The Question of Leftist Framentation

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Cheezy, who said, "To who, by whom?" It's a very anarchist thought. Do you really want to bring up dozens of quotes from dozens of socialist/communist dictators, philosophers, politicians, and professors to show that central planning is a pervasive widespread thought in the ideology?

and the Bolsheviks, the times of agrarian Russia.

I will address these together.

The advocacy for central planning only applies to backwards nations, not industrialized nations like the United States. Central planning was necessary for these countries because they were, for all intents and purposes, pre-industrial, catastrophically ruined by war. They not only had to industrialize, but they had to do it at a pace that allowed them to catch up with the Western industrial powers, whose economies and societies were growing exponentially, which amplified how far behind these nations were. This catch-up was necessary because it was well-believed (and rightfully so!) that the Capitalist nations of the world would act cohesively to crush socialism, because socialism is the very antithesis of them and the societies over which they ruled. Further, its spread threatened their colonial holdings and economic markets, the bricks on which industrialization was built and maintained in the first place. Only central planning and state guidance could achieve this. And socialist nations were not the only nations to realize this need: South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan applied similar methods of state "guidance" in the resuscitation of their economies, and we have seen how wonderfully that has worked.

Where I think the USSR went wrong was that after its spectacular capital industrial growth of the 1930s and 40s, it failed to then free up its system accordingly into the mixed market/planned economy that many socialists think should characterize mature socialism. There were attempts at this, however, by Khrushchev and Kosygin, but they were blocked by the Stalinists who remained in the Politburo, and his successor, Brezhnev, was a man who could best be characterized as a "Stalin lackey," a man who owed his career to Jughashvili and swallowed his example hook, line, and sinker.

But as I have said, and I know that the major socialist organizations, at least in the US, agree with me on this, the US has no need to play this desperate game of catch-up, we have already run through the capitalist phase, and the time of the capitalists is up. We can proceed directly into building the socialist state. So while state planning is indeed necessary for those nations so far behind the ball, and who must go about such things themselves, already industrialized nations need not do this, and I would argue that to do so would be counterproductive.

The times of Marx

False. That is why the first socialist revolution simply abolished hierarchical forms of governance completely. I'm guessing you've never read The Communist Manifesto? Its all anarchistic goals.

Also: Or a nation/society much more advanced than the one we are living in? Why do the social aspects disappear?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What social aspects?

 

[plarq]

For today's advanced economies of the west, neither would be attractive. People keep whining about the bad things of capitalism, yet they're afraid of socialist economy which would mean Stalinist memories, etc. One of the problems: inequality won't disappear, it will just take another shape. By installing a socialist, mixed economy which capital is restrained by laws, the lawmakers who restrain the capital, will become the new ruler of the capital they sworn to restrain, thus becoming new capitalists.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Capital would not be restrained by laws, we are not talking social democracy. Capitalism would be destroyed.

Don't make that old mistake of confusing capitalism with a market economy, or with the "free market." What abolishing capitalism means is that the owners of companies would not be individuals, but rather all of the workers of a company together, and run through democratic methods. Incidentally this means that absolutely nothing changes for one-man operations or partnership enterprises. .

 

[Merkinball]

False. That is why the first socialist revolution simply abolished hierarchical forms of governance completely. I'm guessing you've never read The Communist Manifesto? Its all anarchistic goals. - Cheezy

Capital would not be restrained by laws, we are not talking social democracy. Capitalism would be destroyed. - Cheezy

Put these two together, and add my previous post to the mix, how do you accomplish these goals without the inevitable introduction of central planning? Someone, somewhere, has to arbitrate these ideals. How do you destroy capitalism without someone arbitrarily assigning values to goods and labor?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What social aspects? - Cheezy

Not just social, but economic ones as well. Let's look at the first revolution, why did communism have to "catch up" to capitalist societies in the first place? Why couldn't it have existed in its own ideal little universe apart from capitalist societies? I speak of social issues because the same language (albeit articulated slightly differently) is still used to today, but primarily to build welfare states. Wealth disparity has not dissappeared, you have different goods valued differently, labor is still valued differently, inequality and injustice exists, racism exists, xenophobia exists. All of these things are still prominent features in our society, and socialism and communism are supposed to mitigate all of these problems. But how do you do that without central planning?

