Resources in future Socialist society

[ToxicAcidRed]

I'm just using Socialist as an umbrella term, considering systems such as Anarchism and Communism are off-shoots of it.

Natural Resources


Items that can be found in nature

such as Wood, Wheat, Bread, Oil



Capital Resources


Items that must be purchased

such as Wheelbarrow, hammer, Saw, Pencils, Plates



Human Resources


Humans, people and individuals who manually do the job.

Cook, Doctor, Policeman, Cashier



No offense but on this site I see a lot theorizing and planning on how to achieve socialism and overthrow capitalism, but a better question is what to do once we are in said socialist society.

Will we have schools, if so who will be a teacher? Will we have police, who will be the police?

We should start kind of role-playing how a socialist society would work out.

I would personally like to take the role of managing or participating in environmental services.

[cyu]

ill we have schools, if so who will be a teacher?

Anybody that has knowledge to share, and wants to share it.



Will we have police, who will be the police?


Not everyone will agree with me, especially not liberals ;) but since I believe in everyone having access to weapons (assuming they actually want access), then everyone will play a role in justice. Kind of a philosophical question: if there is no government, does that mean everyone is the government?

[Skyhilist]

I'm just using Socialist as an umbrella term, considering systems such as Anarchism and Communism are off-shoots of it.

Natural Resources


Items that can be found in nature

such as Wood, Wheat, Bread, Oil



Capital Resources


Items that must be purchased
[LIST]
such as Wheelbarrow, hammer, Saw, Pencils, Plates


Wait why would "bread" and "pencils" be in different categories? You have to process wheat to make bread just like you have to process wood to make pencils. Also what do you mean by "they must be purchased"? Most socialists do not support the idea of money after the revolution, let alone a market on which things are bought and sold.



No offense but on this site I see a lot theorizing and planning on how to achieve socialism and overthrow capitalism, but a better question is what to do once we are in said socialist society.

Will we have schools, if so who will be a teacher? Will we have police, who will be the police?

We should start kind of role-playing how a socialist society would work out.

I would personally like to take the role of managing or participating in environmental services.

First of all, there will be no police if we've achieve socialism, at least not the way that we currently think of them.

Second of all, we shouldn't "start kind of role-playing", because the roles that people will play depends on the social context of the revolution. We can't predict the material conditions that will occur, so we can't appropriately respond to them via allocated roles for the revolution like you're talking about; it's just a problem in utopian blueprinting.

Also, we want to get away from the idea of division of labor. This means that it's unlikely that jobs would be allocated in a manner where it's like "you do just this, you do just this, etc.". Things like shared labor would likely become more common.

Finally, I've actually seen quite a few people on here talk about how resources might be managed after a revolution. For example, I've posted about this: http://www.revleft.com/vb/debit-cards-under-t182867/index.html

[Skyhilist]

then everyone will play a role in justice.

Idk this might be applicable for some things but it seems problematic for others. For example, most people aren't trained in forensics, how would you make sure that the forensic evidence isn't messed up in the process of capturing a violent criminal or something when you're relying on the populace in general to deal with things like detaining violent criminals?

I think this could be applicable for other, more petty crimes though. More specialized roles I think would have to exist like a people's militia, and perhaps park rangers to tell the occasional stupid person you know, "you're not allowed to go near that Grizzly bear" or something and be able to take action having been trained to deal with such circumstances. But given that, I think these specialized positions could still be directly controlled by the populace and run from the bottom up.

[cyu]

how would you make sure that the forensic evidence isn't messed up in the process of capturing a violent criminal
I would assume there will be errors - not that there aren't errors now - currently, intentional planting of false evidence is rife in American police departments in order to cover up violations of procedure.

I would assume if the society believes good forensic evidence is important enough, it will make a point of teaching how to preserve it to the general population. However, if they don't think it's all that important, maybe they'd all go out for beers instead :lol:

[tuwix]

I'm just using Socialist as an umbrella term, considering systems such as Anarchism and Communism are off-shoots of it.

Natural Resources


Items that can be found in nature

such as Wood, Wheat, Bread, Oil



Capital Resources


Items that must be purchased

such as Wheelbarrow, hammer, Saw, Pencils, Plates



Human Resources


Humans, people and individuals who manually do the job.

Cook, Doctor, Policeman, Cashier





You use terms that means many things. Anarchism is only ideology and it isn't any socio-economic system. There communism and socialism means something different when it is said by Marxist and Anarchist. From Marxist point of view, there are two phases of communism/socialism. In first one, there are money and second one there are not. So there are different possible solutions for each phase.

The first phase assumes giving the means of productions into hands of workers. So there must be democratically self-governed enterprises. The money remain. The policeman only is replaced ins some function by militia. Now the main function of police is to maintain private property. In socialism there is no private property then this duty is eliminated.

The second phase, as I understand it, can exist when there is such automation that over 90% physical jobs aren't needed because it's done by machines. Then human resources become irrelevant. Trade using money is replaced by distribution without money. There slightly only barter remains for the sake of convenience. Simply, you order something and you get it without any payment. There various approaches to natural resources. There are solution based on computers and solutions based on democratic process, But when I use "democracy", I don't mean what is called democracy now, but real and direct democracy.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

ppl seem to forget that there are more resources than we know how to use.

the idea we have is sharing them equally as opposed to letting them be hoarded and sold off by capitalists.

[ckaihatsu]

I would assume there will be errors - not that there aren't errors now - currently, intentional planting of false evidence is rife in American police departments in order to cover up violations of procedure.




I would assume if the society believes good forensic evidence is important enough, it will make a point of teaching how to preserve it to the general population. However, if they don't think it's all that important, maybe they'd all go out for beers instead :lol:


This is a crucial point, that knowledge and know-how would no longer need to be -- or would be -- *specialized* into one person or another, one work role or another. I think the trajectory of *de*-specialization would parallel the overall de-commodification of all items, and of labor.





