Is North Korea an example of socialism?

Miscellaneous General
21

I’m familiar with the idea of a democratic workplace and I’ve always thought it to be silly. Why would workers make good decisions? It is not their speciality. Doesn’t it seem likely that decision-making would be delegated to a few workers that acted as “consensus formers,” gaining themselves hierarchial positions as a result of workers’ apathy

Well to be fair, I feel the same way about oligarchic workplaces. But perhaps you should look up the history of real existing workplace democracies and worker co-ops. Facts will produce more for you than any diatribe I could offer.

Democracy is, by definition, the rule of the majority. It is a system by which 51% of the population dictates what 100% of the population can do

Sorry, it’s not. It could be a 50+1 majority, it could be a 30% (which is quite oligarchichal, but is still using a democratic process, provided it is 1 man, 1 vote), it could be a 99% majority (which is closer to what I prefer; unanamous). What it requires is that decisions are made using 1 person, 1 vote (as opposed to a monetary system wherein it’s 1 person, 0 to 1m votes).

Each individual is free to express his own subjective values through voluntary exchange.

Pure, unsubstantial rhetoric.

If I wish to buy a yellow tie, for example, then I’m free to do so; I don’t need permission from the majority, and I don’t need to wait for an election or whatever. Likewise, if I believe that there’s a demand for a particular commodity and wish to produce such a commodity, then I’m entirely free to do so. Again, I don’t need permission from the majority; I don’t need to hold conferences, public debates, or whatever. I merely need to bid away factors of production from other employments and compete. The market will tell me, through the profit/loss constraint, whether I’m doing a good job or not.

I see nothing in this that precludes workplace democracy. You are critiquing governing bodies, and rightly so. But nothing in this cannot be done with workplace democracy.

What a nightmare that would be. Entrepreneurship would be entirely replaced by corporate politics. Corporate special interest groups would emerge

That may happen. But this is just a slippery slope fallacy.

And this ignores more technical problems, such as the fact that entrepreneurship is inherently risky, and that laborers tend to be, as a rule, risk averse

No, they don’t. They tend to be poor. They take risks everyday; with their health and safety, and with their money just bye showing up to work (they can be fired at a moments notice).

22

Of course you could have multiple factions vying for power, in which case some sort of agreement/compromise must be made by some of the groups in order to obtain the majority position. Either way, this does not support your argument in anyway whatever. Again, individuals, in the market economy, are free to express their subjective valuations. They don’t require permission from the majority and they don’t need to compromise.

But the fact that a pure democracy is ruled by a majority (either one faction or a compromise/deal amongst factions) is entirely noncontroversial. You are free to redefine democracy, but as it stands, you are, once again, entirely incoherent.

Indubitable fact. Only a complete moron could deny something this obvious.

I am critiquing democracy.

It’s called economic theory (analyzing incentive structures). Managerial economics courses go over these sort of situations (usually with game-theory).

American laborers are amongst the wealthiest in the world, not to mention that over half of them are also technically capitalists (they own stock). Many of them are, of course, also land owners.

They earn fixed and periodic payments as long as their contracts aren’t voided. In other words, their income is assured as long as they’re employed. This is not true for entrepreneurs.

These are risks that everyone must face as long as they’re a live. This has nothing to do with capitalism, socialism, or whatever. Also, do you believe that it is some great injustice that workers can be fired? Do you understand the point of a contact; how productive would a laborer be if he knew his job was absolutely guaranteed no matter what (I may regret asking this question)?

23

Of course you could have multiple factions vying for power, in which case some sort of agreement/compromise must be made by some of the groups in order to obtain the majority position

Of course this happens anyway. Only the capturerers of power gain their advantage through arbitrary things like money and nepotism, rather than 1 person, 1 vote.

Either way, this does not support your argument in anyway whatever

My argument is that democracy requires 1 person, 1 vote.

nly a complete moron could deny something this obvious.

And smart people think nothing more than an attack on their opponent’s character will bring them any closer to the truth? Only an evil psychophant would support the free market…/roll eyes… see, I can do this too!

It’s called economic theory (analyzing incentive structures). Managerial economics courses go over these sort of situations (usually with game-theory).

Nice job trying to defend a slippery slope fallacy with an appeal to authority

American laborers are amongst the wealthiest in the world, not to mention that over half of them are also technically capitalists (they own stock). Many of them are, of course, also land owners.

First, does anybody in america really “own” any landed property?
But all that aside, yes, american workers are far closer to being bourgie than many of their counterparts. But they’re still proles. Even with their small share in “ownership” it has only brought them marginally closer to control of the means of production. Part of this is the inherent expansion of capitalism, and that is all well and good. But you can mostly thank revolutionary class struggle for this. In relation to their bourgie/corporate overlords, they’re still poor.

hey earn fixed and periodic payments as long as their contracts aren’t voided. In other words, their income is assured as long as they’re employed. This is not true for entrepreneurs.

