Socialism in every day life?

[superborys]

I'm a student in highschool, and this trimester (our school has recently adopted trimesters as a form of schooling) I have economics.
The teacher in there is rather boring, and I generally forget to do any homework that requires extensive effort.

One assignment we had was to bring in any ad that was misleading or otherwise used any of the misleading advertising strategies.
I forgot to bring one in, but one person brought in a whole magazine, and passed it around class, allowing more than 30% of the class to not fail the assignment.

While I thought nothing of it at the time, just recently I sort of equated it to socialism: The person had a resource that they would never need again (equaling post-scarcity), so instead of charge people for it, they simply passed it around. I think this represents, at least to me, the real-life truth that socialism is the only logical and natural state that would exist in a post-scarcity environment.

Which leads me to the topic of this thread: Examples or practices of socialism that you see in every day life that may not be explicitly socialist, or they may be, either one.


On an off-note, how feasible is it that post-scarcity will exist? How possible is it that one small area of the world will have access to every single resources they could need, or is post-scarcity stipulating that the globe is socialist at this point, and thus scarcity would be eliminated by practicality (e.g. In India they have spice, but they need coal, and here in Tennessee we have coal but need spice, so we exchange goods either directly or in a round-about way and while it technically is scarcity, it's not because no one is competing for those spices.)?

[superborys]

Its the other way around. Socialism creates a post-scarcity environment by giving workers control over the means of production and eventually creating a classless society.
That's not feasible. Socialism's prerequisites include post-scarcity. How can you possibly obtain a resource because you live in a socialist society if it's not there to distribute? In my example, just because Tennessee theoretically establishes a worker's commune does not magically mean that it will have spices.


There are very few "socialist" practices we see in our daily lives, but reading the history of the primitive communist societies of the indigenous people of the Americas gives you a good idea of how socialism is going to be.
What about when people spot you a few cents at the cash register because you're short, and expect nothing back? What about, also at the register, they let you forward because you have one item and they've got two carts full? I think that exemplifies the socialist efficiency theory, that people will auto-assemble selflessly into an efficient system.


Your example is still capitalist with respect to distribution. With all resources under central planning, we will not have this kind of anarchist exchange which we see in capitalism.
But then how is each commune in theory to get what resources they want if it's all centrally planned? You cannot feasibly effectively distribute resources to an area as gigantic as America through one central bureau. You would have to divide the land up into divisions, gradually getting smaller and confederating each level of these communes.

[Adil3tr]

While I thought nothing of it at the time, just recently I sort of equated it to socialism: The person had a resource that they would never need again (equaling post-scarcity), so instead of charge people for it, they simply passed it around. I think this represents, at least to me, the real-life truth that socialism is the only logical and natural state that would exist in a post-scarcity environment.

I read a book by Michael A. Lebowitz and he used an example about how in school we have things like curves that discourage you from helping other students because the worse they do, the better you do.


On an off-note, how feasible is it that post-scarcity will exist? How possible is it that one small area of the world will have access to every single resources they could need, or is post-scarcity stipulating that the globe is socialist at this point, and thus scarcity would be eliminated by practicality (e.g. In India they have spice, but they need coal, and here in Tennessee we have coal but need spice, so we exchange goods either directly or in a round-about way and while it technically is scarcity, it's not because no one is competing for those spices.)?

Well, for one, Tennessee would exchange with India, post scarcity really need to be at the whole globe. Two, well, its not scarcity, its just remoteness. And sustainability is important too.

Why spice?

[Amphictyonis]

Why spice?

He who controls the spice controls the universe. Think of the spice as a metaphor for the means of production. Obscure Dune troll.

I find it hard to spread the word of socialism in every day life. Many people I know simply don't want to hear about it. I was preachy at one point in my youth but lately have learned to be more subtle when attempting to spread class awareness in every day life. This should be our top priority. Spreading proper class awareness.

[superborys]

He who controls the spice controls the universe. Think of the spice as a metaphor for the means of production. Obscure Dune troll.

I find it hard to spread the word of socialism in every day life. Many people I know simply don't want to hear about it. I was preachy at one point in my youth but lately have learned to be more subtle when attempting to spread class awareness in every day life. This should be our top priority. Spreading proper class awareness.

Actually the spice thing was from another poster's example where he said something relevant to scarcity, and he said, "Because the country I live in doesn't have a certain spice for my delicious Indian curry," and now every time I think of scarcity and examples Indian spices hit me first.

[ckaihatsu]

While I thought nothing of it at the time, just recently I sort of equated it to socialism: The person had a resource that they would never need again (equaling post-scarcity), so instead of charge people for it, they simply passed it around. I think this represents, at least to me, the real-life truth that socialism is the only logical and natural state that would exist in a post-scarcity environment.




