Socialist Party

Ronald, if you stop by SPSL Headquarters/Library, I have some works by Chomsky, Goldman, and others that provide a viable plan. For me, the work that made the anarchist ideal click was Anarchist Morality by Peter Kropotkin.

There are few times that libertarian socialism/council communism/anarchism has been applied to a real situation. The widest scale example if Spain in the 1930's. In Catalonia about 75% of the economy was put under worker control, and similar numbers were common around the country. Government essentially became irrelevant and democracy was in the hands of the people. Unfortunately, Stalin saw the Trotskyite tendencies of the Spanish leftists and decided to give support to Franco in establishing fascist Spain.

In modern times, the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico have lived without any government for over 10 years. The peoples, instead, are organized into unions and community groups that work together in a federation. However, authority is decentralized so that one group can't manipulate or repress another group. The EZLN is a very peaceful group, and has only used weapons once (and it was in self defense).

Neither of these implementations are infallible, but they are a model for others to improve upon.

I think the Lindens would probably prefer if we kept this thread to inworld relevance, but I'm more than happy to discuss or debate with anyone who IMs me.

As I've said, I've read works by Chomsky and Goldman, and honestly did not feel impressed by either. Chomsky especially seems to be pulling credibility from one field (computer science and linguistics) to assume a position of authority in a field he doesn't really understand. He offers a lot of criticism of capitalist and western society, but does not actually offer solutions.

He's also pretty much a hypocrite, as the majority (if not totality) of his academic career was funded by the US military.

But, this is neither here nor there. I'd be interested in reading some of those works.



I'm familiar with what happened in Catalonia, however it's worth noting that they did not really implement libertarian socialism, or anarchism... That was what they originally offered, but it's not what the people actually got.

In "The Blood Of Spain", Fraser demonstrates a major abandonment of libertarian principles, by talking about how fascists were being shot, and how both spontaneous and forced collectives existed. Forced collectives aren't very libertarian.

I found this little link that talks about some of the problems of the Catalonia experiment.
http://jim.com/cat/blood.htm

Not exactly some rock solid source, but it can point you to other sources, some of which I've read before so I can confirm that it's not just some whacko making stuff up (although some of it might be. )




Again, I'm familliar with the Zapatistas (They're a pretty famous movement, and one that has leveraged the internet greatly). The first sentence of the part I quoted though, is what I believe to be a mischaracterization.. They most certainly do have a government, it's just more distributed (which you yourself mention in the following sentences).

Also, I do not believe that the Zapatistas are going for communism or anarchism. In actuality, I believe that they have taken great pains to distance themselves from such political ideologies. They are more concerned with gaining autonomy for southern mexico, as they feel they are being exploited by the central mexican government.

They're pretty cool though, as I respect groups who use peaceful resistance.



Well, I think it kind of has in game relevance, as there are certainly aspects of such systems that would lend themselves to a world where fundamental elements such as food are not required, and there is no limit on resources.

I've heard of some of the problems surrounding the Spanish Revolution, but most of the authoritarian/forced unions were the result of Stalin's influence in the region.

As for the Zapatistas, Subcommandante Marcos has described his group as anarchist/socialist, and they're economic model reflects that. However, they don't have a government, at least in the traditional sense. They have an anarchist state (called the Junta) which is based purely on free association and democracy. Its function is purely a system of organization for the different groups - it doesn't dominate or serve it's people - it empowers them.

And that adjustment may work very much against us.

Prices will drop when and only when companies have no other choice. For example, when our entire clothing industry was outsourced to other countries, how much did the price fall on say a pair of Levi jeans? Nike shoes? Nautica shirts? Lets see... How about 0%. Why? Because those companies simply pocketed the difference in wages as profits rather than pass it on to the customer as lower prices. It was their perogative, but that short-sightedness will lead us to another depression if we are not careful.

As for the laid off textile workers, the rest of the economy was able to absorb them (hopefully) and they were a rather small number when compared to the total population of workers. However as this spreads to more and more industries, our economy will be less and less able to absorb them.

