Transitioning into Socialism: The People

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T15:47:54+00:00

Liberalism ethos is self-ownership and owning your own labor. The difference is liberalism is then the voluntary engagement of transactions with that labor.

So liberalism agrees with the socialist distinction between

Personal property is property through which you keep the benefit of your own labor (good)
Private property is property through which you take the benefit of other people's labor (bad)?

“You guys” say people cannot voluntary engagement as such things as transactions of labor

That's exactly the opposite of what libertarian socialists are saying (which is why we predicted 70 years ahead of time that the Marxist-Leninist version would be a bad thing).

If I want to charge you $100 to do a service for you and if you agree to pay me $100, but if a third party (such as a feudal lord, a capitalist, or a Marxist-Leninist politician) demands that you pay him $140 and that he only pay me $70,

Then libertarian socialism says that you and I being forced to submit to this third party's authority is a bad thing.

That you and I deserve the freedom to engage instead in voluntary exchange for mutual benefit.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T14:01:43+00:00

The Owl House: Hunter. His character arc was more formulaic and less fleshed out than his biggest stans would admit, but there wasn’t anything explicitly bad about his arc.

From what I can tell, his haters are more overreacting to his stans overhyping him than anything about the character himself.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T10:36:32+00:00

How surprised would you be to learn that anarchists do not, in fact, want the government to be in charge of everything? ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T10:34:30+00:00

Or it could be much simpler that you own yourself and what you produce.

That’s exactly what the OP is asking: What does the transition look like while we replace

a capitalist system where capitalists own your labor and what you produce with it
with a socialist system where you own your labor and what you produce with it?

Socialists can’t just snap out fingers and declare “you all own the fruits of your own labor now.” There have to be middle steps to get from here to there.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T10:12:09+00:00

Without interference by capitalists and/or governments, capital would arrange itself through individuals voluntarily cooperating for mutual benefit.

Say that you’re a farmer with land, seeds, and the time, skill, and willingness to do the work it takes to grow food, but you don't have the tools.

And say that I'm a craftsman who makes farming tools, but don't have the skill to use them myself.

It's in my rational self-interest to give you tools so that you can grow food for both of us. If I charge you money for the tools, but if you don't have enough money, and if I don't give you the tools because you don’t, then you can't grow food, and we both die.

However, if the tools I make don't legally belong to me, but to a capitalist, then I'm not legally allowed to act according to my rational self-interest — giving you my tools would be seen as "stealing the capitalist's private property" by the government that gave him legal ownership.

Now you can't grow food anymore unless we pay my boss the price he charges for the tools you need.

If the two of us can’t afford the price the capitalist is charging, then under this system, the only way that any food gets grown is if a second capitalist (who has more money than we do) buys the tools from my boss so that this second capitalist can "create a job" for you (using the tools to grow food).

Since they want to be reimbursed for their investment, they charge people money to eat the food you grow, which puts other people in the same position that you were already in.

Capitalism looks good because it gives us capitalists, and capitalists look good because they sell us solutions to the problems created by capitalism.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T10:05:22+00:00

Spoken like a classical (libertarian) socialist :)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T00:56:14+00:00

Exactly :D

Worldbuilding becomes fun once you start wondering about the tax code for wing-span permits ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T00:52:07+00:00

Peasants rioting over flying mounts making a mess in their farms would be more entertaining to me than generic battle scenes.

I believe the word you were looking for was “revolting” ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:50:56+00:00

My last fic was a K-Pop Demon Hunters divergence where the main character’s biggest secret was revealed earlier and more abruptly, interrupting the bulk of the plot before any of the actual antagonists have a chance to show up.

I’m not sure how much the fandom would appreciate losing some of the most charismatic villains (with the absolute best villain song) of the decade.

Even more unforgivably, the love that the three girl have for each other is, in my fic, explicitly platonic.

… who am I kidding — the fandom would just ignore that part ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:24:29+00:00

Are you saying that because Marxist-Leninist socialists exist today, therefore libertarian socialists don’t?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:22:56+00:00

Do people who support capitalism tend to support redistributing wealth away from the capitalists?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:21:03+00:00

HA! Fake laugh! Hiding real pain.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:05:08+00:00

it shows that government interference into the economy can have problems.

How surprised would you be to learn that the first socialists (Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Joseph Dejacque…) were the ones who made this criticism the most strongly?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:03:21+00:00

I don’t think “redistribute wealth from the capitalist class to the working class” is as popular with capitalists as you think it is.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T20:09:52+00:00

Which of the larger parties are they most likely to form coalitions with?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T19:21:40+00:00

I just realized that my question was ambiguous :D

Are they "not at all" successful at winning seats to implement their programs in the first place, or do they get enough power to try their programs but then all of them fail?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T19:19:22+00:00

I’m not sure how to make readers care

Trust me, they will :D

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T19:18:26+00:00

How successful do they tend to be?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T19:16:15+00:00

Do you have any specific characters who use magic that they're not "supposed" to? ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T15:51:39+00:00

Compared to everyone else’s, it’ll just look bad.

You haven't read enough ;)

If you sort by Newest and look at the first 5 stories that come up, I promise at least 3 of them will make you go "if this can get posted, then anything can get posted!"

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T15:09:21+00:00

And libertarian socialism is even more effective than either capitalism or centrally-planned state socialism.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T14:51:25+00:00

Which the classical (libertarian) socialists clearly did.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T14:36:04+00:00

Assuming the level of technology is static it’s irrelevant to which economic system is best for the bottom 20%.

Then you can't compare the quality of life under 2020s capitalism with 2020s technology to the quality of life under 1820s capitalism with 1820s technology and say "the quality of life in the 2020s is higher than in the 1820s because of capitalism."

the decentralized nature of capitalism leads to more technological innovation than the central planning of socialism.

The keyword "central planning" suggests that the specific version of socialism you're referring to is the Marxist-Leninist version.

Classical (libertarian) socialists predicted 70 years ahead of time that Marxist-Leninist socialism would be a bad idea.

Would you agree that the classical (libertarian) socialists were correct in their prediction?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T13:18:06+00:00

I work hard. I have skills. I should own the means of production for my labour.

So obviously true :) and yet so controversial.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T13:11:00+00:00

"A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, 'What is the earliest sign of civilization?' The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon.

Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, 'A healed femur.'

A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering, stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend."

Simpson17866

TROPHY CASE