So, EdT's Syndicalist Britain from Fight and Be Right is probably rather accurate when it comes to "WI Western European countries went communist ?" scenarios. Rather than a narrow and pro-militarist elite of revolutionaries, they would probably be run by a complex web of trade unions with added administrative power.
WI: Socialism failed to take over Russia, but was established in Germany?
So, EdT's Syndicalist Britain from Fight and Be Right is probably rather accurate when it comes to "WI Western European countries went communist ?" scenarios. Rather than a narrow and pro-militarist elite of revolutionaries, they would probably be run by a complex web of trade unions with added administrative power.
tenthring
Banned
Communism/socialism implies particular economic, political, and philosophical premises. I don't see how those don't end in disaster, and the historical record on this is no accident.
When people call democratic center left mixed market economics "socialist" they are engaging in a mutilation of language. These societies don't share key tents of what anyone in that era would have called "socialism" and therefore we shouldn't talk about them as successful socialism.
When people call democratic center left mixed market economics "socialist" they are engaging in a mutilation of language. These societies don't share key tents of what anyone in that era would have called "socialism" and therefore we shouldn't talk about them as successful socialism.
GiantMonkeyMan
Banned
There is nothing comparable because industrialised Germany with perhaps the most organised working class in the world is in no way going to go through the same birthing pains as Russia or China - in fact you cannot compare it to anything in history because no advanced capitalist nation, the nations who already had mass industrialisation, ever saw socialism of any reasonable description, as you so indicate. Without having to force development, Germany wouldn't face the same challenges and see the same failures as Russia who, despite all the disasters, were still the second fastest growing economy in the world, only behind Japan, in the 20s and 30s.
Maybe the problem is that you, a non-socialist, have taken it upon yourself to tell socialists that they're doing it wrong.
Anyways, I suppose another issue is that you're looking exclusively at states that explicitly called themselves Socialist. There hasn't really been a society that billed Capitalism as its raison d'etre, not even the US, so it can be surmised that if we ever got one, it would prove similarly repressive towards alternative economic models and the free advocacy thereof. I mean, to commit your society so explicitly to a particular way of operating pretty much requires that democracy be suspended indefinitely. And by the same token, it suggests that just as Capitalism isn't restricted to states that officially refer to themselves as such (no such states existing), Socialism probably isn't restricted in that sense either.
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Well, I'm not the OP, but if I had to take a stab at it, I'd say that socialism entails public ownership of the means of production. Now, this can mean a number of things, from state ownership (only legitimate IMO if the government in question remains democratic), collective ownership, worker's cooperatives, among other arrangements. What matters is that labor, not capital, directs the allocation of resources.
Now, we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves with theory, here - the OP merely stipulates that a socialist party is elected to power in Germany. Now, we can dismiss the SPD as sufficiently socialistic in this context, since they did take power IOTL. So, some party noticeably to their left. The KPD as we know it was influenced greatly by the Spartacist Uprising, so we first have to ask ourselves if we'd still see that movement without the Bolsheviks taking power in Russia, and also whether they could take power in Germany after that happened. I don't know enough to answer the former question. The latter, I'd be inclined to be skeptical, but the KPD remained a nontrivial force through the 20's, so they could possibly win. Without the rising, they'd still have Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg to lead them, so that's certainly a major change. The other OTL leftist opposition party was the USPD, which did very well in 1920 and dropped off afterwards, with their differences with the SPD gradually dwindling and most members returning to the fold. They may not be leftist enough, so I'm inclined to pay attention to Liebknecht and Luxemberg and see what their ideas were for Germany. Looking forward is problematic since the USSR had an outsized influence on socialist and communist thought from the 20's onward.
Anyone who starts a discussion of economics with Robinson Crusoe doesn't understand economics or the difference between micro & macro economics.
And has never had to choose between paying a bill & paying rent. Or paying rent in full or going hungry. Or "affordable housing" meaning a closet big enough to fit a mattress, a bookcase, space for clothes, a two bedroom apartment with 11 roommates, and pest control consisted of throwing heavy books to keep the rats at bay.
Even cavemen must eat, so they hunt and forage. And yet they have no capitalists. So who's enslaving them? No one. Their biological necessity dictates they must eat.
Modern people also must eat. Most chose to get a job. I suppose they could instead move to forest and hunt a forage for food.
So, all those "evil parasitic capitalists" had done, is to give them another method of survival. And if you compare lifestyle of cavemen and modern men, its clear, we're better of with capialists.
The entire "argument" of wage-slavery lunatics stand on simple lie (or just not knowing better): That capitalists are somehow responsible for biological reality. "Argument" goes as such:
- Slavery is compelled labor.