Lowering wages need to lead to more than low inflation. For example if your salary drops by a third, then the prices of goods need to more than only just go up a little. Prices will need to drop. And that on a large scale, my friend, is unchartered economic territory.

As for fighting it, we won't only because we have given up or are cowards. This spineless, "We can't do anything about it." sniveling has got to stop or this country is in for a world of hurt. The things we have now: wages the envy of the world, the 40 hour work week, vacations, overtime, worker safety, legal rights, etc. were not given to us because company owner or CEO decided to be "nice". Companies end up prospering when workers have disposable income, they can buy lots of things. But companies resisted that for the longest time. Also, people like spending time with their families and not working 10-16 hour days. And people like working in buildings that aren't firetraps. I can't understand people that want to have a shittier life than their parents and have their kids have a shittier lives than their own.

If we want to see the future of globalism, check on the average worker China and Mexico. If you get sick or injured, you get tossed by the wayside.

No, the 80's big fear was the loss of the auto and steel industries in midwest and east coast. In some areas, they still have not recovered to this day. It's just the people there have grown older, the towns have slowly shrunk, people have moved and people eventfully forget. The fear of the loss of manufactoring is still current events. It is very valid worry for our own government. Congress was recently discussing the fact that we make very little of the high end technology that goes into our military and commercial industry. But how many Americans are spooked away from the fields of computer science and engineering knowing it is very easy for the job to be outsourced. Tough spending $12,000 to $30,000 and upwards on an education and not knowing if you can get a job.

As for those service based jobs, how much do those service industry jobs pay compared to the jobs they are replacing? And you do know those jobs are even easier to outsource than manufactoring jobs unless it is for something like picking up garbage. America has to be more than everyone working at a mall, buying stuff from other people's malls.

Before the collapse of the auto, steel and manufactoring industries, you could graduate from high school and get a decent middle class job. We outsourced those jobs and told ourselves a lie, "You don't really deserve a decent income unless you have a college education." How long till we tell ourselves, "You don't really deserve a decent income unless you have a master level education."

I see you are not a betting man. 1950's were the end of WWII. Our economy had just changed from a war time footing back to a civilian one. Construction was booming to build houses for all returning GIs. People were able to spend freely after the rationing of WWII. GIs using the GI Bill to attend college. Colleges booming to offer education to all these student. The 50's and 60's were the golden age of the American middle class.

And many people fell inbetween the cracks. They died in the alley where they crawled one night and that was it. Also what about the elderly that have (unfortunately) outlived their kids and have no one to support them or their children do not want to support them? Tough luck?


You might want to check on the life of a Russian peasant before thinking it was milk and honey before the revolution. People revolted because their situation was that bad. (Plus, Russia's disasterous fortunes in WWI.) Unfortunately, dictatorial Bolshevik elements in the Russian revolution took over and that was that.

"Because the infrastructure was tied to the capitalists." I can barely read that and keep a straight face. You do know that rural Russia was barely out of feudalistic economy at that point? Nicholas II was trying to modernize Russia and elevate the peasants, but as often said, "Too little, too late." But to be fair, he was unfairly shouldered with a near impossible task.

I'll get back to the meat of your post when I can Noel, but I wanted to address this part quickly.

I fully recognize that the majority of Russia was essentially still a serfdom... However, that being said, they DID produce a huge ammount of food. They did have a very strong agricultural economy.

Obviously, it was not milk and honey, as happy people tend to not want to revolt. However, it was a prime example of the cure being worse than the disease (which was why I decided to pick this example).

Life in the Soviet Union was far worse than life in Russia prior to the revolution, at least based on the descriptions of friends I have who lived there, and familly members who lived in areas of Poland and Lithuania.

They took one screwed up system, and essentially traded it for another system that was screwed up even WORSE, albeit in completely different ways.

Although I don't think anyone still tries to argue that the Soviet Union "wasn't that bad". Folks who make such an argument tend to not know anyone who had to live in it. I don't think we need to dwell on one of the major failures in history.

The smaller scale implementations of such ideas, such as those that Lenin (the SL Lenin here) posted about are more interesting, because they didn't result in total destruction of the societies involved. They still had problems, but I think they might be more useful as they might be "patchable", rather than just saying, "Well hell.. that's all hosed."



