Sustainable standard of living in a socialist world

[Pessimist]

Okay, so in a socialist world without artificial scarcity, production can be whatever is socially necessary given actual resource availability. What I'm curious about is what that actually would be, not just because of availability of natural resources but also the ecological impact of a world without artificial scarcity. It's true that production of many frivolous and destructive things could be halted (ie. private jets, resources devoted to militaries, etc) and that the absence of the profit motive means that the least destructive methods of production could be used more extensively. However, there would still be hard limits based on the availability of certain things such as rare earth metals and softer (sort of) limits based on estimates of how much damage the earth can take.

The capitalist idea that wants are unlimited is BS, but given the existing level of deprivation in the world, consumption would surely rise for millions or billions of people in the transition from capitalism to socialism.

So with all that in mind, how does a socialist society handle "real" scarcity and environmental planning? Would we use rationing, like today (except fairly instead of by price)? Would "unsustainable" goods and production by prohibited? I don't imagine for a second that I'm the first person to have thought of this topic and there are probably mountains of books on the subject, but I don't know where to look and would be interested in what people's perspective here is.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Live in yurts; practice permaculture.
Any workers' council that doesn't shut down their factory, and turn it into elaborate gardens is infected with bourgeois consciousness.

[Pessimist]

Live in yurts; practice permaculture.
Any workers' council that doesn't shut down their factory, and turn it into elaborate gardens is infected with bourgeois consciousness.

I'm not sure if you're attacking some position you think I have or if you are just mocking the topic as a whole.

[Blake's Baby]

VMC, this is Learning - the assumption has to be that any question is genuine and sarcasm is best avoided.

To the OP: my assumption has always been that for genuine cases of shortage, rationing on the basis of need would be in order.

As for environmentally-damaging production, it would depend on how necessary the production was I suspect. If there was no other way of producing necessary goods we'd have to put up with it until we come up with a better way of doing it. If there is a less-damaging way of doing it that takes more labour or more time or whatever that currently isn't utilised in capitalism because it's more 'expensive', then perhaps that's the way to go.

[Pessimist]

VMC, this is Learning - the assumption has to be that any question is genuine and sarcasm is best avoided.

To the OP: my assumption has always been that for genuine cases of shortage, rationing on the basis of need would be in order.

As for environmentally-damaging production, it would depend on how necessary the production was I suspect. If there was no other way of producing necessary goods we'd have to put up with it until we come up with a better way of doing it. If there is a less-damaging way of doing it that takes more labour or more time or whatever that currently isn't utilised in capitalism because it's more 'expensive', then perhaps that's the way to go.

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. I can imagine how things would work without pricing in the abstract, but I still find it hard sometimes to wrap my head around the idea of the transition, especially when applied to specific goods where we face certain bottlenecks (like livestock).

[barbelo]

In a socialist world, the sane people would fly to Mars, colonize it and live free.

[Pessimist]

In a socialist world, the sane people would fly to Mars, colonize it and live free.

Do you post that reply to every thread that discusses what socialism would be like? You must be busy.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I'm not sure if you're attacking some position you think I have or if you are just mocking the topic as a whole.

Sorry, I didn't mean for my post to come off as an attack. To clarify, I think the issue is framed in silly terms, and I hoped a silly response might shed some light on them.

I think that this is a difficult topic to approach on the level of "What would a society do?" - rather, what would various collectivities*, with meaningful connections to given landbases, certain community relationships, and so on do? How would these decisions, made at the "grassroots", reverberate more broadly? Not only will communism reshape what we conceive of as necessary, but its material basis will, likely, radically reshape necessity as such.

I think this brings us around to the question of technology - don't plug your ears and start screaming "PRIMITIVISM!" yet - in its broadest sense. That is, technology as concerns not only machines, but also techniques. The technology of daily life, freed from the fetters of capitalism, will almost certainly be radically different. The possibilities for new ways of relating directly to others and to our environments opens up avenues for exploration that, from our current vantage point, are likely difficult to conceive of.