We live here in America today in a capitalist society. You, Traitor, and I are all quite smart. Let's pretend that we use our gifts and we start three businesses together. I start an engineering consultancy firm, Traitor starts a farm, and you start up a restaurant. My firm generates revenue to my 100 employees who are mostly masters engineers at about $200 per hour. Your restaurant brings in revenue at about $50 an hour. Traitors farm with government subsidies brings in about $20 per hour per employee. You have a small piece of property that your restaurant sits on. I have 100 acre facility for my offices and research labs. Traitor has 10,000 acres of land for his farm. Then the socialist or communist revolution happens. How do you make everyone equal without central planning? How can a modern economy not transition into communism or socialism without central planning? How do you rid inequalities and social injustice without central planning?

To who, by whom?

 

[pau17]

I'm guessing you've never read The Communist Manifesto? Its all anarchistic goals.

What about this part:

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

 

[Merkinball]

No centralization at all. It's all anarchy. Anarchy are to you. No central planning to see here. Run along now. Take what you've been given. Do as you're told.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Put these two together, and add my previous post to the mix, how do you accomplish these goals without the inevitable introduction of central planning?

Because "the state dictating certain things once" is not the same thing as "central planning."

Someone, somewhere, has to arbitrate these ideals. How do you destroy capitalism without someone arbitrarily assigning values to goods and labor?

Because abolishing capitalism means removing the arbitrarily hierarchical nature of society and, more importantly, the workplace. What hierarchical means here is imposed order, which is different from order created by the people over whom the organization exists. There is no "assigning value to goods and labor," except as they always have been.

Not just social, but economic ones as well. Let's look at the first revolution,

Well you're already wrong, since the first revolution was in France as I said, not Russia.

why did communism have to "catch up" to capitalist societies in the first place? Why couldn't it have existed in its own ideal little universe apart from capitalist societies?

I already told you that. They had to catch up for security reasons. During the Civil War, the capitalist nations intervened in an effort to bring down the socialist movement, and they were certainly going to try again so long as a socialist nation existed. Operation Barbarossa was the "second imperialist intervention," and it very nearly destroyed the USSR; had that massive planned industrialization not happened, socialism would have been exterminated. And, of course, the Cold War after WWII, which sought to, and was successful, at bringing about the end of that socialist regime. That whole Reagan "outrace the Russkies" thing was grounded in a reality: the Soviet economy's first concern was always defense, and while that arm of the economy was strained, the rest of the economy suffered, and inadequate consumer goods were produced, and more demands placed on agriculture and industry which didn't exactly encourage the decentralization of their governance, such that the people remained less than impressed with the way things were going.

And aside from the defense thing, even though Permanent Revolution had been pretty well discarded after the early 1920s, the ultimate goal was to carry the Revolution to the rest of the world and free everyone from the oppression of Capital.

Its also worth mentioning that, until about 1927, it was still believed that the revolution in Russia was nothing more than a holding operation against Capital, and that the real revolution was still coming in Western Europe, where it was theoretically supposed to. The problem was that those revolutions, while they did come, were crushed. The NEP was intended to repair Sovnarkom's economy and ready it for the help in development it would receive when its working-class brothers in Europe revolted and joined together to construct socialism everywhere. Only at the end of the 1920s did it become readily apparent that this wasn't going to happen any time soon, so the Soviets (it was the USSR by now) would have to take measures to develop themselves by themselves in the mean time, and ready themselves for the next attempt to smother established socialism, which came with fury in 1941.

I speak of social issues because the same language (albeit articulated slightly differently) is still used to today, but primarily to build welfare states. Wealth disparity has not dissappeared, you have different goods valued differently, labor is still valued differently, inequality and injustice exists, racism exists, xenophobia exists. All of these things are still prominent features in our society, and socialism and communism are supposed to mitigate all of these problems. But how do you do that without central planning?

You're using the term "central planning" to mean all things done by the government, which is not the case. Central Planning means government planning of the economy, which happens in the absence of a market economy. The government essentially runs the whole country like different branches of a giant corporation, planning the amount of goods to be produced based on data obtained concerning projected consumption amounts. Some capitalist proponents argue that this means the economy has no "input" which is why shortages occur; this is silliness, as I have already explained why shortages occurred in Eastern Europe. But it is also true that corporations do produce shortages as well as surpluses in our capitalist society, and as such a giant country-corporation, if you want to refer to a planned economy that way, those trends might tend to be amplified simply due to economies of scale. So I don't think a totally planned economy with its priorities straight would be bad, but I think allowing the market to work the way that it does can be more efficient, and it should probably be allowed to operate as such in the areas of the economy whose nationalization is not absolutely necessitated, such as banking, health care, defense, and emergency services.

