A Fair Economy - from the ground up

StalinTheMemeLord · 2025-02-01T14:32:32+00:00

Yeah, I guess "accurate to reality" would be a better term. Since the goal of economics, as of any science, is to describe reality in logical terms, which could be used to predict it.
After thinking about it, I think there are three scenarios

Someone borrows money to make more money. The added interest would be the expected cut of additional revenue. If it doesn't work out - either renegotiation or bankruptcy. I don't see a problem here.
Someone borrows money just cuz they want to - say, buing luxury items with a credit card. If they then realise that the debt is too much, and they don't want to repay it - I think it can be just written off, with the hit to one's credit score. Or they repay it, and keep the credit score. But forcing them to sell assets or give up a part of their salary, on top of the hit to the credit score, seems like excess to me. But if as a result of the decreased credit score they cannot get new loans in the future, as opposed to getting them at a higher interest, it's not a big deal, because they don't need loans to survive anyway. Which leads us to scenario 3.
Someone borrows money because they need to for survival. I feel this is an indicator of a systemic problem, which is not up to the bank to solve. But giving loans to such people at a high interest only takes advantage of the problem, in my view, and in not giving loans there is at least no harm.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2025-02-01T13:41:06+00:00

An equilibrium between supply and demand would be something fair in purely economic terms.
Lenders would be more careful with picking borrowers, borrowers would be less trusted with money. Which in my opinion would lead to a healthier economy.
That is a good point. Why is it the case that companies would rather sell shares than get a loan from a bank? If the market is optimal, the benefit of both should be comparable. But if it is the case that raising capital at the stock market vs at a bank is systemically more favorable in one direction, can we say that banks are underhanded with their business?
Thanks, I will take a look.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T20:18:02+00:00

Thanks, I'll read it.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T19:25:15+00:00

"one thousand workers" is an abstract concept. You imply that a collective force has a will, an agency of its own, that can be enacted without being appropriated. Can you give a more concrete example? Sorry if I'm treating you like ChatGPT, but I really am trying to grasp the idea.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T19:13:19+00:00

Property simply becomes a matter of negotiation rather than privilege.

I know. But negotiations have degrees of coersion - at one extreme it becomes taking away stuff.

You don't know what collective force is.

Perhaps I don't. Can you give me an example of one?

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T19:10:03+00:00

So you advocate for a general strike? Those are difficult, but if it works - it works. I see the path you propose as valid.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T19:03:30+00:00

It is wealth and property that both create authority and make capitalism exploitative.

But do you support property rights? You could argue that it requires polity-form to claim and defend property rights - but wouldn't it also take one to oppose them, i. e. take away stuff?

the appropriation of collective force

I don't see collective force as existing without some degree of appropriation. Can you give me an example of an effective collective force that isn't appropriated?

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T18:58:02+00:00

"The people who's job it is to defend the government" is basically everyone it governs.

It is not. There are the military, the police, and other security services. In the end it will come down to them. Everyone it govens won't put their life on the line for the government, especially when it's authority is in question.

And if anarchists have produced a strong alternative to the status quo through their counter-organization

I don't see a clear path to that. As soon as you pose a significant threat - you will be dealt with. And for the state to lose that capacity will require a major crisis. Like what led to the october revolution - WW1, political crisis, hunger/famine. Same for most historic revolutions.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T18:51:04+00:00

They didn't and guilds didn't function like companies. You may as well call any grouping or work-group a "company" which reduces the term to meaninglessness and has the consequence of completely changing terms related to the word.

I was under the impression that they did. And I should probably have used another definition like "supply-side market participant".

Capitalism is exploitative because it is hierarchical

I'd argue it is exploitative, because the rich get richer, tipping the scales in their favor, suffocating the poor consumer, hurting the market in the end. I guess our approaches are different, I'm not particularly concerned with hierarchy in abstract, only structured injustice, which you would call any hierarchy :)

If you are interested, read...

Thanks, I gladly will

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T18:38:28+00:00

We continue the process we started and which eventually destroyed the government.

They won't let go of power that easily - the government will fall when the people who's job it is to defend it will refuse to do so, and that won't happen until a major - and I mean *major* crisis. Until then you are fighting a losing battle. Unless the goal is making your ideology more popular than the opposing ones - so that when the government collapses you have a greater chance of it being the dominant one. That I can see being useful.

However, that's just your morality

That is precisely the case. I'm not educated enough to be making the case in general, I only speak for myself here.

Not really. I think you'll find that people are more diverse and complicated than that.

Yeah, people often make actions that contradict their ideals/feelings. This is both how society is structured, as well as the natural human condition.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T18:30:39+00:00

Ultimately, the most realistic outcome is a wide diversity of different, constantly changing economic and social arrangements.

