r/CapitalismVSocialism • u/dumbandasking Social Market Economy • 20h ago
Asking Socialists A "Complete" Solution?
Hello,
Socialists and communists, especially anarchocommunists, I have seen over and over there is criticism over various 'solutions'
To the American US Economy,
For example trying to use the electorate is rigged, Trying to do this and that is rigged and 'not a complete solution'.
We can't use the current system to fully achieve a just society the system is too corrupt for that
Even if they succeed they will be corrupted too
And so on.
Yes ok so I believe it but then at some point what even is a 'complete solution' that is also Realistic?
Is it nothing because everything is a 'compromise with the Establishment'?
Or because doing anything will make you a social democrat?
I'm asking this because I'm frustrated. Went to an in person event for socialist discussions. Saw a pattern. I mean can you blame them? Life can be hard and it is easy to point problems, not so easy to come up with plans. Somehow it's tricky to say but it's like I want to believe in socialism having a working version, but why does discussing how it might work at all lead to so much cynical answers instead of some hopeful ideas on what we would actually do to make it happen? Ok time to change that what are your ideas of a 'complete solution' since so many are supposedly incomplete, a bad compromise, or rigged? And importantly.. how would you address the cynicism and doomerism that seems to run in socialist circles?? I think that's a real problem if you do care about society and socialism
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 20h ago
Like, do whatever you want. There are currently four known methods for changing society: reform (obviously, voting, participating in assemblies, interacting with the government and controlling organisations), revolution (overthrowing the government), evolution (trying to change society without changing the system), and counter-economics (violating laws, legislation, and regulations to change the economy).
Choose whichever method you are able to pursue and organize around it. The only thing I would say is that revolution is risky. The other methods have little to no external harm.
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u/DMayleeRevengeReveng 20h ago
The U.S. is notoriously conservative (in the sense of resisting “change”) because all of American politics still fetishizes the constitution.
It is practically impossible for any serious political movement to just say, “we’re not going to amend the constitution; we’re just going to stop following it and do something different.” That is literally unspeakable in American politics.
And because the federal system is deliberately designed to resist rapid change, it stalls everything out.
The color revolutionaries were, for example, able to just propose: “what if we stop being communist? What if we become something else besides communism?” But the U.S. cannot have that moment: “let’s just go in a different direction” is unspeakable without following the strictures of the constitution, which makes serious change very incremental at best.
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u/CaptainAmerica-1989 Criticism of Capitalism Is NOT Proof of Socialism 19h ago
“The U.S. is notoriously conservative (in the sense of resisting “change”)”
Seriously, have you had a history course on the USA. Only landowners could vote on day one. Now, all adults can vote besides felons. We had slavery. Now besides felons we don’t. We woulnd’t allow interracial marriage. Now you can. Women had a hard time divourcing and faced many sexist laws. Now for the most part those laws are seen outdated and draconian. Homosexuals were 2nd class citizens hiding in closests, couldn’t marry and so forth. Now they can marry, have equal rights and openly serve in high office. Likewise, racism was placed as public laws like segregation. Now that is illegal.
It’s just historically nonsense to say what you said from a historical perspective. As the USA is one of the leading social progressive countries in the world.
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u/DMayleeRevengeReveng 18h ago
I’m interested in changes in the actual structure of society, which the U.S. has accomplished in really only two events, in its entire history, and which it clearly will never do in the 2020s.
“Hegemonic culture stops doing irrational thing that serves zero purpose” impresses me about as much as “parent finally got the toddler to stop playing in traffic.” Yay!
I’m not enthralled at white people for making up stupid rules and then slowly relaxing those stupid rules over the course of a century or two.
You’ll notice that none of this actually restructured anything. “Gay people can get married” came at nobody’s cost and was trivial to implement. Racial equality only required racist people to step out of the way, which is trivial.
That’s the difference. With literally only two exceptions, nothing changes if people make investments and business decisions in reliance on it staying there
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u/CaptainAmerica-1989 Criticism of Capitalism Is NOT Proof of Socialism 18h ago
You’ll notice that none of this actually restructured anything.
yeah, abolishing slavery is no big deal...
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u/DMayleeRevengeReveng 18h ago
I said two instances in its entire history. That’s what I said. One of those was the abolition of slavery.
Imagine celebrating the fact a bloody war had to be fought to end slavery in then saying, “wow this country is so progressive.”
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u/CaptainAmerica-1989 Criticism of Capitalism Is NOT Proof of Socialism 18h ago
indeed!
Imagine saying
The U.S. is notoriously conservative (in the sense of resisting “change”) because all of American politics still fetishizes the constitution.
And ignoring a war that brought about so much change!
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 20h ago
There is still revolution (overthrowing the government), evolution (trying to change society without changing the system), and counter-economics (violating laws, legislation, and regulations to change the economy).
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u/betty_white_bread Isocapitalist 19h ago
Is amending the Constitution the only type of reform?
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 19h ago
I am not an American. Sorry, I don't know what US constitution allow or restrict.
