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hannibalbarker-blog · 7 years

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An Old Explanation of Socialism

A year ago, I did a write-up explaining socialism in a historical context to some friends of mine. I thought it did a good job at the time. I’ve since learned much more, and so now I know a lot of it is inaccurate. Not completely false, but inaccurate and not the treatment that the topic deserves. At some point I’d like to update it. But here it is, archived, so it isn’t only a Facebook post.

Allow me to properly explain Socialism, Capitalism and Communism in a historical context, there's a summary at the bottom if this is too long. It's long as shit. But I recommend reading the whole thing because it took me 2 hours to write.

Ahem:

People have needs. They also have skills. Some people agree to use their skills to satisfy another's needs. This trade is the bread and butter of any economic system, in fact, it is economics in its entirety.

But you need food and clothes, not seeds and thread. So somebody with the skills to turn seeds into wheat, a farmer; and wheat into bread, a baker; are necessary to complete the trade cycle for food. So you need to produce a good for trade. The way this is done is through means of production. Whoever controls the means of production in a community controls the value and trade of that good.

Early humans formed hunter-gatherer tribes and some hunted while some made clothes and some reared children and they all supported each other as a whole group since it was in everybody's own best interests, and we also like to care about people we are close to. This tribes could also be quite large, as much as 300 people, in fact. This is a primitive form of Communism (I think it's called Communalism).

So about 10000 years ago, some civilisations discovered you need to grow crops to make beer (yes, beer is the reason for all civilisation), and decided to stay in one place for a while instead of roaming and hunting. Then they discovered you could grow food. Bam. No need to search for meat if you can just grow meals out of the ground.

But what happens if one guy says, "well, this is my farm now, fuck off"? There you have private ownership of a means of production (I'll just call this POMOP). Why doesn't the rest of everybody just fuck this one guy up and take the farm for everybody? Well the farm owner's gone and promised a bunch of people grain in exchange for protection. The POMOP can only be enforced through violence. This is the basis of POMOP.

Sometime in the Ancient Era, currency is invented. This allows the abstraction of value so a person can choose how they work for their needs rather than relying on what the demand is for the goods they produce.

Anyway, we'll skip forward a few thousand years to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, around 600AD. Europe is now anarchic and beset by barbarians. Eventually, a system of relationships develops where a poor farmer, a peasant, works the land of the Lord, in exchange for the protection of the Lord's army, who works for the Lord in exchange for the money the Lord receives from selling the peasant's food. The Lord himself pledges his army to the King in exchange for the legitimacy of his title. This system is called Feudalism and it rules Europe for 1000 years. But you can see how the Lord controls the MOP.

Towards the end of the Medieval Era, the Black Death happens. So many people fucking die, seriously. This means that there's less people that need to be fed, so farmers don't need to work as hard. This weakens Feudalism. People move into cities and they expand. Technology develops. International trade begins. But the systems of power created by Feudalism remain, so powerful people are still powerful because they control the MOP.

Thomas Hobbes releases a book of philosophy in the 1500s, The Leviathan, describing the contemporary view of government. He describes the state of nature as a state of constant war and violence, likens mankind to purely animal tendencies of violence, and describes the idea of the Social Contract: the idea that humans need strong, central government to exist, lest they collapse into an orgy of murder. This becomes a pretty important basis of political thought for a while.

So it's about the mid-1700s now and James Watt starts selling his steam engine. This shit takes off and mines, farms and factories everywhere are starting to industrialise. The same places owned by all the families and friends of powerful feudal lords. People move to the cities in droves looking for work to survive.

But the problem here is that there are very few places to work and lot of people who need to work. The workers cannot produce goods on the level of the machines and survive, so they are forced to work for these companies or they won't be able to trade for their needs, i.e. they will starve. This is the ultimate shift in power. Those that own the Means of Production have total control of the value that a worker receives. This is now Capitalism. The private ownership of capital/property/MOP in an industrialised society.

The worker needs to work to survive. The Capitalist seeks maximum profit so he can maintain his power. Therefore, he pays the worker the minimum amount of money that the worker will accept, since the worker has no other choice. He does not pay him for the value he produces, but for his time spent labouring. This allows the maximum extraction of value from the worker, since he will undoubtedly produce much more in an hour than he is paid. This is the fundamental exploitation of Capitalism.

Trade Unions develop in order to combat the incredibly heinous working conditions that people are forced to endure at this time. Like seriously they were working 16 hour days without any job security, any kind of safety regulations, being paid just enough so their children don't fucking die. A lot of these guys strike and threaten militant action. Some succeed and raise the working conditions. Others get gunned down by the army, or savagely beaten by strikebreakers. It's pretty fucked, really.

Having to negotiate wages and trade oneself, the worker comes to find he has his own price, and is treated more like a good for trade than a person with needs. This disillusionment is known as alienation. At the same time, a worker producing a good he could never afford, like a luxury car, also becomes alienated and disillusioned. These contribute to the suffering of the worker. One tenet of Communism is to eliminate the scarcity of luxury goods and make them accessible to all.

At the same time, the idea of collective ownership of a means of production, where everybody who works it has a say in how it is run, and gets paid equal to the value they produce through labour, and not exploited. This, and other similar movements are eventually known collectively as Socialism.