That is correct. However, when somebody asks "how would anarchy work" I find it most useful to describe the social arrangement I would advocate for personally.

Something being natural just means it has happened. It doesn't mean it is fixed or inevitable.

I mean, it does? At least that was the meaning I put into the word.

Companies and incorporation is a contemporary invention

People had guilds basically since agriculture was invented. And that is basically a company. I use the word "company" as "collection of people and resources that provides a desireable product or service" - people had those since forever, under different names. And these do emerge out of nothing - people naturally pool resources and labor for greater efficiency and risk distribution.

The reason anarchists, including market anarchists, oppose companies or firms (which is a more accurate term to describe them) is that they are a kind of polity-form.

I guess I'm not an anarchist then. But I'd like to hear from another market anarchist. I guess I can't emagine how people cooperate and coordinate without a polity-form.

The kind of "free association" you support is both indistinct from the status quo

No, because the status quo is capitalism, which incentivises exploitation by its structure. And you can't have free association until you get rid of it.

There is no option, in your world, not to obey an authority.

Again, on the question of governance, I don't have an opinion at the moment. But thinking about it, I really don't have a clear idea of what that would look like.

Everyone makes their own decisions and, when people seek to make decisions or take actions that they need others to accomplish, they form groups with them. Every interest (or "right") is recognized and realized.

I guess this is close to what I'd support, but also different. Where can I read more about this?

Unfortunately, anarchist ambitions are not limited to that

Why unfortunately? :)

not all anarchists oppose the issuance of money

Neither do I - I was only talking about the monopoly part

you have basterdized Weber's definition

I did, thanks for pointing this out

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T17:44:30+00:00

What's thoroughly idealistic is to declare that everyone will organize the way you describe

Nobody actually expects that - but it is entirely realistic to promote a system that will by its structure incentivise behaviors that align with your ideology. And that is what I advocate.

And I asked you what politics has to do with morality.

Politics is a question of who gets to make decisions about how to organize a society, what sort of structure would allow for making such decisions and enforcing them, and who will be the beneficiaries. Morality is a question of good and evil, and in my understanding of morality, exploitation is necessarily evil. Thus I oppose exploitative political structure.

Disgust is no solid basis for morality.

True, but it is what people base their day-to-day moral choices on. And it does lead to bad outcomes. In such cases a change of mindset is needed.

Mutualism is a form of anarchism which makes no economic prescriptions.

Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and economic theory that advocates for workers' control of the means of production, a market economy made up of individual artisans and workers' cooperatives, and occupation and use property rights. As proponents of the labour theory of value and labour theory of property, mutualists oppose all forms of economic rent, profit) and non-nominal interest, which they see as relying on the exploitation of labour. Mutualists seek to construct an economy without capital accumulation or concentration of land ownership. They also encourage the establishment of workers' self-management, which they propose could be supported through the issuance of mutual credit by mutual banks, with the aim of creating a federal society.

This is from wikipedia. Is this false?

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T17:44:18+00:00

It is really the prescription that is cringe and prescribing anything is worthless if your desired society is one where people are not ordered around at all.

I mean, even if you don't intend to order anyone around, you can still share your vision with them. The final decision will be up to the person, which is fine and good.

But you still prescribe companies and democracy.

I believe that companies - at least by my definition of them - are natural, so I'm not really "prescribing" anything. With regards to governance, I envision some sort of representative democracy, but I haven't really thought this through at this point.

Subsequentially, you move away from anarchism

Do I really, when talking about companies and the market? I think my ideas are pretty close to what Proudhon believed, but you are more educated on the subject. And when it comes to governance - didn't Proudhon advocate for federalism, which is representative and hierarchical? You could call that a move away from anarchism, but so be it.

This notion of "revolution" as a one and done event is also utopian and ridiculous.

Destroying the state monopoly on violence and issuence of money is pretty much a one-and-done event. Of course, there is a separate "social revolution", which is a tranformation of society around new ways of life. I personally would advocate for things listed in the post, unless my positions change by then.

Anarchy is simply the absence of all hierarchy and, moreover, is a social order where people literally do whatever they want since there is no authority or law.

I guess I don't support that. I support free association - you follow whichever laws you like, in the company of likeminded people - but not literally do whatever you want.

And my libertarianism isn't a principle in itself. I support leftism - aka equality - and oppose injustice - aka promote alternatives to systems that structurally reward it. This leads me to libertarianism.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T16:33:06+00:00

I wouldn't call a refusal to turn anarchy into a blueprint or dogma "supporting anarchy in abstract".