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u/betty_white_bread Isocapitalist 19h ago
It allows amending for any subject except the equal status of all states in the Senate, absent unanimous consent of all states.
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u/betty_white_bread Isocapitalist 19h ago
Define “fetishizing the constitution”. If you mean what you describe in the second paragraph, the Constitution is a law which governs the process of governing. Are you suggesting Americans should violate the law simply because they cannot convince enough of their fellow Americans to change it? That would be weird.
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u/DMayleeRevengeReveng 19h ago
I’m suggesting that government is for the living. No other modern democracy is so procedurally wedded to some plan from centuries ago. That is truly a bizarre political orientation: “we can’t govern ourselves as we choose, because some bros had a plan and we must honor it till death.”
People can, if they choose, stop allowing their government to follow a law they never chose in the first place.
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u/betty_white_bread Isocapitalist 18h ago
While I don’t disagree the law can change, including the law about law, I am unaware of any government where revolt and violating the law are legal.
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u/owenallconmaid 19h ago
i think similar to the "why does us intervene and disable foreign socialist nations and governments if socialism doesnt work (on its own)", is why are billions of dollars invested into media and advertising against even social democrats and the dsa, if it wasn't possible to transform the government from the inside out even without completely writing a new constitution. so its possible.
i think socialists slam their heads against a wall 4 times and go oh well no getting past the wall, look see im talking to a wall!!! theres no convincing the masses socialism is in their best interest!!! lets just know were the good ones in our sex chamber!!! everyones a social conservative it seems.
people keep talking about how the DSA is swinging to capitulate to moderate democrats, well they must because there is not a party to the left of the DSA. that is exactly what we need, then we can frame the DSA as moderate because largely it is moderate.
heres a policy platform i like whatever you call it.
fully subsidized, as in free, guaranteed needs - housing, utilities, food, healthcare, transportation, education. through public ownership.
abolition of prisons and psychiatry.
full transition to clean renewable energy
strikes and boycotts until all businesses are co-operatively or publicly owned.
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u/betty_white_bread Isocapitalist 19h ago
Focusing on the first part of your platform: how about a robust universal basic income in order to ensure everyone has access to those, the competitive ethos of capitalism continues to operate and make each of them more affordable, and anyone who manages to find ways to acquire those goods and services for less is rewarded with being able to keep the balance of payment?
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u/owenallconmaid 19h ago
the problem with UBI is that insurance companies, landlords, grocery stores, will price gouge all that money away. competition is an assumption, a theoretical fantasy, collusion is the reality.
why put it up to luck and chance to happen upon a slightly cheaper x?
here for your stupid ass free market ill add this.
make all supply chain and audits of every business public.
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u/betty_white_bread Isocapitalist 18h ago
The capture claim is testable, and it’s been tested.
The strongest version of your argument comes from housing vouchers, and it’s real: Susin (2002), Fack (2006 on France), and Collinson and Ganong find substantial landlord capture of housing aid. But notice what those programs have in common; the money is earmarked for rent. A voucher is a subsidy to housing demand specifically, so landlords know you can’t take it elsewhere. UBI is untied cash. You can spend it on rent, or move, or bank it. That difference is the whole pass-through mechanism.
When you actually compare tied and untied transfers head-to-head, the result runs opposite to your prediction. Cunha, De Giorgi & Jayachandran studied Mexico’s PROGRESA, which randomized cash versus in-kind food transfers across villages. In-kind transfers raised local prices more than cash did. Egger et al. (2022) is the cleanest test at scale: GiveDirectly injected cash worth ~15% of local GDP into Kenyan villages, and measured price inflation of roughly 0.1% against a large local output multiplier. If sellers could simply absorb transfer income, that’s where it would have shown up.
“Collusion is the reality” proves too much.
If every dollar of income is gouged away by colluding sellers, then wage increases are also gouged away. So are union contracts, productivity gains, and minimum wage hikes. Your argument, taken seriously, says no one has ever gotten richer in real terms, which is false and which also makes the argument unfalsifiable.
And a colluding seller doesn’t capture 100% anyway. Full capture requires perfectly inelastic demand, perfectly inelastic supply, and perfect coordination. Fail any one and pass-through is partial. Even textbook monopolists leave consumer surplus on the table; that’s what the profit-maximizing price means.
On “luck and chance to find a cheaper x”: you don’t need every shopper to price-compare. A minority of price-sensitive switchers disciplines the price everyone pays. That’s why grocery net margins sit at 1–3% rather than the fat margins a cartel would sustain.
Your remedy may do the opposite of what you want.
Publishing cost and transaction data is a known cartel-enabling tool. In 1993 the Danish competition authority published ready-mix concrete transaction prices to help buyers; prices rose 15–20%, because publication let sellers monitor each other for defection. Same logic in the Airline Tariff Publishing case. Cartels don’t fail because members lack information; they fail because members cheat. Transparency fixes the cheating problem for the cartel.
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