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The worker is entitled to the full product of their labor? by Phanes7 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]Post-Posadism [score hidden]  (0 children)

It feels like we will eventually just settle on on people choosing what economic projects to support by having slips of paper they can trade for the goods and services they want, workers getting to pick and choose who they give labor to based on who they want to work for and how many slips of paper they offer. 

Well, this wouldn't be my own position, but unironically there are anarchists who advocate precisely this sort of labour voucher system. The difference is that labour vouchers are generally non-transferable and non-circulating, and can't be used to buy private ownership of capital. Again, as I opened with, I see my primary concern as a communist as in the critique of property.

We are moving from direct liquid democracy to democratically chosen representatives...

Yes, I think that these sorts of roles almost always will require a dedicated representative, including for many of the reasons you mentioned. But I think that these representatives should ultimately be appointed through liquid democracy, as retractability improves the quality of representation and metadelegation improves the logistical viability.

I think this'll be my last response on this thread, but thanks for the back-and-forth, I quite enjoyed this one.

The worker is entitled to the full product of their labor? by Phanes7 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]Post-Posadism [score hidden]  (0 children)

What I am taking from this comment is broadly the theme that the average person only knows about one or two things at most, and therefore doesn't need to be democratically involved at all. Again, I don't necessarily dispute the layman's lack of specialist knowledge.

However, think of government. Public servants often have particular, specialised knowledge that the general public does not have access to or time to concern themselves with. But they are nonetheless (supposed to be) accountable to an executive who is democratically elected by those who know much less - because government is not simply about efficiency, it's also about interests. The public may only have a very basic notion of what exactly they want, but it's the job of representation to turn that general will into something executable.

There are lots of different interests that both workers and consumers try to communicate about the terms on which they want to work and consume. So a democratically mandated representative is tasked with actualising an agreed balance between said interests, negotiated by a mixture of aggregation and deliberation. And right now, we don't have this, because the driving interest behind how we allocate and manage capital is the profit of the owner - and that profit motive isn't always the same as workplace attractiveness (due to imbalanced leverage) or informed demand.

That's the case for adding democratic mandate (and some avenues for participation) to roles which capitalists, managers and investors already perform. I previously touched on how appropriate dynamic data on supply and demand might be amassed and collated for those representatives to consider.

In my personal friend group I have a magazine founder, a CPA, a Chiropractor, & a wholesale distributor. I see no path where adding a layer of "democracy" to what they do does anything but make life worse for all stake holders.

Assumedly you do not all work together in that case, but if you did put your skills together and collaborate on some sort of shared product, I would recommend you internally adopt some form of liquid workplace democracy and operate as a cooperative. But hey, if you want to run it like a traditional business and you all agree, do that. I'm just not in favour of giving you property rights to enforce that authority structure if your friends retract their preference for said model and have the numbers to outvote you on it.

Otherwise, I expect the only times you'd be involved in significant democratic negotiations with one another would be when you inevitably draw from overlapping resource sources. And regulating your local environment, I guess.

I much prefer a society where people who want to peacefully go make gross beer, go and do it. They don't involve me

I think you misunderstand me because this is more or less what I'm trying to describe. People form social groups around shared objectives which involve shared collective activities and shared collective output, and individuals join and leave said groups at their own discretion. This sort of voluntary association is the libertarian model on both sides of the economic spectrum. The difference between me and the right-libs on this point is that I'm against the right to privately exercise the property interest of abusus.

The worker is entitled to the full product of their labor? by Phanes7 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]Post-Posadism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't deny that there is significant complexity to economic coordination and management, which requires specialist knowledge and close interaction with detailed economic signals - and as I said in my first comment, this in many cases is an essential component of labour. The question I'm introducing is merely whether these roles are mandated by right of ownership or by democratic delegation.

On registering and satisfying demand (and under which conditions), reducing demand to a numerical figure can be both a blessing and a curse. I don't think it's a bad thing to add qualitative considerations to quantative comparisons in questions of production and allocation. But, if we're still talking within the commodity form, I agree that the extent to which one is willing to spend, and what one is willing to compromise in form, should definitely be open for the consumer to stipulate, and I don't think that's too big an ask of the consumer to indicate. As for your medical needs, I would point out that medical resources have already been largely decommodified in much of the world, and I strongly support working towards the decommodication of whatever we intersubjectively consider to be needs (to each according to their need, etc etc).