Like I said, I'll try to address the rest of your stuff later this weekend sometime.

Sometimes arguing with an ardent supporter of either capitalism, communism or socialism is like arguing with a priest.

"If you are doing well, it due to God (or market). If you are doing poorly, it is your fault."

Russia had not westernized at that point and was still pretty much an agricultural based economy. So, it is not suprising that their biggest product was food. But they produced what they did in spite of the serfdom and not because of it. Feudalism is not the most efficient economic system.

Such is the nature of revolutions. You don't know what you will get in the end. That is why people undertake them when they have no other choice.

The only people that would make such the claim would have been people that used to be power in Soviet Union. Which is the norm for groups in power.

This is certainly true. Essentially, feudal systems are probably closer to a totalitarian communist system than western capitalist societies. All property is held by a mini-state in the form of the land owners.

It's not efficient at all, but it's more efficient than taking it all and putting it under the control of ONE big land owner in the form of the state.



It's a good reason to think about the system you tend to implement before revolting for it.



I once knew two guys who lived in the soviet union.. One guy was trying to argue that it was perfectly fine, and that all notions of it being bad were just American propaganda. Then my other friend, who lived in the soviet union himself before the wall came down asked the question, "Were you Party?" and the answer was (after a bit of digging) yes.. So, if you were in charge, the soviet union was great. If you weren't, then things sucked REAL bad for you.

Ok, time for more answers to your longer post, as I promised.



I think it was mainly due to the fact that they were not essential items, and they constituted only a piece of the entire system. The rest of the system was essentially able to keep the original prices up.



Ah, but I don't think salary is going to drop by 33% over night. I predict a more gradual drop over time, which can be countered by things like low inflation over a period of years.



But there's no way to fight globalization. People in other countries WANT all that stuff that we have.

And, eventually, they will have it. We won't all simply live crappy lives. The standard of living in those other countries will come UP.

Currently, there's a massive disparity in the living standard of Americans compared to pretty much anywhere else in the world. Through globalization of the economy, this is bound to change. I don't see how we could possibly avoid it. We can't tell people in India, "Sorry.. You don't deserve any of these things, because you're not American."



That's not the future.. that's an intermediate stage. The same thing used to happen in the US.

The reason they put up with it, is the same reason that people in the US used to put up with it.. Because working in a crappy factory for low wages is still the BEST option they have. They choose to work there, because it's BETTER than their previous options.

But as things progress, they will eventually demand the same things that we do. The system won't just drop to the lowest (current) common denominator and stay there... The standard of living for Americans has consistently gone up throughout our history. There's no reason to think that the same progression won't happen in other countries.

What will most likely happen, is that the standard of living will even out some, going down in the US, and up in other countries for a while. Then it will equalize, and start progressing evenly (relatively) throughout the whole system.



Yes, but it didn't kill our economy.. We moved on. It's not always pleasant, but it's how it works. At one point were were all farmers.. but we're not now. A lot of farmers lots their farms throughout that transition. But what's the alternative? Stop all progress, and just keep things as they are? That's not possible, and it's not something we should even want.



Well, those people are kind of foolish. Outsourcing in the tech field (which is my field, by the way) is not what the chicken littles of the world are claiming. It's not widespread outsourcing of all computer jobs. It's usually outsourcing of the bottom of the skill ladder. Things like help-desk, and basic programming. Usually software designs are done in the US, and outsourced to a place like india to be coded.

If you have a solid CS degree, this isn't a threat to you. A computer scientist has more to offer than fixing your computer, or writing code to a specification.

For instance, I work with artificial intelligence for a living. I do behavior modeling, and knowledge capture. I'm not outsourceable, because I possess more than mechanical capabilities. My job involves creativity and complex problem solving. I'm good at what I do, and I can't be replaced by simply another body.

This is where I think the US needs to move its economy if it wants to preserve its standard of living.