For example, who do we really expect to mine bauxite without a metaphorical gun at their back? Uranium? If for example, cellular telephones disappear on account of the real horror that underlies their production, what new ways of communication, or reimagining of old ways might emerge out of a context that is different than "before we** had cellphones"?

*I'm being intentionally vague here, since I don't want to put too much emphasis on specific organizational forms that I can't predict.
**Who?

[Pessimist]

Sorry, I didn't mean for my post to come off as an attack. To clarify, I think the issue is framed in silly terms, and I hoped a silly response might shed some light on them.

I think that this is a difficult topic to approach on the level of "What would a society do?" - rather, what would various collectivities*, with meaningful connections to given landbases, certain community relationships, and so on do? How would these decisions, made at the "grassroots", reverberate more broadly? Not only will communism reshape what we conceive of as necessary, but its material basis will, likely, radically reshape necessity as such.

I think this brings us around to the question of technology - don't plug your ears and start screaming "PRIMITIVISM!" yet - in its broadest sense. That is, technology as concerns not only machines, but also techniques. The technology of daily life, freed from the fetters of capitalism, will almost certainly be radically different. The possibilities for new ways of relating directly to others and to our environments opens up avenues for exploration that, from our current vantage point, are likely difficult to conceive of.

For example, who do we really expect to mine bauxite without a metaphorical gun at their back? Uranium? If for example, cellular telephones disappear on account of the real horror that underlies their production, what new ways of communication, or reimagining of old ways might emerge out of a context that is different than "before we** had cellphones"?

*I'm being intentionally vague here, since I don't want to put too much emphasis on specific organizational forms that I can't predict.
**Who?


Okay, fair enough. I agree that there are a large number of unknowable factors about both the future in general and the way people organize in a socialist society. It's true that those factors could render my question unnecessary or silly. I guess when I was making this thread I was kind of operating under the (admittedly unlikely) premise of holding as many factors constant as possible while still ending capitalism.

[ckaihatsu]

So with all that in mind, how does a socialist society handle "real" scarcity and environmental planning? Would we use rationing, like today (except fairly instead of by price)? Would "unsustainable" goods and production by prohibited?


I think this is the crux of what it means to be socialized and social, apart from all of the subordinate logistical concerns of 'how?'.

Generally revolutionaries speak in terms of a 'political economy', meaning that all material-type concerns would be fully *politicized* -- *especially* the (liberated) labor required to make anything happen. (Though computerization and automation could very well supersede our current, conventional definition of 'labor', or 'doing the physical tasks necessary to fulfill certain desires'.)

I never tire of pointing out that 'scarcity' is not a blanket term, and that it should always be thought of on a per-item basis -- if something happens to be in short supply, what item *is* it, exactly, and just how much of a political priority would there be to make that item more generally available -- ?





That is, technology as concerns not only machines, but also techniques. The technology of daily life, freed from the fetters of capitalism, will almost certainly be radically different. The possibilities for new ways of relating directly to others and to our environments opens up avenues for exploration that, from our current vantage point, are likely difficult to conceive of.


I think we're *already* seeing a profound restructuring of human life and society due to the unique connectivity capabilities of the Internet and information processing circuitry -- monopolies and even hierarchies of information / culture sharing are no longer necessary, so people are now free to be far more interest-oriented than ever before in human history.

If the ancient world was 'know who you are', and the modern age was all about 'be who you are' [Wilde], the digital era is definitely about 'be who you are *together*', since vast physical expanses are now no longer an obstacle to individuals' expressed like-mindedness around interests in common.

Unfortunately like-mindedness is still constrained to the digital realm and the class system continues to lord over all aspects of major material productivity. The means of production, including technology and technique, needs to be as accessible as one's email in order for the social and political revolution to be called complete.


[10] Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

http://s6.postimage.org/9rs8r3lkd/10_Supply_prioritization_in_a_socialist_transi.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/9rs8r3lkd/)