So the tl;dr version is that your definition of planned economy is wrong, and that these things you mention don't require economy planning, its just the government dictating things, which is, well, what governments do.

We live here in America today in a capitalist society. You, Traitor, and I are all quite smart. Let's pretend that we use our gifts and we start three businesses together. I start an engineering consultancy firm, Traitor starts a farm, and you start up a restaurant. My firm generates revenue to my 100 employees who are mostly masters engineers at about $200 per hour. Your restaurant brings in revenue at about $50 an hour. Traitors farm with government subsidies brings in about $20 per hour per employee. You have a small piece of property that your restaurant sits on. I have 100 acre facility for my offices and research labs. Traitor has 10,000 acres of land for his farm. Then the socialist or communist revolution happens. How do you make everyone equal without central planning? How can a modern economy not transition into communism or socialism without central planning? How do you rid inequalities and social injustice without central planning?

The point isn't to make everyone equal, this is a strawman. The point is to give everyone equal access to certain things (like health care), but first and foremost, to give them equal power within their workplace. That means democracy and the abolition of private ownership of means of production.

And, as I explained above, this is not "central planning," since central planning is when the government tells companies what to produce and how much of it, and only allows them to produce that. It is the absence of a market.

What about this part:

Several of those bullets have been pretty well discredited, actually. For example, I don't think anyone is going to dismantle cities and redistribute land among every single person in the country.

But, as you will note, it never says "planned economy" or anything remotely so, barring this specific case:

"5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state."

The first I've already explained, the latter is de facto already the case.

I also suggest you re-read this paragraph:

"When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class."

Then think about how that would apply to "nationalization."

No centralization at all. It's all anarchy. Anarchy are to you. No central planning to see here. Run along now. Take what you've been given. Do as you're told.

Centralization /= central planning. At any rate, that centralization is only temporary, since the ultimate goal is complete destruction of the state. Marx calls it "withering away."

 

[Merkinball]

Because abolishing capitalism means removing the arbitrarily hierarchical nature of society and, more importantly, the workplace. What hierarchical means here is imposed order, which is different from order created by the people over whom the organization exists. There is no "assigning value to goods and labor," except as they always have been. - Cheezy

I am of the opinion that you have this completely backwards. The hierarchy in a free society, particularly in the workplace, is not imposed. In fact, everyone from the lowest to the upper echelons in a free marketplace has the ability to opt out of conditions that they don't like. They have freedom to decide their course of action. Freedom to obtain skills. And at some level, they have freedom to work a choice of jobs. Even the lowest man.

You contradict yourself wildly when you say that the order is created "by the people." That is planning. Whether you are talking about Cheezy Inc, your local village, or a city. All you really end up doing is creating a chaotic Democracy. When you start creating microcosms of "order by the people" how do you account for individual variations? How does one persons idea of "order" hold more weight than another? How does the group decide how a finite number of resources are produced and passed out? It requires planning. You cannot have, let's use Kodak for example, 17,000 people creating their own order within a company.

Well you're already wrong, since the first revolution was in France as I said, not Russia. - Cheezy

That's fine and all. But I wasn't really talking about that. What can I say though, that article is a fine illustration of exactly what I'm talking about. Central leaders rise to the top. Decrees are passed. Inefficiencies introduced. Corruption. Fiats.

You're using the term "central planning" to mean all things done by the government, which is not the case. Central Planning means government planning of the economy, which happens in the absence of a market economy. - Cheezy

Of course, to control the economy is to control everything. Look your France article, they didn't stop at controlling the economy. When you start socializing whole nations, you have to have planning, you have to institute morals. (Such as forcefully creating a secular nation, forcing on womens rights, etc, etc.) You cannot achieve economic ends without dabbling in the social aspects of life.

