There are several ideas out there, but yes they generally require transitioning away from capitalism. The one I’m particularly fond of is called a “library economy”, where we no longer commoditize anything that isn’t consumable. Imagine instead of buying a wheelbarrow and shovel to do some yard work, you go to the gardening library and checkout the things you need. When you’re done in about 3 weeks, you return the items back to the library.
In general though, any planned economy would be far more efficient and less wasteful. Imagine that instead of 30 different TV’s with the exact same panel, there’s 2 or 3 types of tv with that panel. The way Walmart operates is a perfect example of a planned economy.
Library actually sounds nice. Funny you mentioned wheelbarrow, I actually need one for a project, but have no space for one, and hate the idea of buying something I’ll need once. I’ll end up renting one, but would be great to check one out.
I don’t see how a library economy would work with a lot of things. Like, if I wanted to do a house cleaning day, I go to the cleaning library and rent a vacuum. But what if I drop something on the floor…I have to check out a vacuum, just to clean it up? Then what if all the vacuums are checked out? It really seems horrible inefficient and a logistical nightmare.
The ‘tragedy of the commons’ is very much exaggerated and misunderstood. It is 100% possible to collectively govern commons without a tragedy situation, and there are plenty of examples of it happening in real life. The economist Elinor Ostrom actually won a Nobe Prize in Economics for demonstrating this.
The real tragedy of the commons is that we lost the commons to the wealthy elite. We can govern the commons collectively by ourselves without the need for governments, corporations, or the influence of money. I also have a hard time imagining someone deciding that they need 10 wheelbarrows and taking them all from the library, which can acquire more. Are there people checking out every copy of Harry Potter from a book library just to deprive others from reading it?
A library economy doesn’t mean you can’t also own things. You can own a vacuum, and then borrow a steamer for the big spring cleaning. Or say you’re like me and vacuums aren’t necessary most of the time. Instead of owning one, I could go and get one once a month.
Interesting! Would there be a limit to how much any person can “check out” or for how long? How is this different from renting tools in the current system?
So most of what I see about a library economy is that you can use items indefinitely, and I absolutely think that we should have that ability. The actual mechanism of how it works is up in the air, and hasn’t been deeply explored to my knowledge. What I imagine is that people say “I need this for x time” and it gets catalogued. If someone tries to check out a luxury item (imagine like a book or something) after the due date, they must return the other item first or has the option to extend the borrowing term as far as needed. Things that would be essential would still be available, but the person gets reminded about their obligation to the community to have the item returned.
As for how it’s different, an everything library can exist in some capacity in all systems. The difference is that a library economy allows for items to be used without cost, and doesn’t commoditize the items. It creates a system of mutual respect towards the rest of the community, and incentivizes groups of people to act creatively together for projects. It functions more like a store where you don’t buy anything and return it to the community, rather than paying money to use a tool for a week. It also incentivizes highly durable, extremely usable objects (imagine the right to repair, but without any anticonsumer behavior)
Imagine instead of buying a wheelbarrow and shovel to do some yard work, you go to the gardening library and checkout the things you need.
I get the sentiment but that sounds awful. Do I need to go borrow a mountain bike every time I want to go for a ride which I now do about 3 times a week? What about my hobby as a maker? Do I need to go borrow all the necessary tools every time I want to build something?
This would basically mean that I get almost nothing done ever because when the inspiration strikes my tools are nowhere to be found.
No not at all! Instead of thinking about this as the only way to get things, think about how you get things now. Just replace stores with libraries. You can own things that you use regularly (basically through an indefinite borrow from the transportation library), but borrow other things as needed
That’s great! I’m willing to bet that they call it “the library of things”, right? Yes, these everything libraries exist already in a small and limited capacity, generally serving a small area. The reason I brought it up is because the library economy is an alternative to capitalism in seeking solutions for climate change.
The reason capitalism would need to end is because capitalism is all about growth for the sake of growth; the ideology of cancer. This means that capitalists aren’t happy with creating what’s necessary, they want to manufacture as much as possible as cheaply as possible to get all of the money. If a library economy exists beside capitalism, it will be attacked and eroded endlessly. Just look at the publishing industry’s attack on libraries for digital media. They’re creating artificial scarcity on digital goods, something that is literally unbound by quantity.
Only just discovered the concept now in this thread but I guess it’d work like any other library. You’d just check out the stuff you need that you choose not to own for what ever reason.
If you want to own a mountain bike because you would use it regularly then that would be fine. But if you need a drill press for a project you can go check one out.
Just guessing here as I’ve done no reading on this subject.
