New here, and even though i’ve favored anarchist philosophy for a long time, i never discussed it with anybody else. So i thought i should ask around and get an idea of what the common ideas are. Specifically regarding economy and capitalism.

Premises, i’ll try to keep it short:

  1. I believe we can agree that “people should be fairly/ethically rewarded for their labor” is a reasonable ideal, and that profit is a much greater barrier to that ideal than tax is. With tax, it’s less ambigious if, where and when things “trickle down”, and people get some (certainly much room for improvement) democratic (likewise) say in the matter.

  2. The capitalist economy obviously contradicts anarchist ideals of decentralization. Non-democratic and hardly meritocratic (chance and anti-competitive tactics) power is concentrated in the hands of a small elite, arguably more influential for our day-to-day lives than governments.

  3. Humans are imperfect - imperfectly aligned and imperfectly capable, - so one shouldn’t give a human (or a body of humans) more authority/responsibility than is absolutely necessary, and do all that one can do to continuously ensure and audit their alignment and capability. As a political idea you’re all very familiar with this, but i also extend it to economy.

  4. Capitalism does some job at allocating (“investing”) labor and resources “intelligently” (using very generous wording), indirectly, into various measures of progress. It doesn’t do the best job, very far from it, but i think any alternative one proposes should at least try to do a better job at converting labor and resources into improving everybody’s quality of life.

There are some existing alternatives to convert labor. There is for example the concept of worker cooperatives (which could optionally be non-profit), which i find interesting.

But i don’t see that by itself scale easily to national or even global level. Especially regarding the labor/resource allocation or “investment” aspect. I’ve spent a great deal trying to conceptualize an ethical, decentralized and also more effective (at converting labor and resources into quality of life) alternative to capitalism, but i don’t feel like my thoughts are worth seriously sharing yet. As a very vague summary, think non-profit worker cooperatives + WIP decentralized, local-first hierarchial method of democratic crowd funding.

I’m curious to hear what thoughts and ideas you have on the subject. Also perhaps literature recommendations (please summarize).

  • haungack@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
    2·
    4 days ago

    When workers are exhausted and strapped for time they become politically inert and easier to predict/control (because they are fucking tired).

    I would also add: Engineered financial struggle also gives the illusion of instability, lowering the average will to take a revolutionary risk. And of course, besides the stability/crowd control aspect, people also just work harder for mainly other people’s riches.

    As a concrete example of the “life is hard, we’re practically always on the brink of collapse”-lie: There was major hysteria in Germany about the apocalypse that would totally ensue if Russian gas imports were suspended. That continued on until the gas pipelines were literally blown up (thanks, to whoever that was), and gas imports ceased for different reasons anyways.

    Nothing came of it. Minor dents here and there, which were quickly hammered out. The rich so blinded by numbers, that’s what they stirred all the drama and made all the fuss about, manipulating the entire nation and its gullible/corruptible politicians. Germany didn’t turn of Russian gas voluntarily, that decision had to be made for Germany by others, and it’s embarassing.

    I wouldn’t say this (mass manipulation and oppression) is even a conspiracy theory. The main reason i just switched platforms to lemmy, and likewise for other social media apps, is algorithmic control/censorship. Algorithmic cursing of anything that is political, deemed “inciting”, or even just “negative” as an AI would define it. “Advertizability” is an easy excuse for censorship. Remember the web chaos in the 2010s? People were raising massive, nationwide protests over copyright minutia. We don’t have that anymore, even though now we’ve got much better reasons to protest. I digress - my point is that even our western nations aren’t strangers to mass manipulation and oppression, at all.

    • MidnightPocket [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      my point is that even our western nations aren’t strangers to mass manipulation and oppression, at all.

      Agreed, it’s my opinion that they actually have always been the best at it.