Its the other way around. Socialism creates a post-scarcity environment by giving workers control over the means of production and eventually creating a classless society.




That's not feasible. Socialism's prerequisites include post-scarcity. How can you possibly obtain a resource because you live in a socialist society if it's not there to distribute? In my example, just because Tennessee theoretically establishes a worker's commune does not magically mean that it will have spices.




What about when people spot you a few cents at the cash register because you're short, and expect nothing back? What about, also at the register, they let you forward because you have one item and they've got two carts full? I think that exemplifies the socialist efficiency theory, that people will auto-assemble selflessly into an efficient system.


What *you're* describing, superborys, could be termed a 'redistribution of wealth'. It takes from what is empirically existing in the present and shuffles it around to better cover outstanding human needs. In political terms this would be *reformism* at best, since it doesn't address the underlying social relations (organization of production) that created the stuff in the first place.

Socialism doesn't *require* a pre-condition of "post-scarcity" (which is a *blanket* term, btw -- results could vary by *specific* items) -- rather it has to do with the organization of production. The social (productive) conditions to enable socialism could arguably have been around since about 1100 AD in Northern Europe, with the rise of nascent urban areas.





Harman, People's History of the World

Chapter 6 - European feudalism

[...]

Yet this most backward extremity of the great Eurasian continent was eventually to become the birthplace of a new civilisation which would overwhelm all the rest.

[...]

There was a corresponding slow but cumulative change in the social relations of society as a whole, just as there had been in Sung China or the Abbasid caliphate. But this time it happened without the enormous dead weight of an old imperial superstructure to smother continued advance. The very backwardness of Europe allowed it to leapfrog over the great empires.

[...]

There were horrific and pointless wars, barbaric torture and mass enslavement. Yet in the end a new organisation of production and society emerged very different to anything before in history.

[...]

On occasions the literacy of monks was used to gain access to writings on technology from Greece and Rome and from the Byzantine and Arabic empires: ‘If one is looking for the earliest mills, water mills or windmills, or for progress in farming techniques, one often sees the religious orders in the vanguard’.99

The full adoption of new techniques involved a change in relations between lords (whether warrior or religious) and cultivators. The great landholders finally had to abandon the wasteful Roman practice of slave labour—a practice that lingered on as late as the 10th century. Then they began to discover advantages in ‘serfdom’, in parcelling out land to peasant households in return for a share of the produce. The serfs had an incentive for working as hard as they could and employing new techniques on their holdings. As total output rose, the lords’ incomes also rose, especially as they used their military might to force previously free peasants into serfdom. What Bois calls ‘the transformation of the year 1000’ spelt the final end of agricultural slavery—and the final establishment of feudal serfdom as a more dynamic mode of production than the old Roman system.100

The importance of what happened in the countryside between about 1000 and 1300 is all too easily underrated by those of us for whom food is something we buy from supermarkets. A doubling of the amount of food produced by each peasant household transformed the possibilities for human life across Europe. Whoever controlled the extra food could exchange it for the goods carried by the travelling traders or produced by the artisans.

Crudely, grain could be changed into silk for the lord’s family, iron for his weapons, furnishing for his castle, wine and spices to complement his meal. It could also be turned into means that would further increase the productivity of the peasant cultivators—wooden ploughs with iron tips, knives, sickles, and, in some cases, horses with bridles, bits and iron shoes.

By supplying such things at regular markets the humble bagman could transform himself into a respectable trader, and the respectable trader into a wealthy merchant. Towns began to revive as craftsmen and traders settled in them, erecting shops and workshops around the castles and churches. Trading networks grew up which tied formerly isolated villages together around expanding towns and influenced the way of life in a wide area.101 To obtain money to buy luxuries and arms, lords would encourage serfs to produce cash crops and substitute money rents for labour services or goods in kind. Some found an extra source of income from the dues they could charge traders for allowing markets on their land.

Life in the towns was very different from life in the countryside. The traders and artisans were free individuals not directly under the power of any lord. There was a German saying, ‘Town air makes you free.’ The urban classes were increasingly loath to accept the prerogatives of the lordly class. Traders and artisans who needed extra labour would welcome serfs who had fled bondage on nearby estates. And as the towns grew in size and wealth they acquired the means to defend their independence and freedom, building walls and arming urban militias.