I don't really see any other option.. If someone in China or India is able to do my job just as good as I can, for a fraction of the cost, how can I seriously suggest that I'm the better choice for an employer to hire? Those guys in India work hard for their money, and they deserve to have a chance to compete.



Is that bad?

I mean, it means that there's major incentive to become more educated. This seems like it's a worthy goal for our society.

My grandfather, for instance, was a high school graduate. He worked at a GE plant for most of his life. He was most certainly not a stupid man by any stretch of the imagination, but he was not what I would consider well educated. He certainly COULD have been, if he had chosen that path. I have no doubt that he could easilly have learned anything he wanted. But he didn't, because he saw no reason to.

By saying you need to have a college education to get a good job, we now have a lot more people who have college educations, and I think that's good.




I'm not really sure what you're looking for here. Certainly the welfare system helps lots of people, and tries to prevent people from falling through the cracks... I was merely pointing out that the existence of that system most likely produces some of the degeneration of american society regarding caring for our fellow man.

If you're alone and you see someone get hurt, you're much more likely to help them than if you're in a crowd... because in a crowd, everyone tends to think, "Someone else is surely gonna help that guy, right?"

I'm not arguing that it needs to go away.. I'm just pointing out this aspect because you mentioned it.

Had their revolution been successful, their Soviet style democratic based goverment would have dealt better with this. I think the original plan was that local democratic committees would control local food production. Basically, the serfs would be in charge of food production. It was something they were doing already under the autocracy, but now they benefit directly from it.

Meaningless. There was nothing overly wrong with their original democratic design. The communistic economic aspect of it was never tested as the government just didn't last long enough. The Bolsheviks overthrew it too quickly during the civil war that followed the revolution. So, it didn't fall apart because of economic reasons. George Washington could have seized control of Congress and crowned himself king with the aid of his troops without too much resistance. There was nothing preventing him from doing it. Many people probably would have welcomed it. After all, they were already living under one monarch. We are just lucky he didn't. But then again he may have made a great king and American may have been a very successful monarchy for the same reasons it was a very successful republic i.e. it was isolated, huge amounts of raw resources, too hard to invade, etc.

Just like a white person that grew during the 50's that life was great for everyone and can't understand why minorities were protesting.

No doubt that would have worked better. However, it seems that this would still result in something of an elite class, in the form of the committees. But, let's suppose that they stay relatively free of corruption.

How would such a system deal create progress? I mean, you'd have a bunch of communes producing food, through fairly simple labor. But how would you deal with more abstract labor concepts that don't produce necessities like textiles and food? It seems like to implement a non-capitalist system, you'd need a massive central government to regulate the flow of goods to where they're needed.



This is a fair point. The US kind of lucked out when it chose Washington as its first president. Men who are willing to give up that kind of power are few and far between.



True, but the problems would no doubt have come up later on, with issues of succession... It may have resulted in something akin to the development of the UK.

But, is that what should have happened? Prices should have dropped because they were not essential items. After all I need every edge to push my products over my competitor, because you don't have to buy any of them. And, to add to this, practically everyone has already oursourced their clothing manufacturing. (Even the things with Made in U.S.A. are often made in a U.S. territory (*cough* colony *cough*). They are a topic unto itself.) I find it odd that none of the major clothing manufacturers really dropped their prices any. Wow, what were the odds of that? So, maybe the clothing industry more like the oil and airline industries? Where lip service is paid to competition. Onwards.

A $10K salary and a $40K salary have to even out in a true global market. I have known people that have lost programming jobs that eventually settled for jobs half their previous salary. Statistically, on a large scale it will take a while to get there. And greater profits among owners and shareholders might mask it as their increased salaries might skew the results.

But we don't make it! They're making it! They need to petition their own companies to increase their salaries so they can afford to buy the things that they are currently making for us. Because guess what?! When those auto companies, clothing companies, steel companies, etc. were located here in the U.S. and paid Americans the wages that they did; those companies did just fine! During that time they grew to become some of the world leaders in their fields of industry. So, I find it hard to believe the claim that they can't do it now.

