rationing cards in WW2.
Council housing is done by a points system, not perfectly but can be suitably adjusted.
NHS Hospitals already apply a rationing system due to a shortage of medical staff and beds – the more urgent the case the higher priority on the waiting list which is based on clinical need.
This is not going to be one system-fit-all. We do possess a wide variety of administrative structures around the world that have advantages and disadvantages. It is merely a job of adapting and modifying them.
Costas Panayotakis in his book Remaking Scarcity says that the system is fairer when more people have experience in administration, resource allocation positions. Its ignorance of the inner workings of these that enable much of the corruption.
So the thing to do is to rotate these positions with as many people as possible. And never allow anyone too much time to occupy these administrative positions. That way more people will have experience with administration and it would be harder to fool them by the current administrators. Better to have temporary politicians/bureaucrats who return to the pool of common people after their short tenure ends.
We can have career doctors, engineers etc but its better to not have career politicians.
I include answers for robbo203, Subhaditya and alanijohnstone in my reply.
- “probably some sort of rationing will be introduced” or “the production priorities of a socialist society are likely to skew the allocation of resources” support my view there is no working mechanism to balance supply and demand. All expressed are hypothetical solutions. I would love to find somebody interested in working with me to write the rules for such a mechanism, and then test them in real life.
- expecting that people will take from the distribution center only what they need is highly idealistic. If everybody can take home any car wants, don’t you expect that most people will settle for Ferrari, Lotus or alike? Without a “keep in check” mechanism, many people will abuse the system. If I can get anything, why not get a new pair of socks or a new shirt every day to avoid washing them. Actually I know somebody that wears new socks every day, never washes them.
- corruption is a significant obstacle to a socialist community if some leaders need to be selected. Even limiting the time allowed to stay in office will not eliminate corruption. I envision the community to not need politicians at all. The community will function observing a set of basic rules, similar to a constitution, which are rarely changed, and would require popular vote for any change.
- alanijohnstone said: “We do possess a wide variety of administrative structures around the world that have advantages and disadvantages. It is merely a job of adapting and modifying them.” Agreed. Can we elaborate more and have a more concrete plan?
I think the first object will be to decide the structure and the connections of the decision-making networks. Some exist…town and county councils, but others are dormant, for instance parish council. In India the equivalent would be that panchayats. In Mexico’s indigenous municipalities there is a “presidente” or mayor, and “presidentes auxiliares”, who are the highest level authorities in the communities, many of which are remote and located far from the seat of the municipal government. One is municipal, dedicated to the administration of the urban area, overseeing services like education, sewage and potable water. The other is the president or commissioner of communal resources, who administrates agrarian issues, such as communal land, since private property does not exist. The presidentes auxiliares name the police chief and run the town. And up to May they were also the civil registry judges or clerks. They are directly elected by local voters without participation by the political parties, and they tend to be highly respected local leaders who are close to the people.
Then there is the workplace democratic organs. Workers councils factory committees, professional bodies, occupational associations.
Capitalism has already provided import-export experts through their trade groups such as the National Farmers Union.
Then there is the NGOs and international organisations such as the ILO and FAO and WHO
Within the Socialist Party we acknowledge that the people will determine their own means and methods of self-emancipation and that there will be a variety of ways of organising the actual implementation of socialist administration. Although it is not always emphasised enough, we accept that there will be a large degree of diversity in the manner this is done and that we only lay down guidelines that apply to political and social and cultural conditions that we face here. Other places and other communities will have there own approaches, depending on local customs and traditions. Often, we neglect to emphasise this flexibility of principles. After all, we are not anthropologists with detailed understanding of every nuance of social relationships in the world. As the socialist message grows and spreads and begins to incorporate more peoples, it will change and adapt its form to meet and fit specific conditions while still retaining its core tenets. I think many often overlook this and sometimes try to impose a Euro-North American-centric cultural view of politics and society. We should remind outselves that we are not imposing a universal answer and solution to the world and must take notice of the world’s diversity.
Hi radu62s
I think you have to make a distinction between the mechanism for matching supply and demand and the motives of “consumers” in a socialist society with respect to what and how much they might demand
Despite your claim that “there is no working mechanism to balance supply and demand” there must certainly is! The outlines of such a “working mechanism” is already fully evident in the physical distribution of finished goods, raw materials, machinery and so on, between production centres and distributions centres within capitalism today. The mechanism is called a self regulating system of stock control. As the stock of baked beans on the shelf of your local supermarket declines over time this is monitored and at some point when the supply falls below a certain threshold this triggers a fresh order to the suppliers so that stock on the shelves can be replenished. These days the entire process is largely computerised with bar codes and so on to identify particular items. Socialism will make full use of this mechanism. The big difference is that money accounting of any kind will completely disappear from the picture. The only form of accounting there will be is calculation in kind (e.g. how many cans of baked beans there are on the shelf) which is something we already do alongside monetary accounting under capitalism.
The other argument you make really falls under the heading of the human nature argument that is often raised against socialism. You say
If I can get anything, why not get a new pair of socks or a new shirt every day to avoid washing them. Actually I know somebody that wears new socks every day, never washes them.
I for one find your example quite extraordinary. The idea of purchasing 365 pairs of socks seems to be a case of self indulgence on quite an epic scale. I dont know how much socks costs in your part of the world but here in Spain the cheapest pack of 3 pairs might cost 8 or 9 euros in a supermarket. So your friend spends about 1000 euros on socks every year. That is 1000 euros he or she is unable to spend on other things he or she might want. Or is your friend only greedy when it comes to socks but not say, shirts, since her or she is apparently consciously cutting back on his/her ability to buy more shirts? It strikes me that he or she is either enormously wealthy or eccentric in the extreme. Or both
99.99 per cent of people even under capitalism just dont behave in this manner. Have you been to one of those restaurants where you can eat as much as you want for a fixed price? Do you gorge yourself to point of vomiting then start all over again? No of course you dont. Almost everyone easts to point where their appetite has been sated and no more
There is a larger point to be made here. Socialism is not just about bringing the means of production under common ownership. It is also about a fundamental change in values and culture based on the recognition that we all depend on each other. The very freedom that we will experience in socialism – free access to foods and services and free voluntaristic labour – is conducive to encouraging cooperation in a way that is simply not possible under capitalism. You cannot impose socialism from above. People have got to want it and understand what implies. If everyone engaged in the kind irrational “greedy” behaviour you allude to this would jeopardise the very existence of socialism itself.
Would the very people who had striven to bring about socialism want to undo everything they had fought so hard to achieve? Of course not. Ideas do not come from nowhere. They spring from the kind of society in which we live. Capitalism, because of its own inner expansionist dynamic based on market competition, needs to foster ideas that encourage people to consume more – to consume for the sake of consumption itself – since increased profits through market sales depend on this. It also needs to foster the notion that people are inherently greedy and care only about themselves. This is part of its aparatus of ideological justification. It has the effect of atomising and disuniting people and hence disempowering them. Its a case of divide and rule.
Socialism presupposes a fundamental change in the way people relate to one other and a fundamental change in the values they hold which in and of itself render the kind of human nature arguments people now raise against socialism, utterly obsolete
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