[...]





how feasible is it that post-scarcity will exist? How possible is it that one small area of the world will have access to every single resources they could need, or is post-scarcity stipulating that the globe is socialist at this point, and thus scarcity would be eliminated by practicality (e.g. In India they have spice, but they need coal, and here in Tennessee we have coal but need spice, so we exchange goods either directly or in a round-about way and while it technically is scarcity, it's not because no one is competing for those spices.)?




Your example is still capitalist with respect to distribution. With all resources under central planning, we will not have this kind of anarchist exchange which we see in capitalism.




But then how is each commune in theory to get what resources they want if it's all centrally planned? You cannot feasibly effectively distribute resources to an area as gigantic as America through one central bureau. You would have to divide the land up into divisions, gradually getting smaller and confederating each level of these communes.


I think you're focused too much on the *source material* -- like land -- and forgetting that people can *change* local conditions fairly quickly *if* they're in such a position to do so. Given the right "hothouse" conditions anything could be grown anywhere, and anything could be *made* anywhere with the right industrial infrastructure and empowering of those workers who wish to do the work for the benefit of society as a whole, instead of for commodity production.

[superborys]

What *you're* describing, superborys, could be termed a 'redistribution of wealth'. It takes from what is empirically existing in the present and shuffles it around to better cover outstanding human needs. In political terms this would be *reformism* at best, since it doesn't address the underlying social relations (organization of production) that created the stuff in the first place.

Socialism doesn't *require* a pre-condition of "post-scarcity" (which is a *blanket* term, btw -- results could vary by *specific* items) -- rather it has to do with the organization of production. The social (productive) conditions to enable socialism could arguably have been around since about 1100 AD in Northern Europe, with the rise of nascent urban areas.


It's still socialist. It's a co-operative effort of the people (in this case two people who help one another to keep things running 'smoothly') to make life better for both of them. The only lacking element here is that the person who donates the few cents generally doesn't directly get anything back, but it's hope that by donating the kindness will spread, and eventually someone will spot them a few cents.

And what does it matter if it helps make people's lives easier and better? Leftism is not about ideological crusading, it's about practical improvement of the people's lives. Do you aim to purposely ruin people's lives in order to motivate them to kill others so that you can have your revolution? I sternly support and believe that a revolution is near in America, but that doesn't mean I'm going to try to accelerate the downfall of my environment to see it get here faster.

Those social productive forces and conditions exist today, right now, in every single neighborhood, but post-scarcity implies that you no longer have an an unlimited need for a limited resource, or at least the amount of resource outweighs the need (because since when have you wanted all of the cheese in the world, seriously?).

While this is a possible state to develop, unless people are all like-minded and want the same thing (which is unlikely considering the huge diversity of people in the first place), there will be some competition for resources. Someone will think that they deserve the resources more or something, unless there's 3 loaves of bread and only 2 people vying for one each, in which case I do not see a problem. Is this what you're getting at?

Sorry if I missed points, I could feel that towards the end of this post I was losing focus, so I decided to stop there.

[ckaihatsu]

What *you're* describing, superborys, could be termed a 'redistribution of wealth'.





It's still socialist. It's a co-operative effort of the people


I respectfully continue to differ with you, on the basis of definition -- that 'socialism' is defined by the mode of production -- but I won't bicker.





there will be some competition for resources.


(Please see the model that I've created, and advocate for, at my blog entry.)

[Dean]

But then how is each commune in theory to get what resources they want if it's all centrally planned? You cannot feasibly effectively distribute resources to an area as gigantic as America through one central bureau. You would have to divide the land up into divisions, gradually getting smaller and confederating each level of these communes.

Communes can hold meetings - with each other, that is - to rationally appropriate the resources at their disposal.

[ckaihatsu]

But then how is each commune in theory to get what resources they want if it's all centrally planned? You cannot feasibly effectively distribute resources to an area as gigantic as America through one central bureau. You would have to divide the land up into divisions, gradually getting smaller and confederating each level of these communes.


On this tangential -- but related -- topic the exact same issue came up recently on another thread, about centralized planning. So I (of course) made a diagram. Since then the issue arose again on a different thread, and I posted this:





If a body *could* provide accurate analyses and recommendations to the larger working class then wouldn't that *be* central planning? In other words it would be a highly abstracted, large-scale course of policy that would have effects and implications all over the world, if supported from below by the proletariat.

In effect that's where we are *now* as a class -- we *need* a political type of central planning, called 'revolution', in order to displace the capitalist class from its perch. This can't be done only in a handful of cities or in just one country -- it has to be *generalized* and even *centralized* so that the working class can act and react in a consistent way, in its own best interests.


Centralization-Abstraction Diagram of Political Forms

http://i56.tinypic.com/15eitkg.jpg