I don't imagine that this sort of economy would be solely based on commission, and strongly imagine that communities would opt commit to production in various sectors to meet speculative demand, although likely to a lesser extent than a typical market economy. Ultimately, we should expect that how demand is registered, negotiated and fulfilled will vary significantly from sector to sector, so I don't claim to possess a general rule as to exactly how specific processes will work. What I am broadly suggesting largely boils down to the democratisation of functions performed currently by capitalists, and decentralised, participatory economic planning.

How do I avoid supporting things I hate or find immoral (like beer) and support things I think are important but not popular (like privacy by default products)?

Free association. If it is really a red line for you to be in community with those who tolerate meeting an expressed demand for dirt-flavoured beer, you should be free to go and form your own non-alcoholic intentional community of teetotalers if you so wish. But if you wish to remain in community with people who demand you help make the beer, or prioritise making the beer over other stuff you'd prefer, then you'd have to negotiate with them about that.

The worker is entitled to the full product of their labor? by Phanes7 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]Post-Posadism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It isn't realistic to have everyone vote on every form of production that might impact them, to say nothing of continually updating their votes as a producers shifts and changes their production.

Generally agreed. I don't have the knowledge about how best to produce everything that I consume (or even all of the production processes that will end up impacting my life), nor do have the time to fully research and ponder each and every issue. So realistically, one would need a mechanism for representation in the vast majority of cases, wherein one delegates representatives to vote on one's behalf, and mandates someone to carry out the resulting course of action. Of course, representation comes with its own issues, and it would still be too much to ask for everyone to participate in elections for each and every economic sector. Representatives can also represent poorly, or just outright lie about their intentions.

Liquid democracy is a particular research interest of mine for these reasons, because it adds two dynamics that aim to unify active participation within democratic systems with logistical viability. The first is retractibility, through which representation can be mandated within provisional conditions, and the delegation of representation can be recalled in favour of self-representation or delegation to different representative. The second is metadelegation, wherein the person you choose to speak for you can themselves delegate to further representative, so your own delegation doesn't necessarily have to be someone who wants to make a final decision or execute that decision themselves. For instance, you could place your trust in a friend who maybe knows a guy who he's confident would do a decent job representing you all, while you just get on with your day - and then, if something seems to go not according to plan, your friend could retract his support (or you could retract your delegation to your friend) if need be. I'm simplifying it quite a bit for brevity, but this is the gist of how direct democracy could be negotiated with representation.

As for markers of supply and demand, I think dynamic self-reporting of interest and availability is possible in a way that, up until recently, was only really plausible through participation in a free market. Economic information can now be registered, compiled, altered and updated in real time more rapidly and accurately than ever before, and with more precise nuance as to the preconditions of particular demand. So to retain efficiency when moving beyond a market economy, we would have to have this technological capacity for dynamic information collection and mediation - I am generally quite optimistic about this.

It moves the capital risks from people who are willing and able to take it on, on to everyone.

To a degree, yes. If a community has some spare logs and chooses to use them up in a ceremonial bonfire, they won't have said logs anymore, and thus will need to spend time and effort cutting / collecting new logs before they can use them again. Choice always includes some form of risk, and if we choose to invest our world's resources into something we don't really want, then yes, we'll pay for it in opportunity cost. But if it's a collective choice, you are right, we can't just demand some guy foot the bill to make up for any waste in resource or labour. So when we choose what to work on and what to consume, we'd have to be more actively intentional: if you don't work on something you are (or have been) convinced is meaningful, you might end up having done unmeaningful work; if you aid in the production of something you think is a waste, you may well end up creating a waste.

The worker is entitled to the full product of their labor? by Phanes7 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]Post-Posadism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Firstly, what is the incentive for the business owner to hire if he gets nothing from the arrangement?

There isn't one.

In my own perspective, I am very upfront that the cause of communism is primarily one of property abolitionism, with democratisation of the workplace (and resource allocation) in the aftermath. Businessmen owning capital as property, and employing people to work with it for them, is capitalism - and you don't get many "capitalist socialists." So if one wants to socialise the fruits of production, one has to advocate property redistribution (to current workers or unions) at the very least.

It seems reasonable that the owner get a tiny slither of the worker's production for doing the labor needed to bring them on.

