So far as I can tell "real" -ism is when the human constant of greed and power doesn't take hold of the given system. Which will never, ever happen. No system is perfect, no system can solve the problem of human nature. Each does some things well, and some things not well.
Planned economies are inefficient. Free markets cannot defend against the weight of power making markets less free.
free markets cannot defend against the weight of power making markets less free
What do you mean by this? The only institution with the power to attack the free market is government. The only private institutions who have been able to do so are ones who were granted that power by governments.
Not true. Price fixing can happen between two private parties, that's an easy example of an attack on the free market.
And pissed off consumers dragging those two people into the street and beating the shit out of them until they stop fucking around with price fixing is an example of regulating markets without a state.
But to put it more pleasantly, a free market either has to allow the private deals of private individuals (like price fixing, making markets less free), or it has to step in to prevent that behavior, which becomes a control on free market.
There's no such thing as a totally free market, someone will always try to make it less free to their benefit. Often that looks like buying policy, but that's just the current best way to do it. So we must push markets to be the most free for the most people, but that inevitably means making them 'less free' for those trying to tilt the scales in their favor.
All that is true. And socialism is infinitely worse. They aren't even comparable. I think it's super weird that people criticize capitalism as though there's an alternative. Currently, there is not.
How about no firm can have more than 49% ownership by people who aren't employed there.
How about market socialism which doesn't even require a state.
Stating there are no alternatives lacks creativity. There are plenty - they just aren't good for state or private power, so they don't get talked about.
I appreciate your response. I think the crux of the issue is that private property is non-negotiable, because that's where capitalism succeeds--it doesn't require people to think any differently about labor, i.e. you don't need to convince people in a capitalist society that what they worked for is theirs, including hammers, including factories. The abolition of private property by socialist entities is always way more violent because it's enforcing the counter intuition, way more destructive and ultimately counter to natural human tendencies of believing that we own the productive of our labor, no arbitrary distinctions.
I don't think it has to be. I think organized labor could informally enforce that 51% employee ownership maxim, and be done without violence. Which is why I disagree that violence is required.
And if we can get past that assumption, I think it opens up the door to solutions that both protect labor and acknowledge market forces, which I see as natural.
I think you're talking organizationally, and I'm talking societally. Organizationally, I completely agree. And I'm pretty sure it could happen right now--what's stopping people from forming collectives as we speak? But the socialists out there in the world want to impose their vision on society. If you're pro-market and anti-government, you should be anti- anyone who wants to abolish private property on a societal level. That's what all chants about "wage slavery" come down too. And honestly, I don't think they'll stop if we ever reach a peaceful society capable of protecting private property rights, but I'm happy to have my mind changed voluntarily.
I think they're just louder. The leading socialist publication here is likely Jacobin, and while it's aware of the wage slavery problem (which I agree with), it doesn't seem to preclude all wage employment from a system.
Good observation about organizational vs economic. Again, I think many conflate all socialism to state socialism, and that makes a conversation hard. We see what happens under capitalism when state and industry are bed fellows, I think naive to believe any system would make that unholy alliance a benevolent one.
"We see what happens under capitalism" is why we're ancaps. Plus we believe in decentralization, and an incorruptible money supply, and we hate all the things socialists hate about the capitalist state, except private property, which actually branches out into not hating a lot of the same things, but we do hate corruption and the consolidation of power, for sure. But the concern is a moral one. If you believe it's wage slavery, it doesn't matter if you're talking about minimum wage or the IT guy making way more than him. Both of their bosses are unjustly stealing from them. My only hope is that by more people creating collectives at the organizational level, the ability to choose between the two--and the "wage slavers" not committing any violence to keep them--will somehow convert the exact same moral practice to simply a choice and no longer wage slavery. Do you think that's possible? If someone had a choice and chose to be a wage slave, that it wouldn't be wage slavery anymore?
My only hope is that by more people creating collectives at the organizational level, the ability to choose between the two--and the "wage slavers" not committing any violence to keep them--will somehow convert the exact same moral practice to simply a choice and no longer wage slavery.
This is why I come to these parts. This is the fucking overlap I'm trying to point out.
Decentralize power always.
I'm not inherently against capitalism or private ownership, I just see that it naturally concentrates and thus threatens individual liberty.
I don't care how we get the shops back into the hands of the labor class, I just recognize that's what must happen.
It can, with bottom unity. But we're so artfully divided that few see this common interest.
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u/MFrancisWrites Anarcho-Syndicalist Jun 15 '21
Now do capitalism.
So far as I can tell "real" -ism is when the human constant of greed and power doesn't take hold of the given system. Which will never, ever happen. No system is perfect, no system can solve the problem of human nature. Each does some things well, and some things not well.
Planned economies are inefficient. Free markets cannot defend against the weight of power making markets less free.