Assuming you aren’t talking about consumable items, then the library would get more from manufacturing them. A library economy doesn’t mean we stop all production, we just produce what’s needed and distribute them to libraries. This has major advantages, like essentially eliminating waste from overproduction, permanently ending planned obsolescence and the incentive to create more durable items, fosters community cohesion, and a lot more. Here’s a more thorough introduction to the topic through the lens of political anarchism, though it could exist in any leftist economy
I’m really having a hard time differentiating this from the current system… You can already own things and already rent things, and already check things out from libraries. Is it about spreading the cost of having/maintaining those items across everyone instead of just the ones using them like in a rental system?
The reason it’s different is because it replaces the other 2 methods serving capital with the 1 option that serves the community. It’s more like a store where you don’t buy anything, but then give those items to the community when you no longer need them. Buy? Rent? Why do those things when you could borrow from the community, help improve it, and then return it to the community? Having a picnic next to the lake? Borrow a cooler for a day! Need to drive across the country? Borrow an electric car for a year! Need something at all times, like a cellphone or a washing machine? Borrow it indefinitely!
Instead of overproducing items at the expense of killing us all in climate crisis, a library economy produces what’s necessary and lets the people decide what’s best for the items through direct democracy and electing library stewards to handle the operation of the library. Nothing is commoditized, nothing prevents you from owning things, and nothing prevents you from building your own things. It incentivizes highly durable, repairable items. It creates the foundation for mutualism and helping each other. Most importantly to me, it creates a society where we no longer have to consider money while also enriching our lives.
Not disagreeing with your central point, but it’s worth noting that planned economy has been tried and it failed, not due to planning errors but fundamental systemic issues with the approach.
No place has a fully free economy - for good reason. Such a place would have no labour condition laws, no social security, no pensions, no free healthcare, etc.
Every economy to an extent already is planned. They do not fail per se.
There have been failures, yes. However, look at any company, especially the megacorporations like Walmart. They all have planned economies. Walmart IT isn’t placing contract bids with the Walmart marketing department, they just help the marketing department when needed. The meat department isn’t shopping around for cheaper suppliers, they get meat from the logistics network Walmart controls. The only example of a free market business I know of is Sears, which was already sinking. The free market idea from the CEO was catastrophic and sunk the company in under a year. The IT department needed to turn a profit, so their prices were high. When the marketing department needed IT and Sears IT placed a bid, it was higher than contracted IT so the marketing department didn’t work internally and ended up costing the company massive amounts of money.
There are also successful planned economies in existence right now; Cuba is thriving in spite of the economic sactions by the US, and Vietnam didn’t stop being communist after the war with the Khmer Rouge. This also excludes other realities, like what constitutes the failure of a country? Is it a failure of a planned economy, or is it a failure of government? If it’s a failure of the economic system, then why aren’t failing/failed capitalist nations attributed to capitalism?
Companies fail all the time and it is critical to ensure that bad systems are not allowed to continue. A government doesn’t fail. It’s issues are enabled to continue unabated.
The ultimate issue with a centrally planned economy is not environmental though. It is putting additional power into the hands of a majority which gives minorities no recourse. At least in a capitalist country minorities can form their own communities and local economies. If the majority wants to allocate food and resources to the majority in a centrally planned system, the minorities starve. Sure, there are still issues in capitalist systems with regulations targeting minorities and the stealing of resources like Tulsa but there’s no recourse at all in a centrally planned one.
Vietnam transitioned from central planning before even the Soviet Union.
Are you really sure Cuba is the best example right now? Go look into how they are doing and get back to me. I won’t claim that a centrally planned economy cannot be efficient when the leadership places great emphasis on it. Cuba has some very efficiently run state programs. They are also unfortunately not very nimble.
Central planning can make for some oppressive and robust environmentalism. We see that in Cuba. It also works the other way. What makes you think that after the revolution you will be the one making the decisions and the same grifters won’t take part in that system for their own benefit?
What happens when the needs of the state outweigh the needs of the world? Does the majority in any country really care about the environment over jobs and prosperity? How likely is this central plan to place a focus inherently on resource efficiency and actually be successful without an incentive when lives are on the line? We know from the few large centrally planned economies that they’ve largely failed at that task rather dramatically.
All of this should not be weighed against hands-off capitalism but instead the modern liberal mixed system. Externalities are covered with regulations and government programs based on contracts and markets. That’s reformed capitalism.
Reforms to socialist systems have not addressed the core issues of power imbalance but instead, allow corporations as long as they align with the efforts of the state and the majority. That’s literally economic fascism and comes with all its own issues.
There’s a lot more that can be covered here including numbers that support these narratives but there’s a reason the Western left shifted from a revolution to a reform mindset in the 1960s and it largely follows the above logic.