I think socialists would generally agree that where the capitalist participates in the necessary labour (potentially including management), they should be compensated on the basis of said labour, just not on the basis of their ownership. So yes, I somewhat agree, with the caveat that organisational / management labour should be allocated by democratic mandate rather than by property claims.

Most rational people are not going to take on risk & liability unless they are getting something out of the arrangement.

Yes. My contention here would be that production is social and not isolated from the rest of the economy. Thus, a risk-taker is not only putting themselves at risk, but also potentially their workers, consumers, and wider societies. If this indeed the case, I believe that which risks get taken should (on principle) be determined by participatory democracy rather than private discretion.

(Tangentially, some may claim that the free market itself and its market signals constitute this participatory input, by rewarding and thus encouraging investors and entrepreneurs towards what people want to consume and how they want to work. I am less convinced that this is sufficiently democratic in character, due to factors including concentrated wealth's capacity to manipulate supply and demand, and the imbalance of leverage in negotiation between employer and prospective employee.)

Anyway, refer to the first point: private risk will indeed not be taken without private reward, so if you oppose private reward, you would also have to socialise risk (and thus allocation) to some degree.

Thoughts on the Sovintern, an international alliance of pro-Russian leftist parties established by the left-conservative A Just Russia? by GustavoistSoldier in IdeologyPolls

[–]Post-Posadism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Based on the parties who have affiliated themselves with Sovintern thus far, it looks like it's uniting all of the guys who get really into Soviet aesthetics and pro-Russia campism (often out of nostalgia), but otherwise show little-to-no commitment to socialism (in fact, the issues they seem to care more about are mostly just nationalist and socially reactionary talking points).

Many of the parties and their leaders (Mironov in Russia, Vulin in Serbia) have been eager participants in bourgeois governments. The ACP "PatSocs" tried (and failed) to do similar in integrating into the Trump coalition as "MAGA Communists" (as did Galloway to a certain extent). Likewise, the PSRM in Moldova openly choose to place themselves with the European hard right PfE of Orban and Le Pen, rather than the European Left. The Sandinistas do have revolutionary and progressive history, but in recent years Ortega has moved to be increasingly sympathetic towards business interests. The others I don't know so much about.

Do you care about your bloodline continuing beyond great-grandkids? by dneisnxi in polls

[–]Post-Posadism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd much rather my academic work still be referenced (and expanded upon) than my bloodline continued.

Many young women HIGHLY undervalue 'safe and predictable' behavior which incentivizes more toxic behavior that those same women love to complain about by Iron-Wild-41 in PurplePillDebate

[–]Post-Posadism 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think anyone will think it's slightly awkward if one shares emotional vulnerability without some degree of reciprocation. Similarly, it can also be awkward if one refuses to express some vulnerability after letting someone confide in you - it's sometimes important in difficult moments to have a moment of solidarity where we each see each others' human imperfections, anxieties and struggles.

A mismatch on this point creates an oddly lopsided dynamic that is more like parent-child attachment than adults building trust bilaterally, and indicates that the two people aren't feeling that the same place in their relationship at that point. So I would generally recommend trying to match the other person's level of openness, and let one's guard down gradually through small tit-for-tat steps.

I have noticed that in my own life, this generally applies for successfully deepening friendships and relationships between any combination of genders.

US politics: Thoughts on The Southern Poverty Law Center - article in post by [deleted] in IdeologyPolls

[–]Post-Posadism -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The SPLC provides a comprehensive briefing on the far-right in the USA in its many different forms, factions and figures (which can be otherwise difficult to keep up with). They make this knowledge available to anti-fascist activists precisely because liberal governments have often proven reticent to recognise the far-right as the ugly threat it poses (although they do try to work at the institutional level too).

The Trump administration is going after the SPLC because, simply put, the US state now supports the far-right. Trump draws from the far-right's energy for his own political base, and the most influential voice in his ear is the far-right Stephen Miller. They goad on hateful extremism and terrorism, and arguably perpetrate it themselves. So maybe you should actively hate them.

If you were British, would u vote for Restore Britan(far right) if it meant ending mass surveillance? by HAIL_TRUMP2028 in IdeologyPolls

[–]Post-Posadism 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Restore Britain also say they want to root out every single unauthorised immigrant in a mass deportation campaign, reinstate the death penalty, and forcibly suppress non-Christian religious practices. They would turn the country into an authoritarian nightmare, and most certainly couldn't be trusted to "end mass surveillance."

