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Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

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Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#101

Post by Nasrudith »

coldtea wrote: post #19

It's funny in a way, that a modern person believes that through technology we can very well reach consciousness with computers, go to Mars, design our genes, achieve immortality, colonize the universe, find the "god's particle", and so on, but successfully modelling an economy is impossible...

That is because we have been modeling economies throughly and are aware of the implications along with the mathematics like the Traveling Salesman problem.

We can and do model the economy regularly. Financial corporations don't hire all of those highly paid analysts for laughs.

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#102

Post by brokenkebab »

stebann wrote: post #91
brokenkebab wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote conveniently omits the fact that socialist regimes, and movements never were like a hippie commune trying to just "rise on its own merits". They were at least as much as aggressive trying to subvert their capitalist adversaries. And in this war (both overt, and covert) socialist side often had advantages stemming from centralization, mobilization, and relative closeness of its leader states, i.e. one couldn…

Allende's Chile wasn't USSR. It was a democratic government. And USA HELPED too kill that democracy that was the promise of Latin America...

>Allende's Chile wasn't USSR

I didn't state it was.

My answer is for popular conspiracy theory about CIA as the main reason for socialism's failures.

Nevertheless, "promise of Latin American" is a little bit too rosy description for the gov't which ended with hyperinflation through printing money.

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#103

Post by DoctorNick »

brokenkebab wrote: post #102
stebann wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allende's Chile wasn't USSR. It was a democratic government. And USA HELPED too kill that democracy that was the promise of Latin America...

>Allende's Chile wasn't USSR I didn't state it was. My answer is for popular conspiracy theory about CIA as the main reason for socialism's failures. Nevertheless, "promise of Latin American" is a little bit too rosy description for the gov't which ended with hyperinflation through printing money.

It's not a conspiracy theory when it happened over forty times.

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#104

Post by tsimionescu »

Nasrudith wrote: post #99
tsimionescu wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oldest idea of socialism is 'worker control of the means of production', which sounds a bit antiquated, but refers exactly to this: that the people doing the work should get to decide what work is being done. There is one major difference from capitalism though, that would have broad repercussions: workers do not get paid a wage, they directly get the profits of the company (not in equal amounts, but by some demo…

That brings to mind literal antiquity with Roman soldiers beinf required to supply their own gear. It was decentralizing in power but to call it equality is a bit misleading given it effectively created a caste barrier to be a soldier by an added constraint of "fit enough to fight AND afford the kit". The alternative was government supplied gear. Of course the downside of the alternative was that it allowed for a cen…

The factory/IT office still has to exist for the work to be doable. However, that doesn't mean that each worker would bring their own laptop or tools, anymore than companies require that today.

In the kind of socialist society I describe, you would win a livelihood by either finding a co-op which values your skills, or by trying to start your own co-op, probably by borrowing money together with others from some institution similar to a bank. Everyone participating in the co-op you helped start would probably take on not just the profits, but also some amount of liability for the loan.

Now, this change alone would greatly reduce the concentration of wealth, and so, hopefully, may free enough money to avoid the need for everyone to find a place to work or die of starvation. Still, even if that doesn't directly happen, the same mechanisms that apply today would still apply - a state-funded safety net, anti-discrimination laws, state programs encouraging employment of unemployed workers, education programs etc. I don't see why the bar to finding a place to work would be any higher if companies were owned by their workers instead of being owned by capitalists.

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#105

Post by tsimionescu »

chr1 wrote: post #98
tsimionescu wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oldest idea of socialism is 'worker control of the means of production', which sounds a bit antiquated, but refers exactly to this: that the people doing the work should get to decide what work is being done. There is one major difference from capitalism though, that would have broad repercussions: workers do not get paid a wage, they directly get the profits of the company (not in equal amounts, but by some demo…

Which types of contracts between people would we have to ban to achieve this version of socialism? If someone was allowed to form a company by himself, and sell his work to another company, or to forgo his vote in exchange for a fixed pay, we'd be back to the current state.

That's a good question, and I'm sure socialist theorists have some better thought-out answers than I have.

Thinking about this logically though, the only kind of contract that it might help to ban would be selling your labor for money, similarly to how we don't allow you to sell your person (indenturement/slavery) or sexual favors (prostitution) today. This would probably include such contracts between companies as well, encouraging actual exchange of goods and services instead of direct outsourcing.

Still, even these types of contracts wouldn't have to be necessarily banned, it may be enough in principle to encourage Worker-owned enterprises, and protect them from hostile actions against them by other corporations. Of course, how we would get from where we are today to the state where most corporations are owned by their workers is the most difficult question, and capitalists will not go down without at least a political fight.

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#106

Post by chr1 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #105
chr1 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which types of contracts between people would we have to ban to achieve this version of socialism? If someone was allowed to form a company by himself, and sell his work to another company, or to forgo his vote in exchange for a fixed pay, we'd be back to the current state.