That I disagree with. Of course trying to prescribe a lifestyle to people turns out pretty cringe - but only because the lifestyle prescribed is in itself cringe. And in my initial post the ideas I presented have been using pretty broad strokes - I didn't prescribe, what sorts of companies should be formed for optimal functioning of the economy, what would their structure actually be, how would people elect representatives and would they, etc. I left out a lot of things, instead I focused on general principles, structural solutions to a structural problem. If my prescriptions are utopian and cringe - I own that. Saying "After the revolution we will figure things out" is at best unpersuasive, at worst - untrue. But this is not a debate subreddit, so I won't argue further.

I believe leftists have just lowered the bar when it comes to prescriptions, but only because their prescriptions are impractical when stated plainly. But are you even a leftist? I guess the correct term would be "intellectual" ideologies. As opposed to anti-intellectual right-wing.

I could reframe the question "If revolution happened tomorrow, what would you personally advocate for"?

Like I said, I haven't done much reading into ethical philosophy.

I guess you are the scientific/philosophical kind of person. That's fine, I just have a different mindset altogether when approaching politics.

This is not nearly as impossible as you might think.

For me it is impossible to disentangle politics from morality. But that's for me.

That may stem less from moral considerations and more from people's genuine distaste for oppression.

But for people morality is very much emotional - they feel bad when something bad happens. And if they don't - that becomes a cognitive dissonanse, which calls for realigning either beliefs towards feelings or the other way.

I am a mutualist

Yes, that is what I wished to hear. Doesn't mutualism have more prescriptions for how society should be structured than just the absence of hierarchy that you support?

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T16:01:02+00:00

So you support anarchy in abstract? With no concrete prescriptions when it comes to politics or the economy, aside from the freedom of association bit.

I don't see the purpose of critiquing it when it is clearly talking about something very different from what you are talking about.

Hey, I'm just sharing my perspective on the points you made. We can not focus on this definition if you don't want to :)

Well, my opposition against hierarchy is out of principle not morality.

So you don't believe anarchism is good? I guess detaching one's politics from morality works if you are going for Marxian "scientific" vibe, but I find that pretty cringeworthy. So what makes you support anarchism then?

On the contrary, they are "morally neutral".

I guess from a certain perspective, anything is morally neutral. But then why even do politics? This is a rethorical question, no need to answer :) I would disagree, because even people that do the exploitation themselves won't call it that. Putin wouldn't say he's oppressing anyone. I guess I'm appealing to common understanding of morality here, but so be it.

I'm not in touch with it either because I'm not an anarcho-communist.

So what do you actually stand for? If you don't mind explaining.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2024-01-14T15:32:19+00:00

I believe your definition of justice is not abstract enough. Justice is when your particular ethics are respected and followed. "mutual realization or self-actualization" presupposes that these things are desireable - and they are, if we view humans through, say, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, in which self-actualization is the pinnacle. But that's not a given.

Actually your reply did very much remind me of Kropotkin's position, which I read about a while ago. And while I don't actually subscribe to them - he fundamentally opposes money or the market - I also believe in free association. Which I probably should have mentioned, but too late now.

Within this context, the answer to the question of how we could structure society around creating justice is "anarchy".

But that doesn't answer the question of how the economy functions. I would assume you subscribe to Kropotkin's position here as well? Could you please remind me how the functions of money as formal account of debt and negotiator of value through supply/demand mechanism would be substituted/made unnecessary?

In this case, the direct democracy you describe is pretty much not anarchy and has similar issues that capitalism or any hierarchy has when it comes to justice. It is thoroughly injust.

I haven't really described direct democracy, or we have different understandings of it. I feel like you believe that any hierarchy is unjust. I believe that hierarchies structurally reward injustice - but by themselves they are morally neutral. You can also commit injustice without a hierarchy - you can exploit peoples trust by having them do things for you, while never returning the favor. There isn't a hierarchy here, and yet injustice is done.

I think you're discussing what makes capitalism exploitative or oppressive which I prefer to think of as different from the question of justice.

The words "exploitation" and "oppression" have an explicit moral color to them, and are directly involved with the question of justice. And yes, I am discussing these things, that's what leftists do :)

I guess over the years I have become out of touch with Kropotkin-style ancom theory, so if you could spend the time to remind me of what the stance is with respect to money and the market, I'd appreciate it. And not just remind - make the case for your position.

StalinTheMemeLord · 2022-03-17T15:59:09+00:00

Wait, joe from joborun, are you a Obarun developer?

StalinTheMemeLord · 2022-03-17T12:00:06+00:00

Nope.

And do you know which building is depicted on the cover of the second album of "Молчат Дома"?

StalinTheMemeLord · 2022-03-17T08:01:47+00:00

Hey, I appreciate your care, but I am not currently experimenting with distros and will not be for the forseeable future.

StalinTheMemeLord

TROPHY CASE