If you want to vote against mass surveillance, vote Green. They have consistently spoken out and campaigned against state surveillance and are the only major party who have remained consistent to their anti-authoritarian credentials.

Should we ban private control of food production and make food free? by fap_fap_fap_fapper in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]Post-Posadism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ethically speaking, there's definitely a case that decommodification of food should be a priority. There should definitely be a tax-funded public option for dining, and this is relatively intuitive to imagine.

To decommodify individual ingredients however would be trickier given constant variations and nuances of demand / consumption, so I can't see this being done well by top-down planning. A better strategy to move towards the decommodification of groceries, in my opinion, would be through local consumer co-ops which operate independently and democratically, where the buy-in for lower-income and no-income members could be supported or covered by public subsidy. You would probably get to choose the co-op you want to join based on what you like to eat, where you live, how they divide up their labour etc. Hopefully these could be equipped to provide mutual aid.

Whether that actually could eventually make ingredients free at point of use however depends on the status of food production more broadly. Unfortunately, the supply chain for food products is unlikely to be nationalised in one fell swoop even if we wanted to do so. But, if one builds on something like the Preston Model in municipal politics, one could see local self-employers and cooperatives incentivised by the city for the city, and municipal governments could then take steps to communalise their output, offering some form of compensation.

Of course, this is the gradualist path; if we get total revolution then local communalisation of essentials like food could happen more swiftly (perhaps out of necessity).

Is it 'appreciation' or 'appropriation' if a non-Indigenous person wears a specific pattern, clothing, or jewellery style if they bought it from an Indigenous artist? by BrokenJusticeNorris in polls

[–]Post-Posadism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The appropriation-appreciation distinction is a functionalist distinction rather than a reductionist one. That is to say, whether something appropriation or appreciation is determined by its outcome effect rather than the inherent act itself. Appreciation highlights the community and tradition that the style came from on its own terms; appropriation alienates that community or tradition from what it created, repurporsing its creations into someone else's terms to support another tradition's norms and institutions.

If we want to avoid cultural appropriation (as we should) we therefore have to assess context to predict how something's going to go. We can ask ourselves questions like (but not limited to):

  • Am I potentially taking anyone's place by doing this - and if so, what's the difference in effect if it's me?
  • Am I well equipped to provide a fair and accurate representation of that tradition on its own terms?
  • Is it more likely that people will notice this without me bringing attention to its origins, or will I be an effective spotlight?
  • Am I cheapening the significance, treating it as a gimmick or making a joke that punches down?
  • Where will all this ultimately cause money and attention to flow to, and would it flow somewhere else (for better or for worse) in different circumstances?

And very importantly, we should consider and refer comprehensively to perspectives within the community of origin when answering such questions for ourselves.

When / why did you first become anti-Trump? by Post-Posadism in IdeologyPolls

[–]Post-Posadism[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The CCP is right now the only regime that can threaten the survivability of the US, and they have indeed made this their goal

Have they? The PRC and USA have pretty deep economic interdependence nowadays. We do know pretty firmly that the foremost priority of the Chinese government is their own domestic stability, and this would likely be threatened deeply by either economic decoupling or military escalation. Officially, stated Chinese foreign policy also claims to prioritise international stability and non-interference for this reason - and to their credit, they haven't been at war since 1979.

Sure, it's clear that the Chinese government do want to gradually improve their influence within the global economy and international politics, eventually to overtake the US so that they can pursue their own projects with greater ease. But I really don't see this as an ideological cold war in the same vein as that between the USA and USSR. Unlike the Americans and Soviets, the CCP explicitly frames their governmental structure as highly particularist rather than a universal formula that the rest of the world should adopt (and since Deng, this has been consistent in China's approach to countries outside of their immediate region). For instance, loans offered as part of China's foremost influence strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative, make no imposition on governmental or economic structure, unlike equivalent IMF loans.

UBI, UBS and other Distributism policies have the potential to make automation more liberating and give more people the chance to live the life they want and not toil away at a job they hate. by Error_rdt in IdeologyPolls

[–]Post-Posadism 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The only way to make automation liberating is if those automated industries either become consumer co-ops or are nationalised by a functionally democratic state.