I'd estimate that the whole transforming of socially necessary *work roles* would parallel this sea-change in what is considered 'labor' and what isn't -- in other words, there are plenty of incentives under capitalism to *specialize* and be as "indispensable" as possible, to individualistically cut against the system's tendency to standardize and make things as interchangeable as possible.

I'll argue that the communist spirit is *anti-specialization*, and so work roles would tend to be made as *practical* as possible, for the sake of the laborers first, and for broad-based social benefit.

[AnaRchic]

I see a future communist society being rooted in information technology being utilized to economically plan an artificial abundance each period, allowing for the free consumption of goods and services by all. This could easily be done cybernetically by tracking consumption patterns, figuring rates of population growth, analyzing availability of resources and their most efficient use, intentional automation of industry, etc. A massive computer algorithm could be used to process all of this information and formulate productive plans that would result in an artificial abundance. Any resources left unconsumed could in theory be recycled into the next productive period. From here associations of workers councils and community assemblies could choose and implement a favored plan.

Schools would exist as free associations of learning, where the pursuit of knowledge is valued for its own sake apart from the need to 'make a living'. Each person will contribute in whatever way that most interests them, and with the increase of automation and cybernetic planning most manual human labor will over time be rendered unnecessary. All of this will allow for greater leisure and creative/intellectual pursuits, and humanity will be freed from the brutish struggle for existence, self-managing ourselves as a species in pursuit of our own interest.

I highly doubt police would exist, as police establish themselves as a power fundamentally separate from and above the community in which they act. Libertarian communism would see community self-management on a grand scale, and this would include the self-management of defensive measures against aggression. I have no way of knowing how this would specifically look.

That is my brief speculative vision of a high-phase of a libertarian communist society.

[Vilhelmo]

The most detailed vision for an anarchist society & the one that I favour, is called Participatory Economics/Polity.

[Vilhelmo]

but since I believe in everyone having access to weapons (assuming they actually want access), then everyone will play a role in justice. Everyone should have tactical nuclear weapons? If you think he's guilty shoot?
Kind of a philosophical question: if there is no government, does that mean everyone is the government? Why would there be no government? Every human society has some form of government.

[cyu]

Everyone should have tactical nuclear weapons? If you think he's guilty shoot?


If you want to learn about anarchism, I would suggest you visit the Learning section of these forums.


Why would there be no government?

What would you call it if everyone declared themselves The Government (TM)?

[Vilhelmo]

If you want to learn about anarchism, I would suggest you visit the Learning section of these forums.


My political roots are in anarchism, Social Anarchism or Libertarian Socialism to be more precise.
I have been studying these traditions for decades.
Your comment bears no relation to them.
More like some right-wing anti-government militiaman's wet dream.


What would you call it if everyone declared themselves The Government (TM)?

Fantasy Land? Certainly not Anarchism.

[cyu]

What happens to weapons in your version of anarchism?



More like some right-wing anti-government militiaman's wet dream.



Indeed I intend to co-opt anti-government militia, in the same way that capitalists have attempted to co-opt Christianity and "libertarians".

[argeiphontes]

The most detailed vision for an anarchist society & the one that I favour, is called Participatory Economics/Polity.

That used to be my favorite until I read Schweickart's critique (http://orion.it.luc.edu/~dschwei/parecon.htm) and then his book. Now I'm a market socialist / mutualist. My bread and oil will come from democratically-managed worker coops interacting in a market system.

[ckaihatsu]

I see a future communist society being rooted in information technology being utilized to economically plan an artificial abundance each period, allowing for the free consumption of goods and services by all. This could easily be done cybernetically by tracking consumption patterns, figuring rates of population growth, analyzing availability of resources and their most efficient use, intentional automation of industry, etc. A massive computer algorithm could be used to process all of this information and formulate productive plans that would result in an artificial abundance. Any resources left unconsumed could in theory be recycled into the next productive period. From here associations of workers councils and community assemblies could choose and implement a favored plan.


I agree-with and appreciate this concise overview -- I'll add that I have a model that specifies certain 'parameters' that could be used, for an overall framework....





[W]ith contemporary computer technology all of the computational processes required -- for conducting the exit surveys, the sorting and mass-prioritizing of cumulative demands, the tracking of labor credits in circulation, the maintaining of informational wikis about each factory and workplace, the rank-and-file discussions and decision-making, etc. -- could be fully transparent from the source code onward, enabling full public oversight of all of society's political mechanics in realtime.

The 'central authority', or mass co-administration, could realistically be synonymous with full public oversight of these computational processes, thus relieving society of any ambiguities over political procedure.




[T]he 'communist supply & demand' model is meant to address [...] logistical intricacies [...]




[T]he passing-forward of labor credits from liberated laborer to liberated laborer cannot be termed 'wages' since there's no commodification of any kind taking place. With all productive assets and resources *collectivized*, labor could no longer have any material-based *exchange value*, except in relation to other (liberated) labor. This effectively takes material exchangeability off-the-table, and with it all commodification and abstract monetary / financial valuations





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg

[tallguy]

ppl seem to forget that there are more resources than we know how to use.

the idea we have is sharing them equally as opposed to letting them be hoarded and sold off by capitalists.
More arable land than we know how to use?

More potable water than we know how to use?

More light sweet crude than we know how to use.

More (insert any number of other key industrial resources here) than we know how to use?

All of which is not to mention the elephant in the room of environmental degradation and collapse from already using all of the above to the extent that we have.

There's a reason that, pre-industrial revolution, the global human population never exceeded 750 million.