In 1789, people in France were sick of the king's shit, and starving all the time. So they said, "Fuck it. Fuck you, fuck the nobility" and cut his head off and had a nice old revolution. Funded by people from the cities, known as the burgs. These guys were burghers, or, in French, bourgeoisie. They owned the capital in the cities and were sick of the government regulating their shit, so they funded the revolution. The people of France did some radical shit like give everybody human rights and institute some sick democracy. The bourgeoisie knew better and paid the politicians to do their bidding. This is the origin of Capitalist influence in politics. The spread of beautiful French freedom was followed by capitalist corruption everywhere.

This is the beginning of what is known as The State. The State is the part of the government that legitimises violence to protect private property, while condemning the violence of the citizens. Anarchy is widely believed to be the dissolution of government and rules, but Anarchy is merely the dissolution of the State. That is an important distinction.

This is the theory of dialectical/historical materialism proposed by Karl Marx in 1848. Dialectical meaning a self-perpetuating dualist cycle, in this case the relationship between owner and worker, and materialism being the theory that production of goods are the driving force behind development of society.

In his works, he sharply critiques very basis of Capitalism, in the way I've just described. He disregards Capitalism in favour of Socialism. He also describes Communism, an economic system wherein all needs are met by society, and people give according to what they are able to, as the ultimate result of Socialism.

It's important to understand the context of Communism. The second Industrial Revolution of the time came out of nowhere and accelerated so quickly that it caused mass unemployment. It was thought that such automatic production would mean that most work would be done by machines and the competition for resources would nearly be completely reduced. Communism is an idea which requires post-scarcity to work. It is considered to be the final stage of Socialism in such an environment. The inner workings of Communism are pretty complex to understand, and almost baffling and impossible when you consider the current state of society today.

Socialism and Communism are often used to refer to the same thing. To put it simply, a Socialist believes in the collective ownership of the means of production. A Communist believes in that too, but sees the end goal of that to be a classless society in which all needs are met. Communism is based mostly on Marx's philosophical theory, while Socialism is an older movement.

As time went on after the industrial revolution, people grew restless with the conditions they lived in, and began militaristic movements. The owners of the means of production feared being overthrown or the victims of violence (ironic) and so 'persuaded' politicians in their respective countries to pass token reforms to appease them. This is not always the case, though. Many reforms and regulations have been based on ethical and altruistic legislation. But it is important to know that bourgeoisie have always had very strong influence in politics since the inception of democracy.

A social democrat/democratic socialist is somebody who is a proponent of the idea that the worst effects Capitalism should be stymied by social policies and legislation. Social policies being systems that provide people's needs, lime healthcare and welfare. Socialism strongly advocates social policies. Many Marxists believe this ultimately only placates the people rather than solving any issue, since the inherent inequality of Capitalism still prevails.

Some Marxists also believe that proper socialism is impossible through democratic means, since the State exists as a tool of the bourgeoisie, and that reforms are token gestures so they still retain power.

There are many forms of Socialism. The one that's most different and probably should a separate economic system entirely is State Capitalism, wherein the government (local and state) owns all means of production, and what is done is democratically decided by the people by process. This is the most common implementation of Socialism but I think it's awful and has invariably led to authoritarianism and repression.

Other possible implementations include things like democratic control, where each MOP is controlled democratically by everybody who takes part in it. Planned enterprises, where a team plans the control of the MOP while the workers participate in the action. There are all sorts of different structures for all kinds of MOP. The main difference is that a worker will have power over their workplace and be paid for their actual labour value. It's a rich tapestry that requires further specific study.

This should probably do it for now. I'll make another post at some point describing more in-depth topics like 20th Century Socialism and Revolution.

I'll field any questions you may have.

SUMMARY

Economics: - Humans have needs - Humans trade for their needs - Humans need produced goods, not raw materials

MOP: - To produce a good you need a means of production (MOP) - Means of production can be privately or collectively owned - When all MOP are privately owned, it forces a worker to accept poor conditions in order to survive - Private owners of the MOP use force and violence to retain their ownership - To maximise profit, the owner of the MOP exploits the worker for their labour, then pays them back the minimum amount in the form of wages. - Having to negotiate wages forces workers to become a good themselves, leading to alienation

Feudalism: - Medieval economic system - Based on a system of relations between Peasant, Knight, Lord and King - Created power structures that underlie Capitalism

Capitalism: - Industrialisation allows private ownership to happen on a massive scale, this is Capitalism - Capitalism leads to strong inequality and poverty, with power massed in the hands of a small group - This group uses their power to influence politics to retain power. - This then causes the State to protect the power of the group

The State and Anarchy: - The State is the function of the government that legitimises violence to protect POMOP - Anarchy is the political idea that this function needs to be eliminated

Social Democracy: - The idea that Capitalism should be consistently restricted by legislation - Many Communists think this just makes people comfortable with the base exploitation of Capitalism.

Socialism: - The idea that the MOP should be collectively owned by those that work it - State Capitalism is where the MOP is owned by the government and administered democratically - Many forms of socialist organisation are possible - Ultimately it means that workers are free from alienation and wage exploitation

Communism: - The final stage of Socialism - Requires post-scarcity and no competition for resources - All needs are met by society, and you give what you are able.

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