You want to die in a shallow ditch somewhere with a bullet in the back of your skull? Go down to Mexico and become a labor organizer and be a real pain in butt. I would strongly recommend that you leave a will and have your affairs in order. China respect labor rights? They don't even respect human rights. But on the bright side, China will just kick you out of the country if you get too annoying. They are just jumping on the quasi-capitalist bandwagon for power for the chance that it will allow them to become the next superpower. It's an ambition as valid as any other country's. They are just taking the risk that the economic stress won't fracture their country like Russia.

What a wonderful argument against globalization.

And those people living in Europe. I hope they manage to move up from living in mud huts.

Change starts at home. If the workers in China want better standards of living, they will need to organize and protest. Will some of them die? Yes. We went through the labor struggles here. I don't see the solution is to lower our standard of living to theirs.

But people didn't put up with it. They demanded change. And they got change. It's why we have the standard of living that we have now. It will be tough to organize the same across international lines. Companies know that. It's one of the big reasons for globalization.

In some of these countries, they don't have a choice. They work in factories during the day and are bused back to their dorms at night. If they run away, the police bring them back. In Mexico, maquiladoras provide an environment where young women who work at the factories are being raped and killed on a large scale. Are they the lucky ones? They can't go back to farming because NAFTA along with U.S. subsidized agriculture has made it impossible. A nice choice that was giv... I mean taken from them.

If there is a financial incentive to drive labor costs to the bottom and keep them there by creating a environment where you can rotate your company through various despondent countries, companies will do it. Why? Because they will prosper more than countries that don't. It was the whole problem with laissez-faire capitalism. You punish companies financially that do the right thing and reward those that do the wrong thing. Hmmm, do I clean up my industrial waste or do I just dump it in the river? Were we surprised at the results?

I was stunned to find out that Chinese educated and non-educated workers are paid more than Indian workers. I thought this would be the other way around with India being actually more western and democratic country than China.
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What will most likely happen, is that the standard of living will even out some, going down in the US, and up in other countries for a while. Then it will equalize, and start progressing evenly (relatively) throughout the whole system.
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I think the farmers and workers in Mexico are still waiting on those increases in their standard of living. I think someone needs to mail them their check, because I think someone forgot. The oligarchy in Mexico and China are more than happy to keep a lid on wages. So I don't expect wages to raise too quickly. Plus, since you can rotate jobs through various countries, you can slow down the progress of wages by how many ever countries you have at your disposal. So, if it took 100 years to get where we are now; under globalization it should only take 2-300?

China is a real wildcard with how their deal with their current labor unrest. We live in a capitalistic country and we are dealing with a country that is not. And we expect that their economic system will obey the same rules that our does. I wish I could share your faith in that.

It killed their local economies. But true, who cares. I hear that argument and it's a strawman. I am not arguing that. I am not talking about horse buggies vs. automobiles. I am not even talking about (insert favorite 2nd or 3rd world country) making automobiles instead of American making automobiles. I am talking about (insert favorite 2nd or 3rd world country) making automobiles instead of American making automobiles where the cost is the same to the consumer. It's collusion. If jobs are going to be outsourced, Americans should benefit through lower prices because they are taking a job loss hit.

Oh, they were foolish! Are these same people that we told to get jobs in the tech industry when their blue collar jobs were outsourced. Guess they should have seen that coming. I will not be suprised to hear the same thing said to high end tech jobs when they are outsourced. I am sorry, but you can currently outsource almost the entire software project. The only thing that needs to be done locally is to gather requirements, naturally. High level application design is a piece of cake compared to kernel level programming. The only tech fields that are truely "safe" from outsourcing are those dealing with confidential or classified (for whatever reason) subject matter. When the time comes when the U.S. is outsourcing classified matter to China for example, it's over.

Bachelors in CS is just a programmer coming out of college. He will cutting his teeth on some of his first real software projects and gaining experience in things other than theory. The average programmer should be writing code to spec, coding from the hip is a nasty habit. Masters level and higher are a little more secure, maybe. But that is a lot of education and competition for a position that might not be there. Ironically, the person fixing your computer has more secure job than the person programming it. So overall, are we basically saying, "If you are not on the cutting edge of research, you don't deserve a job in that field." Okay, what are we going to do with the other 99% of the people with CS degrees?