Some capitalist proponents argue that this means the economy has no "input" which is why shortages occur; this is silliness, as I have already explained why shortages occurred in Eastern Europe. - Cheezy

Perhaps I missed this, and I'll go search again, but why is this silliness? This too is an inevitability. How can a planning board accurately predict the needs and demands of the people? What you end up with is a board that dictates how much a raw resource must be produced. Then they allot that resource across the nation. How is that possibly done without shortages? These standards and allotments are completely static at any frame of time, only to be adjusted at the beginning of another frame of time if the board decides that it's necessary. How does one open a new factory? How does a new industry emerge? How does new technology gain a foothold and not cause shortages and obey the demands of the people? If the planning board has already allotted x production of tin, how can I open up a new canning factory to meet the demands that I see from the people without approval from the resource allotment board? It's utterly crazy to think that shortages won't happen. This is why it is extremely important to keep markets fluid.

But it is also true that corporations do produce shortages as well as surpluses in our capitalist society, and as such a giant country-corporation, if you want to refer to a planned economy that way, those trends might tend to be amplified simply due to economies of scale. - Cheezy

I agree. But it is inarguable that a free market will respond much quicker to shortages and surpluses than a governing body that passes out economic goods. That body simply has no way of instantaneously responding to those demands. Especially when you talk about a whole nation.

its just the government dictating things, which is, well, what governments do. - Cheezy

Well, I don't know about you, but uhhhh... I'm not real big on dictatorships. That's kinda the whole point.

The point isn't to make everyone equal, this is a strawman. The point is to give everyone equal access to certain things (like health care), but first and foremost, to give them equal power within their workplace. That means democracy and the abolition of private ownership of means of production. - Cheezy

It wasn't a strawman. I was under the impression that this is what you desire. I'll take it at face value. The first thing I will challenge you on is the notion that you can have equal access to certain things while keeping free markets in place and not imposing moral authority over the people. You will never, ever be able to create equal power in the workplace. People are not equal Cheezy. People like you and me, regardless of our willingness to support the system we are in, will always have advantages in place. If you keep a market economy, and allow people the freedom to move from one place of employment to the other, then you and I will always have a marketable advantage to find better work and obtain better jobs than a high school drop out or someone with less skills and education. The only you can achieve equal power within the workplace is by empowering people with equal skills. Furthermore, giving people equal power by fiat will be a quagmire for economic productivity. Although I believe that leaders will develop within these places of employment anyway because it's natural for this to happen.

Centralization /= central planning. At any rate, that centralization is only temporary, since the ultimate goal is complete destruction of the state. Marx calls it "withering away." - Cheezy

Marx may call for destruction of the state, history says that central planning is the inevitable conclusion of centralization.

As an aside, well, not really, but kinda. Thanks for posting your historic viewpoint on the militarization and necessity of forced industrialization in the early times of the USSR. It was well explained, and I agree with it.

But let me pose a question. You say that destruction of capitalism is necessary to achieve the ends that you desire. That being a brief centralization period, followed by a withering away of the state until people have equal access and are equally empowered in the workplace. How do you escape the cycle that the USSR faced? Don't you think there will always be people who would view this as a step towards totalitarianism and look to repel it? What about people like me who will actively resist such measures? What happens to the 20% of us?

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

Capital would not be restrained by laws, we are not talking social democracy. Capitalism would be destroyed.

Don't make that old mistake of confusing capitalism with a market economy, or with the "free market." What abolishing capitalism means is that the owners of companies would not be individuals, but rather all of the workers of a company together, and run through democratic methods. Incidentally this means that absolutely nothing changes for one-man operations or partnership enterprises. .

What's your thoughts on Austrian economics?

 

[innonimatu]

Sorry, but I have this issue with how the meaning of some words is systematically abused and twisted, so I have so say something about "free markers".

I am of the opinion that you have this completely backwards. The hierarchy in a free society, particularly in the workplace, is not imposed.

Define free society. If one has to contract out (work for someone else) in order to afford food and other basic necessities, there are constraints. In fact there are always constraints. Freedom is never absolute, there are different levels. From the point of view of any individual actor participating on a society, there most definitely are rules imposed on him, and that is true for the workplace. Sometimes he can walk out or a particular workplace, sometimes he cannot because of other circumstances. Opting out of "work for wages" altogether is also possible, but judging from the popularity of marginal groups (those who opt out but are not right, so heavily condemned that most people feel unable to do such a thing. That too is a social constraint. Not to mention the practical ones like putting food on one's table where there is no "welfare option" available.