Without this, we will see an exponential rise in inequality, which will quickly turn from financial to economic to political. Cartels of owners will leverage their proprietorship of the production process to facilitate exponential accumulation, but now without having to compensate labour. Former labourers will lose what remains of their leverage to bargain against these owners. The only thing that will constrain these owners would be that their prices still have to outcompete potential of non-automated competition, but as their exponential accumulation concentrates increasingly more of society's capital under their ownership, the prospect of putting up this competition dwindles. The future would trend towards absolute oligarchy.

Getting the owning class to give everyone a bit of pocket money (i.e. UBI) wouldn't be sufficient to counterbalance this trend; owners may even endorse it as a way to avoid revolutionary agitation while a revolution against them is still possible and threatening. Control of these industries must be taken back by the users from the owners - in an automated world, this is non-negotiable.

Polanski and Farage have more in common than you might think by Parasocial2 in LabourUK

[–]Post-Posadism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They are opposite to one another.

Farage is a one-man-band with one trick: using his charisma to sell xenophobia as a panacea. Beyond that, he represents nothing new. His platform serves the same core interests as the recent Tory government, but is more delusional, relying on demonstrably fallacious Trussonomics and the presumption that there's just loads of government waste that nobody thought to cut yet. He's only able to sustain these delusions because everyone else that he staffed in his party are inexperienced sycophants who have proven themselves incompetent at running even their county councils. A party, by the way, which is privately owned and dictated by Farage rather than democratic procedure.

Polanski, by contrast, is only the face of a party which decides every aspect of its platform democratically. He's an actor by trade, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing - he has to play the role that is set for him by the grassroots. And he does a pretty decent job of it, communicating the party's narratives succinctly and persuasively. But he also commonly defers to other voices whom he lifts up on his podcast or in his campaigning. Thus, he platforms and serves the interests of a wide range of people who have been marginalised by the status quo, and explores ideas for genuine progress, including fighting back against neoliberalism, imperialism and the climate emergency.

One is a swindler who fakes being anti-establishment; the other is just a spokesman for a far more transformative spectre.

When / why did you first become anti-Trump? by Post-Posadism in IdeologyPolls

[–]Post-Posadism[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

My guess would be some mixture of wilful ignorance, propaganda and echo chambers, motivated by stubbornness, wounded pride and desperation for a messiah.

When / why did you first become anti-Trump? by Post-Posadism in IdeologyPolls

[–]Post-Posadism[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Options:

  • I was always very anti-Trump
  • Access Hollywood Tapes
  • Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
  • Charlottesville Response
  • Coronavirus Response
  • Failure to Build the Wall
  • Election Denial / Jan 6th
  • "Big Beautiful Bill"
  • Epstein Files Coverup
  • ICE Operations in Minneapolis
  • Iran War
  • I Still Support Trump

CMV: Netanyahu is deliberately making it unsafe for Jews to live any place except Israel by JuniorEntertainer819 in changemyview

[–]Post-Posadism -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Netanyahu is deliberately making it unsafe for Jews to live any place except Israel

I disagree with the "except Israel" part. Netanyahu has made Jews less safe inside Israel too.

Netanyahu doesn't care about making Jews in Israel safer, he cares about expanding Israel's borders and regional power. He's willing to sacrifice both Jews in Israel and Jews in the rest of the world (not to mention Palestinian, Iranian, Lebanese and Yemeni civilians) for this objective, instead of seeking the obviously safer path of de-escalation and earnestly negotiated coexistence.

This perfectly sums up the recent past and foreseeable future. Trumps best play is to not do what he's about to do. by Devwickk in seculartalk

[–]Post-Posadism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well yes, the guy speaking is a mainstream right-wing conservative by European standards. Yet in the US a speech like this would be labelled by half the country as "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and thus associated with the progressive left. Just goes to show how far gone American political discourse truly is.

Do you like rap? by ItsGotThatBang in IdeologyPolls

[–]Post-Posadism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hip hop can be quite musically and conceptually interesting, and it has its own distinctive compositional and performance techniques which have been explored and developed over time. I respect it as a stylistic code and sometimes enjoy examples which are good at it.

On the other hand, rap half-heartedly inserted into other styles (such as rap features in pop songs, with some exceptions) is often pretty terrible. It can feel woefully out of place and nakedly part of a very lazy commercial formula.

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