It sounds like you’re more interested in the few from the majority deciding everything on behalf of the minority. It feels like you understand the problem with our bourgeois democracy, but use it as a bludgeon to attack true democracy. We can decide to elevate the voices of minorities. We don’t have to perfectly model our planned economy based on previous attempts, instead we can create our own system based on our culture and collective experiences. One of the huge failures of the USSR was not ensuring people that identify as kazakhs were part of the governing body of Kazakhstan. We don’t have to repeat mistakes, we can choose to learn from them. I imagine elected reps from unionized ethnic groups to help make guiding principles for governing the commons by the commons. It may work, it may not. I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try.
There’s literally nothing inherent to a socialist system that makes a society less racist. You are giving the majority more power over vulnerable groups though. You can say that sounds like I’m defending the rich but I never said that. Sure we can learn from it. We can eliminate majority power over capital control. The CCP argued that the USSR had strayed from the true intent of Lenin’s Communism. It got them famine and they reverted. Yes, Lenin argued that it was more an approach than a set system. The issue with that is what the proposed approach is inherently oppressive. Lenin himself argued that dissent could not be allowed to exist because it would undermine the system.
Your argument that we can at least try ignores consequences that we’ve seen before. We also could try an ethnostate. That would provide the unity required. Those pesky minorities keep getting in the way of progress. How dare they want to keep the value of their labor. We could try shooting ourselves in the foot through radical change to try an experiment that could just as easily be formed internal to the system.
There’s nothing stopping left systems for existing within western societies. The corporate structure actually allows for it depending on how you write the founding documents. Co-ops succeed all the time and they fail all the time. Nonprofits do a lot of the same. When these systems are not at a government level, when the trust fails and the system collapses it does not take everything down with it.
It’s really difficult for a government system supporting capitalism to break down because it doesn’t provide anything inherently required to live. In a command economy, when the trust is broken, the system breaks down. When the system breaks down, the people go to other systems for their needs. Then start the power struggles and the death. It’s authoritarian and unstable by it’s very nature and it has a tendency to become more authoritarian and consolidated as time goes on due to lessons learned.
Why would you knowingly choose this path when reform and regulations are an option? What is different about your approach from China or the USSR other than you’ll just attempt it better or be more forceful in pushing your ideal code of ethics?
Bro, you’re using way too many words to say that you benefit from the status quo and don’t want to change things too much because you’re afraid that it might impact your personal comfort. You want to move incrementally into a planned economy just in case, and I get that. I understand where that fear comes from. But the time for incremental change was 50 years ago, the current climate crisis demands we change now or face extinction.
I understand that socialism and planned economies don’t fix issues of racial and ethnic hate. It’s the responsibility of socialists and other leftists to have a healthy dose of intersectionality when talking about creating political systems, because discussing how to make sure minorities aren’t negatively impacted is essential to the system succeeding.
I’m actually kinda offended by your suggestion that “we should try something else when creating a socialist society to ensure minorities are heard” is equivalent to an ethnostate. Actually what the fuck. That’s a disgusting comparison and I don’t understand at all how you decided they were equivalent.
There is stopping something from creating socialism in the status quo, and it’s called capitalism. Capitalism has, does, and will continue to fight anything that challenges the status quo. The ideal for capitalists is to recreate a feudal society, child labor and all. You talk about instability within former socialist nations, but never draw the line towards the endless attacks placed on those countries by the imperial core. Most recent example? Zunzuneo, an astroturf social media site created by USAID as a CIA front to destablize Cuba. There’s also the 1990 US Appropriations Act, which caused Yugoslavia to collapse into reactionary ethnic hate that resulted in the Bosnian genocide. You point to failures of socialism as if it’s a fundamental flaw, but never examine the reasons for why those nations failed. If you did, you’d see attacks from the imperial core as well as mistakes from the local government being the point of failure, not socialism.
I am against it because people die. Full stop. Your insistence on radical change as a requirement to dramatic action is one of the main issues behind why we cannot actually move forward. You are not the only player at fault, but you are partially complicit.
You cannot eliminate prejudice. To knowingly give a system more centralized power is to enable it to be susceptible to it. It is negligent at best. This is why most theorists are anarchists. They are against centralized power structures. My issue with them is that so was every communist system so far. Every single one tries to decentralize power or promises to. When they do, the systems fail and they centralize again very quickly.
You should be offended. It is an offensive thing. The fact that you can recognize that should make a connection to you about suggesting we just try something. How do we know that fascism won’t help society? Well, it is right there in the proposed structure. It is designed to be oppressive. It is the same when you take economic power away from minorities. It is designed to be oppressive by its structure. Capitalism would be perfect too if everyone acted in everyone else’s best interests and weren’t racist. As it stands we need multiple levels of power to account for externalities.