In fact, everyone from the lowest to the upper echelons in a free marketplace has the ability to opt out of conditions that they don't like.

No, a marketplace presupposes rules - without rules, the first of which is property, a marketplace cannot even exist. Those depend on the specific circumstances within which a particular marketplace exists. Therefore a marketplace is never "free". It merely offers some choices, as do most things in life.

They have freedom to decide their course of action. Freedom to obtain skills. And at some level, they have freedom to work a choice of jobs. Even the lowest man.

"At some level", so you do acknowledge that there are limitations. The "lowest man", you will have to admit, does not have the same choices, nor as good, to pick from as the "highest man"? The man with the least resources can afford to buy fewer services (and has less influence over other people/social status), so in a market he's much more contained in his choices that the man with the most resources.
So talking of "free markets" with the purpose if plying that they are an instrument of freedom is an attempt to deceive people. Markets are just that, markets. Sets of rules for human interaction. They are most certainly not "free" - never.

It's perfectly fair for you to defend any particular version of markets you favor, but try to avoid abusing the real meaning of words - I know it's difficult, public speech is thoroughly contaminated by this and that creates habits.

 

[Traitorfish]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you actually open a history book and take a look at what actually transpires in socialist/communist nations, it does logically flow. In fact, it brings us back around to the beginning of this thread, which is leftist fragmentation and my original comments on the subject. It logically follows that central planning at a state level will happen specifically because of elements of anarchy and fragmentation. While a great deal of communists and socialists will insist that central planning is not a requirement, it is simply not practical on any level, and history shows this. Else, this world would be full of autonomous communist micro-societies interspersed between the capitalist monolith.

If I were you, I would see fit to examine the logic which draws from the historical tendencies of a particular strain of Marxist thought towards the implemenation of a particualr economic mechanic the conclusion that socialism is inherently inseperable from said mechanic. One may as well cite my tendency to over-cook bacon as evidence of bacon's inevitable crispiness, let alone imply that bacon is an inherently crispy concept.

What good is ideology if it isn't practical? I'm happy to admit that you and Cheezy don't believe in a central planning state. I'm just saying that socialism and communism have an inevitable conclusion OF totalitarianism. It is the only way for it to have any practicality. It's a shame that you guys haven't learned from many prominent socialists in the past that this is an inevitability.

I meant that it was "practical" in the sense that it referred to a common usage of the term "communist"; it remains technically incorrect, in that it does not effectively describe the ideology known as "communism". Technical language, after all, is not a democracy; no matter how many toursits mistakenly described Durham Cathedral, if you'll allow a slightly obscure example, as "Gothic" does not change the fact that it is, in reality, Norman Romanesque.
I'm also wondering where, exactly, you draw the conclusion that socialism, even if we except your assertions as to the fundamental necessity of state-planning, is an inevitably "totalitarian" ideology. Centralised planning is not, however often they may appear to coincide, an inevitable indicator of totalitarianism.

I would like you to explain to me why you think a stateless communist system is at all possible? How does the flow of goods occur? How does production happen? How do you achieve equality considering that some people in some autonomous communities will make much more money than those in other autonomous communities? How can you share the land and means of production WITHOUT central planning? I'm sorry, but it's pure folley once you start talking about whole nations. It would basically require the destruction of a modern economy, and for to piddle along at best.

I was not aware that I was engaged in a defence of anarcho-collectivist theory. I thought I was discussing the definition of the terms "socialism" and "communism". It seems that this conversation has gotten away from me at some point.

Yeah, thanks for driving my point home.

I'm really not sure what this is supposed to mean.

I am of the opinion that you have this completely backwards. The hierarchy in a free society, particularly in the workplace, is not imposed. In fact, everyone from the lowest to the upper echelons in a free marketplace has the ability to opt out of conditions that they don't like. They have freedom to decide their course of action. Freedom to obtain skills. And at some level, they have freedom to work a choice of jobs. Even the lowest man.

Unless, of course, the capitalist class objects, of course, then it's back to the fields for the peasantry and onto the chopping block for poor old Watt.
The very fact that you use the term "lowest man" in this context without a hint of irony illustrates, I fear, how deeply immersed in your society's acceptance of it's own capitalist heirarchy.