And how exactly does this prove they’re inherently risk averse? Plain and simple trying to say workers are inherently, or even tend to be, risk averse is sophistry at its’ finest.

These are risks that everyone must face as long as they’re a live.

Oh, I didn’t realize capitalists were breathing in asbestos and mine dust for 8hrs a day (12-16 hrs or you’re fired, if you had your way). Capitalists are bending over at the back picking strawberries in the hot desert sun all day? They burn themselves on presses, crush their extremities with large machinery, and blow themselves up with dangerous chemicals? Oh… my bad.

Also, do you believe that it is some great injustice that workers can be fired? Do you understand the point of a contact; how productive would a laborer be if he knew his job was absolutely guaranteed no matter what (I may regret asking this question)?

All this (additional) sophistry aside, no. I don’t think it is a great injustice, per se, that a worker can be fired (tho sometimes it is. That’s pretty undeniable). But it is a risk. And it is disingenous at best, and outright dishonest at worst for you to suggest it is not.

24

What the balls?

25

What? Saying “you would know better if you took an economics class” is not an appeal to the authority of economic theoreticians? If you think “you’re stupid” is a valid proof, you have a lot to learn about logic.

But on the other hand, you’ve said the smartes thing in this thread (including my posts); N Korea is a monarchy.

26

I think you can be a little more generous to his simple statement. Perhaps when a man speaks about incentives, he really means to speak about incentives.

27

That’s fine. It doesn’t make it any less of a slippery slope fallacy.

Let’s just be clear that I’m not saying that won’t happen. I’m saying Eusuric is no better at predicting the future than Miss Cleo.

And defending your slippery slope fallacy with an appeal to authority that is at the same time an ad hominem, is not very logical.

28

I like how a cause → effect scenario you don’t like is a slippery slope fallacy.

It’s only a fallacy if he can’t demonstrate why A would cause B. His claim is that B will occur because of economic incentives.

You could state why the economic inventives he cites won’t necessarily cause B, but I guess it’s easier to just pronounce it a fallacy and pretend his statements are invalid.

29

1 person, 1 vote

Of course this means nothing out of some contextual custom that has to be extant. 1 person 1 vote does not discuss intersubjective relations but a “fixed idea” if it is used in any other context. Every word in “one person one vote” falls apart otherwise. Person according to what, biology? It really can’t be, that oversteps the language of that science.

30

This is really mind boggling. I don’t even know how this is not substantiated. Its confirmed by not only reason/logic but just abouy every human action taken as empirical evidence supports Esuric’s point. Denying it is like denying to a physicist that gravity doesn’t exist. Not in theory or in practice.

If your going to argue the point take care in how you do it, otherwise you just sound incredibly silly. Children similarly will also deny and reject reason when they are pouting. Not because they are against reason but because they are just simply pouting and are having a difficult time coming to terms with reality. At some point a child has to grow up and recognize that gravity does exist, and that human action does represent a preference. Action through voluntary exchange objectifies preference.

31

The trick of marxism was to convince people that socialism was to enpower the working class. When i see government workers protesting for the working class, they are actually protesting for more government and more taxation.

32

“The market is, in fact, the very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say labor-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself, and no one troubles himself about the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the preestablished harmony of things, work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in the interest of all.” - Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1.

Not even Marx could deny something so obvious.

33

How are the decisions using 1 man 1 vote enforced in your ideal world?

34

Marx gave a far greater appreciation to capitalism than many modern progressives do.

35

I don’t know about @Laotzu del Zinn, but I don’t see how you would need to enforce 1 man, 1 vote. To prove my case, if you watch Michael Moore’s Capitalism, A Love Story*,* you will see a few US businesses which are democratically run, under the 1 man, 1 vote ideal. It works a charm, and with no coercion.

36

“The market is, in fact, the very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say labor-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself, and no one troubles himself about the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the preestablished harmony of things, work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in the interest of all.” - Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1

Well, I was going to go into a long diatribe explaining the context of that quote from Marx… but then I realized I don’t care. And an appeal to Marx is still an appeal to authority. And that I am not a Marxist, so this particular authority really means nothing to me.

Suffice it to say, Marx does go into great detail on the free labor of capitalism compared to the labor methods of feudalism and slavery. And you should see how he extolls the US North because of this during the Civil War.