Uh huh. People in India and China are sooo unimaginative. My wager is that AI is such a small field it doesn't have a large enough pool of people to attract the attention of outsourcing. Plus, you have knowledge about the subjects for which you are using AI that they don't know. That is a big hinderance to outsiders. AI huh? AI has been long on promises and short on results ever since the 80's.

Those fields won't absorb the numbers of people we would be displacing. At first it was just low end manufacting jobs. The it was high end manufacting jobs. Now, it's low and high end white collar jobs. Now, we are telling people to go to service jobs which are less than blue collar jobs. Wow, what a deal.

Yes. Because Americans are placed at such an unfair economic advantage, it makes it very difficult for them to compete. Cost of living inbalances, no environmental laws, no safety laws, no human rights, etc. Are we willing to give all those up? Do we want to roll back the clock by a 100 years? We should encourage them to build up their economies, but NOT to disembowel ourselves in the process. If capitalism is not based on fair competition, then it's a farce.

The salary for a factory worker in China is 40 cents an hour. Can you imagine trying to live in the U.S. on double that? Average salary in 2005 according to the BBC for a software engineer in China is $9K. Even at double that, we might as well hang it up and go to work for Wal-Mart.

Because an education is no guarantee that you will get a job or that job won't be outsourced. And since it is such a financial burden, you are ending up discouraging people from pursuing an education. Less Americans are completing college degrees. The number of native engineer graduates is dismal.

I think companies were still saying just recently that they still needed more H1 visas for IT related professions. We just had the huge dot-com bust and we should have programmers to spare. Ah, but not programmers what want to take what they willing to pay. Sorry guys, capitalism works both ways. If you don't get any takers, you raise the salary and put the offer back out again.

Was he happy? Did he have a fulfilling life? Did he need a college education for his work at GE? Did he want a college education? We apparently managed to survive your grandfather only having a high school education and working at GE. If you grandfather didn't want to pursue a college education, would you have wanted him tossed to the wolves?

I have friends who don't have a college degree. What right do I have to create an economic system that will put them into poverty and misery if they are not a success at higher education? It's funny, we decried the communists (*cough* Bosheviks *cough*) who ruined so many people lives by forcing communism down their throats. The communists thought when the epiphany came, it would be mana from heaven (the workers actually). It didn't happen. And here we are doing the exact same thing with our "inevitable" global capitalism. Are we really that much different from the Bolsheviks?

hehe. i think the phrase im looking for is - throw the wolf in with the sheep and see what happens.

count me in! i've completely rejected the in-world market. i'll see you there!

The Socialist Party will be holding a meeting tonight to discuss some of the topics in this thread. The time is 9PMSLT/12EST. IM Lenin Camus for details or a TP.

Everybody is welcome to participate.

Building is free, free items already made abound, free items can be distributed in many ways for free, GIMP is free to use to make free clothes, scripting is free, the secondlife.com/help and secondlife.com/badgeo wikis are free, free goods can be adfvertised for free in the classifieds.

What material benefits can the Socialist Party provide?

Maybe you should come along to discuss it....

The forum is a much better communication system than an inworld chat.

Meeting time bumped up to 5PM SLT.

Yeah, dont ignore pragmatism... Any system that can be supplied works fine. It is only when an ideological straightjacket is applied that distortions begin to plague a system. Look at the former Soviet Union, hell, look at whats going on in the good ol' USA atm...The market is as flawed as any other system. It delivers uneven reults. Socialism by itself is not dynamic in generating wealth. The U.S. from the new deal on was not a capitalist country nor a socialist country. It was a mixed economy, and THAT is what generated the incredible wealth, we enjoyed. (most of us) It is appalling that, the public is not allowed to get wind of the overview that: an economy is like a machine. There are controls that should be selectively applied. A bit of free market here, public spending there... Prime the pump when it is indicated.... Pragmatic application of economic principles. Why do we have to make a choice, when neither choice can work as a pure exercise of the discipline... anyone who says they are the only way is hustling ya !

Anyone want a paper?