That's a good question, and I'm sure socialist theorists have some better thought-out answers than I have. Thinking about this logically though, the only kind of contract that it might help to ban would be selling your labor for money, similarly to how we don't allow you to sell your person (indenturement/slavery) or sexual favors (prostitution) today. This would probably include such contracts between companies as w…

The startup i worked on was very similar to what you describe, most of us had comparable amount of shares, and we were happy to forgo our salary for multiple months when things were not going well because we knew that the result depended on the work we were doing, but there were also people who were happy to sell their work for money, and not bet the compensation they get on the work of the rest of the team. I don't think our non-technical workers would have been happy to bet the salary they were getting on the slim chance that the rest of the team would succeed eventually.

> similarly to how we don't allow you to sell your person (indenturement/slavery)

I rather like how libertarianism deals with this kind of contracts, it allows to sign any contract, but doesn't allow the buyer to apply aggressive force, to enforce the contract when seller changes his mind, that way the contract naturally changes from slavery to employment agreement.

> protect them from hostile actions against them by other corporations

Are there any hostile actions from which only some people deserve to be protected?

> capitalists will not go down without at least a political fight

i am not a capitalist, but i will side with them because knowing history of my country i can see that everything good i have is in large part thanks to them, and it's better to work with them to bring everyone up, instead of trying to bring them down.

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#107

Post by blaser-waffle »

stebann wrote: post #95
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... In which most people didn’t reap benefits, as the current protests show.

Almost two months of protests. Now protests in Colombia. Protests in Bolivia against the regime that USA and Israel put there.

Israel is deeply invested in Bolivia?

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#108

Post by monocasa »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #107
stebann wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost two months of protests. Now protests in Colombia. Protests in Bolivia against the regime that USA and Israel put there.

Israel is deeply invested in Bolivia?

It appears that way from the outside, bit it's hard to say for sure.

Morales cut ties in response to Israeli actions in Gaza, cutting Israel off from Bolivia's lithium deposits. And now one of the first things the new government has done is reestablish ties, even before getting a lot of their interim government together.

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#109

Post by seamyb88 »

shrubble wrote: post #5
yowlingcat wrote: post #2

A sad trod through a common delusion of grandeur I see on the internet these days. If the Chilean control room was really ripped off of Star Trek, that's a little absurd and hilarious but moreover sad. On the flip side, I'm not sure how much I agree with its premise and conclusion. Sure, it's easy to mock technocommunism historically if you ignore the elephant in the room that is China. While not in the same category…

China basically promised the people who are now in their 40s and 50s benefits that they will not get. This also happened in former Soviet countries. China has destroyed some of their environment, trading off building up industry for pollution. This also happened in former Soviet countries.

[dead]

Re: Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism

#110

Post by tsimionescu »

chr1 wrote: post #106
tsimionescu wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question, and I'm sure socialist theorists have some better thought-out answers than I have. Thinking about this logically though, the only kind of contract that it might help to ban would be selling your labor for money, similarly to how we don't allow you to sell your person (indenturement/slavery) or sexual favors (prostitution) today. This would probably include such contracts between companies as w…

The startup i worked on was very similar to what you describe, most of us had comparable amount of shares, and we were happy to forgo our salary for multiple months when things were not going well because we knew that the result depended on the work we were doing, but there were also people who were happy to sell their work for money, and not bet the compensation they get on the work of the rest of the team. I don't…

Regarding the start-up story, that is only one kind of enterprise, one with high risk and a long period of preparation before any chance of creating a product,and they're obviously not for everyone. But not all new enterprises are start-ups - if I were to open a shop, for example, I would expect to start turning a profit from day one (disregarding the loan I need to acquire the physical location and merchandise, of course), so the workers in the shop co-op would immediately have a clear revenue stream.

> that way the contract naturally changes from slavery to employment agreement.

Pure Libertarianism is at least as much an idealistic system as socialism is. I don't think these kinds of clever tricks and relying entirely on markets can produce the desired outcomes, at least not as efficiently as regulations can. Examples in history of the standards many businesses held even for things such as food and medicine before explicit regulations and inspections were mandated would seem to agree with me.

>Are there any hostile actions from which only some people deserve to be protected?

No, and I wasn't suggesting there should be. Worker-owned co-ops would not even have the power to attack capitalist corporations, but the reverse would definitely happen. Big corporations try to destroy any competition they have by default, and they would certainly focus their efforts against a competitor controlled by a lower class.

> and it's better to work with them to bring everyone up, instead of trying to bring them down.

Capitalism by definition seeks to bring investors up, and no more than that. Any raising of the rest of the population is entirely accidental, and sometimes explicitly discouraged (for example, no capitalists would like to see growing prosperity among Chinese factory workers, since it would directly eat into their profits).

Do note that European/US-style capitalism is definitely preferrable to USSR or Chinese style planned, centralized state capitalism, and even that is in turn preferrable to serfdom or slavery-based economies.

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