I mean, you could have read the chapter before throwing in this superflous quote:

For the conversion of his money into capital, therefore, the owner of money must meet in the market with the free labourer, free in the double sense, that as a free man he can dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity, and that on the other hand he has no other commodity for sale, is short of everything necessary for the realisation of his labour-power…

Yet we know by experience that a circulation of commodities relatively primitive, suffices for the production of all these forms. Otherwise with capital. The historical conditions of its existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It can spring into life, only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence meets in the market with the free labourer selling his labour-power. And this one historical condition comprises a world’s history. Capital, therefore, announces from its first appearance a new epoch in the process of social production…

(This is an aside from the middle of the chapter relating to another discussion we were having:

In every country in which the capitalist mode of production reigns, it is the custom not to pay for labour-power before it has been exercised for the period fixed by the contract, as for example, the end of each week. In all cases, therefore, the use-value of the labour-power is advanced to the capitalist: the labourer allows the buyer to consume it before he receives payment of the price; he everywhere gives credit to the capitalist

Can you still honestly maintain the laborer takes no economic risk?)

Immediately preceeding your quote:

Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labour-power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow them both into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there stares us in the face “No admittance except on business.” Here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall at last force the secret of profit making.

I also have to make note of your, what appears to be, dishonest introduction to that quote. He says

This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man.

Any scholar attempting to be honest, at that moment would have said “(The market) is in fact a very Eden…” indicating that they were changing the actual words to simplify the statement.

Immediately after your provided quote:

On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities, which furnishes the “Free-trader Vulgaris” with his views and ideas, and with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and wages, we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but — a hiding

(Apologies for the mid-text change in format. You guys really need to get a market in here for better software )

37

Zinn, who has to have said something so that you appreciate it and not merely cast it away for being an appeal to authority?

Let me make a brief correction of Marx’s theory:

In every country in which the capitalist mode of production reigns, it is the custom not to pay for labour-power before it has been exercised for the period fixed by the contract, as for example, the end of each week. In all cases, therefore, the use-value of the labour-power is advanced to the capitalist: the labourer allows the buyer to consume it before he receives payment of the price; he everywhere gives credit to the capitalist

Firstly, there is the turnover period, that is the time which the production process takes for the turn-out of the good. There is also the time for the sale of the good. If the capitalist pays the labourer before the sale of the good (and we assume that the capitalist is payed by the purchaser at the moment of the sale), then the former is crediting the latter, and not the other way around. And even if the capitalist does not pay the labourer immediately, that is the most instant moment, after the sale is finalised, there isn’t an exploatation or a credit. This can be explained with analysis of the fundamental reason, because of which the labourer chooses to be employed and not to organize own production, which reason is his relatively higher time preference. He chooses not to wait the period which must pass in order for his own capital to be accumulated, he rather chooses to work with someone else’s capital now, because he thinks that he will be able to satisfy his wants sooner if he does so.

I am not disputing that if the capitalist is contractually obliged to pay the labourer his wage on a concrete date, and he fails to do so, then he is breaching the contract. But this has nothing to do with Marx’s exploitation theory.

38

This 1 man 1 vote thing should replace the price mechanism that we have now, if you read Zinn’s statement (People with different purchasing power). I don’t see how a US business which uses voluntarily democratic polls for decision making to steer the company has anything to do with that, or does overthrow the price mechanisms we currently have yet.

As long as such companies, communes, co-ops or whatever form without force and every member has the right to leave whenever they like I see no problem there. I just say go there and work for such a company or start your own one if you think that’s great.

39

Zinn, who has to have said something so that you appreciate it and not merely cast it away for being an appeal to authority?

“Hazlitt knows better than you” or “even Marx agrees” are appeals to authority. What do you want me to say? “Ok, just stating you’re right makes you right.”

If the capitalist pays the labourer before the sale of the good (and we assume that the capitalist is payed by the purchaser at the moment of the sale), then the former is crediting the latter, and not the other way around.

I mean, you’re free to critique Marx, but perhaps you should read the rest of hthechapter/book. What he is saying is that the “sale of the good” was the laborers “labour power.” The laborer sold his labor power on promise of future payments in fixed amounts once the labor is completed.

This can be explained with analysis of the fundamental reason, because of which the labourer chooses to be employed and not to organize own production, which reason is his relatively higher time preference. He chooses not to wait the period which must pass in order for his own capital to be accumulated, he rather chooses to work with someone else’s capital now, because he thinks that he will be able to satisfy his wants sooner if he does so

Who? Can you name names? You seem to telepathically know their motives, give me their identities. Show me the capitalist with low time preferences. Are there capitalists with high time preferences too? Were I you, I would replace that term “relatively” with “artificially.”

40

Capital is defered consumption (savings). A worker that saves is a capitalist. A worker that doesn’t, is not. He will remain just a worker until he lowers his time preference, i.e. until he creates capital through defered consumption. Yes, “relatively” is right on the money.

I have to ask this after your 1600+ posts here: Are you a masochist?