- The employee working a shitty job is compelled to work that shitty job.
- Thus, the employee working a shitty job is a wage slave.
But you're just using ambiguity of word "compel" to hide the fact that its biological reality, not capitalists who compel anyone. Your argument actually looks like this:
- Slavery is compelled labour.
- The employee working a shitty job is compelled by reality to work that shitty job.
- (Hidden sleight of hand premise) "Your bodily needs compel you" is the same as "entrepreneurs compel you".
- Entrepreneurs compel the employee to work a shitty job.
- Thus, the employee working a shitty job is a wage slave.
A person having to work to avoid hunger (first meaning) is entirely different from a person having to work to avoid being brutalized, kidnapped or killed at the hands of another person (second meaning). You rely on the first meaning of "to compel" (to which we're all subject), to deliberately elicit in other people the emotional response, mental imagery and moral revulsion that normal people associate with the second meaning of "to compel": actual slavery. It's emotional manipulation.
You're just blaming inescapable biological realities on people you hate.
Actual, correct argument looks like this:
- Slavery is labour compelled by another person.
- The employee working a shitty job is compelled, not by another person, but by reality to work that shitty job.
- Thus, the employee working a shitty job is not a wage slave.
Paraphrased from there.
Modern people also must eat. Most chose to get a job. I suppose they could instead move to forest and hunt a forage for food.
So, all those "evil parasitic capitalists" had done, is to give them another method of survival. And if you compare lifestyle of cavemen and modern men, its clear, we're better of with capialists.
The entire "argument" of wage-slavery lunatics stand on simple lie (or just not knowing better): That capitalists are somehow responsible for biological reality. "Argument" goes as such:
- Slavery is compelled labor.
- The employee working a shitty job is compelled to work that shitty job.
- Thus, the employee working a shitty job is a wage slave.
But you're just using ambiguity of word "compel" to hide the fact that its biological reality, not capitalists who compel anyone. Your argument actually looks like this:
- Slavery is compelled labour.
- The employee working a shitty job is compelled by reality to work that shitty job.
- (Hidden sleight of hand premise) "Your bodily needs compel you" is the same as "entrepreneurs compel you".
- Entrepreneurs compel the employee to work a shitty job.
- Thus, the employee working a shitty job is a wage slave.
A person having to work to avoid hunger (first meaning) is entirely different from a person having to work to avoid being brutalized, kidnapped or killed at the hands of another person (second meaning). You rely on the first meaning of "to compel" (to which we're all subject), to deliberately elicit in other people the emotional response, mental imagery and moral revulsion that normal people associate with the second meaning of "to compel": actual slavery. It's emotional manipulation.
You're just blaming inescapable biological realities on people you hate.
Actual, correct argument looks like this:
- Slavery is labour compelled by another person.
- The employee working a shitty job is compelled, not by another person, but by reality to work that shitty job.
- Thus, the employee working a shitty job is not a wage slave.
Paraphrased from there.
If your criteria is getting fed properly, you can check the amount of malnourished people in the US. Also, people didn't starve in the Communist bloc outside of wartime so that argument is a reduction to the absurd...
Regardless of today's situation. The situation in the 1910's was vastly different, with factories exploiting the city poor with limited labor laws (which were often brought by socialists in power after but I digress).
If there is no Marxist Leninist revolution, I'd agree with @Petike and say it would probably be more proudhonist. Proudhon was a syndicalist communist/anarchist so his dieas were about organising yourself at a local level and vote together on what you wanted to do. Then have federations of said unions, union banks and everything.
Even though his style is absolutely insufferable and I do not recommend reading him, his ideas do make a lot of sense. It's the opposite of Leninism with his elite guiding the workers. It's also much more adapted to Western countries who have a critical mass of skilled and educated workers, compared to the masses of the Russian Empire
Not really, because there's compulsion, coercion. Because you either you work in a "shitty job" as you so eloquently said or you starve to death, live in the streets, have no healthcare, no clothes and other basic amenities that make life worth experiencing.
Work is necessary for human survival, yes, but that doesn't mean that the coercive economic exploitation of modern world is part of work. That economic exploitation was added later by selfish humans, it is- in your own words- is not part of biological reality.
And capitalism is not responsible for the increase in quality of life, humans are- because humans use their intelect and creativity, which is inherent to humanity and not capitalism, to find new ways to better their lifes.
By the way, you are the one who is being emotional.
