harwoodjp

Great

Your dualism between model and world is nearly Cartesian. The model itself isn't separate from the world but produced materially (by ideology, sociality, naturally, etc.).

An injury to one is an injury to all.

Personal property is distinct from private property.

> violence necessary to steal the means of production

You could argue that private property is theft, necessarily enforced by a repressive state, and reappropriation is justice. The general strike is non-violent (until the police arrive).

> You also conflation democracy with freedom. 49% gets subjugated by the other 51%.

The interesting part about decentralization is that it somewhat relieves this problem. Federation allows for complex arrangements that coordinate towards consensus. So it might not be necessary to subject populations to laws they don't agree with with such broad strokes.

If you read the literature around the Bolshevik revolution, Lenin's coup was highly criticized as un-socialist: Luxemburg, Goldman, etc.

Simple litmus test for socialism: do workers manage production completely, through direct democratic processes?

> Socialists are always concerned with distributing production equally.

Not really. Socialism (the project of the labor movement) is concerned with workers being in control of their own work, not vessels for capitalist exploitation. Syndicalism is a form of socialism that emphasizes decentralization and federation, as opposed to command control. How resources are allocated under conditions of such federated governance is up for debate.

> "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Socialism is older than Marxism and shouldn't be conflated with it.

> Where are all the creative products the Soviets made?

The USSR was a state capitalist/authoritarian regime, nothing like socialism.

> Are you proposing we seize their land?

Not necessarily, but I think the workers should operate their farm democratically.

> That’s what the Soviets did

The USSR was state capitalist. Workers' councils (or soviets) stopped being considered very early on.

> If I build a robot in my garage to automate harvesting the peppers I grow in my backyard, do I own it?

Yes, it's your personal property. Private property is something else.

Well actually socialism has been historically concerned with maximizing human creativity. Fourier’s utopian vision was “libidinal” work that aligns passions with labor. Marcuse has a similar view in Eros and Civilization. Chomsky views creativity as axiomatic for humans, and syndicalism the appropriate system for harnessing it.

You guys are both discussing intelligence hierarchies (wtf?) without regard to actual history of popular labor movements being violently squashed.

Your view is called Social Darwinism and it’s really dangerous/dystopian. Also collapses under scrutiny.

Automation makes jobs unnecessary. We should build social infrastructure that allows people to pursue their passions with basic necessities guaranteed. This has been possible for awhile now.

Socialism is seizing the workplace from the capitalist.