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originalpckelly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 01:53 PM
Original message
Socialists of the world unite!
Edited on Sun Sep-21-08 01:54 PM by originalpckelly
..and answer one question of mine:

How will you go about eliminating the inherent inefficiency of any planned economy, wherein productive capacity is sapped to plan production?
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Davis_X_Machina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 02:00 PM
Response to Original message
1. Socialism...
...and a planned economy are not synonymous, and to posit the question suggests a tendentious willingness to confuse means and ends.
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originalpckelly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 02:06 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. Aw, grasshopper, they are.
When there is no market in a given sector, then it is a planned economy. The only exception being hybrids like market socialism.
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Davis_X_Machina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 02:08 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. There is no non-hybrid socialism...
....in any actually-existing state.

Strawman.
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originalpckelly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 02:12 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Oh really? What about China?
:P
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bean fidhleir Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 02:14 PM
Response to Reply #3
7. Perhaps you should move into the 21st century? Only the True Believers
in one of the offshoots of Marxism still advocate for the bureaucratic, centrally-planned version of socialism. All other socialists believe in what might be called "genetic" or "network" socialism: plans bubble up from local needs.
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NightWatcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 02:04 PM
Response to Original message
2. I dunno, we can break shit
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killbotfactory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 02:10 PM
Response to Original message
5. Here's a proposal
http://books.google.com/books?id=lFjSE4rRRRUC&dq

Anyway, our current capitalist economy isn't efficient, either. It just externalizes costs, on the environment and other, poorer, countries, and most recently the taxpayer. Although I guess it all depends on how you define efficiency.
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originalpckelly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 02:16 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. Aw, but grasshopper, we would need to have a capitalist economy...
we do not have one. Corporations are social entities, and we have a "corporatist" economy.

I propose the problem is the lack of feedback into the formerly market system, cause by credit, has necessitated the rise of planning inside of corporations. I also propose that if there hadn't been a massive explosion in the ability to track and plan production in the late '80s-late '90s this economy would have gone boom sooner.

I propose that the bubbles are a result of the broken self-regulation of our system.
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happyslug Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-21-08 03:26 PM
Response to Original message
9. Karl Marx stated he thought Adam Smith was the Greatest Economic Writer.
Edited on Sun Sep-21-08 03:30 PM by happyslug
Yes, the same Adam Smith that Capitalist site for the "Invisible hand of the Market Place". Under Lenin, the Soviet Union did take over various large companies but most small business stayed independent (I should note most business classified as "Small Business" but the Small Business Administration were NOT viewed as Small business even under Lenin, basically Lenin left the Mom and Pop Business alone). The pre-Stalinist Communists actually only wanted to eliminate the Upper Middle Class Control over Government, and turn the control over to the workers. The Plan was to take over larges businesses and leave the workers run them instead of the previous upper middle class control of these same businesses.

Stalin changed the above to one of total control, more do to a desire by Stalin to Control everything then and demand by Communist or Socialist theory. If you read some of the books written about that same time period you see that what the Communist did under Stalin was similar to the same consolidation that was occurring in the west. Stalin extended this to even the local Mom and Pop Stores (and we in the US were abandoning those same Mom and Pop Stores for the larger stores of Corporate America, so not much of a difference). In fact under Stalin you had a duplication of what was going on in the west, businesses would go to banks to borrow money and expand, the banks would offer the money it the bank had a prospect of a good return on investment. The difference was both were controlled by the Government and ran to benefit Stalin's control of the Country (and after Stalin was dead, by his successors to benefit their friends and family (Kruschev tried to changed this but with his overthrow in 1964 you had the final replacement of any one in Russia who had any real communist leanings by Bureaucrats who just wanted to stay in power themselves, and this lead to the fall of the Soviet Union for the Bureaucrats did NOT really have any vision for Russia other then staying in power, the same accusation Marx made of the Upper Middle class of his time period. in effect in post-Stalinist Russia you had a new "Upper Middle Class" that just tied up resources till the country went broke).

My point is simple, the planned economy of the Soviet Union was NOT a product of Communism, but of Stalin's demand for total Control. In many ways it was a return to the Feudal system of the old Czarist period, with the Church replaced by the Party, and the Village council replaced by the local party boss AND without any the tradition of dissent or discussion (which was unlike the old days of the Czar, Church and Village elders). If you get away from the old Stalinist who still look at the old Soviet Union with Tinted Glasses, most Socialist today (and even in 1917) did NOT want what we would call a planned economy, wanted they wanted was more say in the operation of the economy by the Workers and less control of that economy by the owners of Capital. In fact in 1917-1918 the workers of Russia would take over many of the industry and run them as collective, something both Stalin and Lenin Opposes (Both wanted control, and thus the workers having control of industry was opposed by both Lenin and Stalin and most of the Communists). The smaller businesses run by the owners were often left alone and in control of those owners, much like want most socialist of the day want. Lenin opposed this and fought to get control over these industries while leaving most of the Mom and Pop business alone. At the end of the Civil War, Lenin had a Stroke and then died. During this period the situation stayed stable till Stalin gained control and wanted to control EVERYTHING. Thus the planned economy was born. As a result of Stalin's planned economy Mussolini would call Stalin the Greatest Fascist of his time (c1938) for the planned economy of Stalin had more to do with the Fascism of Mussolini and Hitler then any Communist view of hoe to run an Economic System.

Side Note: In the pre-WWI period, Lenin and Rosa Luxembourg of Germany had an ongoing dispute as to when a Communist revolution should occur. Rosa Luxembourg said only after the communists had full support of the Majority of the people, Lenin said no, he just needed about 5% of the population to take over, provided they were discipled and would follow him. Lenin took the "Phase" "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" to mean a dictatorship OVER the Proletariat NOT by the Proletariat. Thus even Lenin wanted CONTROL over the people, not lead them. This became clear as Lenin ordered his Soldiers to grab the Grain from the Peasants to feed the people in the cities, even if that meant the peasants themselves would starve (and the rest of the Concept of the "Red Terror" Lenin advocated, a concept first advocated by Machiavelli over 300 years before, when you take over a country terrorized its citizens, then once they are in terror cut the terror out, the people will be thankful and great the new conquered as heroes, Machiavelli was just reporting the results of what he saw in real life and in his study of history, Lenin just used it to advance his definition of Communism).

More on Lenin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin

Lenin's "New Economic Policy":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy

Rosa Luxembourg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg
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