GiantMonkeyMan
Banned
The traditions of proudhonism were just not very prominent in Germany at this period. Much of the trade union movement was tied to the SPD, Catholicism or even conservative or liberal parties and whilst there were the Freie Gewerkschaften, the Free Labour Unions who were not affiliated with any party organisation and usually espoused a syndicalism of sorts, they were in a minority all things considered and were not comparable to the strong syndicalist trade unions of France, Spain and Italy. Due to the war, most of the trade union leadership followed the line of the SPD and passively supported the war whilst any dissenters and organisers of wildcat strikes were arrested or conscripted. Amongst the base membership of the trade unions there were many dissatisfied with the state of affairs and mass mobilisations occurred despite the efforts of the reformists who supported the war and these were mostly organised by the group around Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Otto Ruhle, Franz Mehring and the journal they published called 'Internationale' but they had to organise in a clandestine manner to avoid both reprisals from the state and the reformists. Obviously, these were Marxists and not anarchists and agreed with Lenin on just as much as they disagreed with him.
tenthring
Banned
To the extent that land rents (or their equivalent) are being extracted by someone (capitalist or otherwise) there is some argument to be had over how land rents are to be distributed.
What can't be done is to make the unproductive more productive then they are. This labor theory of value stuff basically proposes that all of the value comes from the laborer. In reality much of the value comes from outside the laborer, because the laborer can't organize production and the organization of production is pretty valuable.
A lot of ink gets wasted of arguing what is and isn't a "land rent". Is a patent a land rent, or is it just an acknowledgement of the value created by the inventor. Probably depends patent to patent. And of course you need one uniform system of patent laws, so there is going to be deadweight loss.
And of course socialism tends not to get rid of land rents, but simply move them around amongst different elites. Much of "politics" is elites fighting over land rents, while maybe throwing a few bones to the patrons that aid them in their struggle.
This doesn't even get into the fucked up problem of running an economy without proper pricing signals, but I digress. Socialism failed for a lot of reasons.
What can't be done is to make the unproductive more productive then they are. This labor theory of value stuff basically proposes that all of the value comes from the laborer. In reality much of the value comes from outside the laborer, because the laborer can't organize production and the organization of production is pretty valuable.
A lot of ink gets wasted of arguing what is and isn't a "land rent". Is a patent a land rent, or is it just an acknowledgement of the value created by the inventor. Probably depends patent to patent. And of course you need one uniform system of patent laws, so there is going to be deadweight loss.
And of course socialism tends not to get rid of land rents, but simply move them around amongst different elites. Much of "politics" is elites fighting over land rents, while maybe throwing a few bones to the patrons that aid them in their struggle.
This doesn't even get into the fucked up problem of running an economy without proper pricing signals, but I digress. Socialism failed for a lot of reasons.
You can run a socialist economy with price signals, but it would have to be a planned economy and Wal-Mart does pretty well with its planned economy.
Socialism doesn't even require a planned economy - the free market and socialism are not incompatible.
I think a number of people posting here are conflating socialism with certain flavors of it - particularly those who are discussing things in the context of 'the elites', 'land rent', and so forth. The basis of socialism is simply that labor owns capital rather than it being privately owned by capitalists. That method of ownership could be owned via workers' communes, labor shares, state ownership, etc. There is no single way to do it. Socialism, as a concept, does not involve itself at all in how investments, production, and distribution are handled.
I think a number of people posting here are conflating socialism with certain flavors of it - particularly those who are discussing things in the context of 'the elites', 'land rent', and so forth. The basis of socialism is simply that labor owns capital rather than it being privately owned by capitalists. That method of ownership could be owned via workers' communes, labor shares, state ownership, etc. There is no single way to do it. Socialism, as a concept, does not involve itself at all in how investments, production, and distribution are handled.
And the United States has an example of it, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which distributes the oil revenues into the general population, which is a form of social dividend.
Think of it this way: we, as a society have decided that employment is a limited transaction between workers and firms - the employee works and gets paid. Maybe some benefits, too, but that's it, no more obligations to the workers on the part of the firm. Investors are treated differently: they sink capital into the firm, and are repaid in distributions - but also, they're the ones who decide how the firm should be run. That's an arbitrary value judgment, and that, more than anything, is what socialism seeks to challenge.
I think of socialism, and syndicalism in particular, as a means of democratizing the workplace. Morally, I think this is just because whereas capital merely invests money into an industry, the workers invest a significant portion of their lives into the venture, and that means that they have the biggest say in these endeavors that demand so much of themselves.
I think of socialism, and syndicalism in particular, as a means of democratizing the workplace. Morally, I think this is just because whereas capital merely invests money into an industry, the workers invest a significant portion of their lives into the venture, and that means that they have the biggest say in these endeavors that demand so much of themselves.