There is literally nothing stopping you from going and setting up a commune in the West. Just don’t expect people to donate resources to you. Go ahead and try to set up a private company in a centrally planned economy. That is the difference and why it is oppressive by its design. It literally requires capitalism to not exist in order to force everyone into your perfect society. A liberal society is fundamentally incompatible with true socialism and it takes all of our other liberties with them.
Your examples are far from intellectually honest when put in context with what our adversaries do and have done to undermine free societies. I do find it actually pretty funny the lengths of which you twist events to pin the Bosnean genocide on the West though. Way to twist a conflict born out of minorities being oppressed by the majority in a socialist system into something useful to blame capitalism for. Is any of this connecting for you?
Any system that has some growth built into it will eventually cause problems, it’s just that some of them, like capitalism, are very efficient at getting us to these points faster. The best system for the climate was discarded long ago, as we moved out of the hunter-gather phase and discovered techniques in maximizing our energy into other things besides just surviving. Agriculture and all that it allowed were the first steps into taxing the earth’s balance.
Capitalism is inherently a wasteful of resources and also doesn’t value human life nor the planet’s life. The planet and people are just something to be exploited to enrich the top capitalists who contribute nothing.
It encourages planned obsolescence, short term profit making, and production of commodities which exist solely to turn profit, etc.
A socialist economy, if not being constantly undermined and sabotaged by the capitalist imperial core cough , would exist to meet the needs of the people, the workers. There is no capitalist class under this economy. All surplus value goes to some collective, the state usually, to be held and used in common for the betterment of the people who labored. If all countries adopted this outlook and abolished their capitalist classes and liberal democracies which exist solely to protect the capitalists, then all resources could/would go straight to necessary resource production. Things like food, housing, etc. would be met very quickly due to technology that already exists. This is absolutely not an issue. It’s only an issue due to hoarding, poor/zero distribution of resources under capitalism, and purposeful scarcity as a “disciplining” tool for labor.
Once basic needs are met, luxury commodities can also be created. This is where BUT NO IPHONE? VUVUZELA? comes in. People incorrectly attribute technological innovations to the economic system instead of realizing that 1) capitalism had absolutely nothing to do with smartphones or the internet existing and 2) these things would exist under a socialist economy as well, however the end result may look different simply due to a focus on things that last longer and aren’t meant to be chucked in the bin after 2 years. The only reason our gadgets die so quickly is so we can be sold more gadgets and this causes more surplus labor (profits) to be sucked into the capitalist class. Remove that thievish incentive and you remove the excessive waste associated with it while retaining better commodities that meet the desires of society in a “fair” way that doesn’t destroy the world for the benefit of the few.
Basically imagine a world run by those who labor and importantly a world not designed to simply suck all the profits of exploitative labor under bullshit made up reasons to the 1% and 0.1%. Some people call it utopian. To some, the idea of people cooperating, which is the “natural” state of man, instead of being at each other’s throats because some rich thieving class put them in that position, is inconceivable. And to those people, they should examine why it is they so readily accept the bullshit shoveled down to them from those with every incentive to kill them and the planet and why they dismiss so easily as “utopian” the most obvious solutions. “Oil companies are raping the earth to enrich a few people? What if we… didn’t have… oil companies…?” That logic is never allowed. And it’s worth asking why it is people don’t look to the simple answers that we can very clearly see would be better for the average person. Your “honest question” (ok dude) here is a perfect example of this fascinating phenomenon. You already knew the answer, yet something prevented you from embracing the solution and instead posting bad faith questions. Well, anyway, that’s a different topic, I suppose.
My “honest question” was not asking if a better system could be described, that much is obvious. My question was about the intent of statements like OP. I was probing at the idea that current socialist or communist examples are better than capitalism (perhaps marginally). My understanding is that doesn’t seem so.
Per my other reply, I think the answer to my question is yes, the path forward is to trash all the systems we have at the moment and shoot for something closer to what you described.
Read the phrasing of my question, I asked if any systems exist, not theorized.
If you want to avoid saying socialism, communism, or true communism (anarchism) then try library economy or gift economy. Some nice examples I’ve heard.
Except that some of the absolute worst ecological tragedies in the modern world were done in socialist systems, largely because they were inefficient, central planning made it more effective, and people couldn’t say no or mitigate it. I honestly think that people use socialism as a catch-all to be a system where they can force through the changes they would prefer to see in the world.
Meanwhile, some of the most effective ecological mitigations of the modern world were done through legislation and regulation of a capitalist system. Example: the banning of CFCs and water management.
It’s largely our growth as a population that’s caused the issues and it requires drastic action at all levels to live within our means. We can live more sustainably and we are getting there but it does require an efficient system and an educated populous. That results in better regulations on markets that can account for externalities.
Poisoning the waterhole hurts everyone regardless of the system. There needs to be consequences put in place for doing so, and by the international nature of the problem, it requires treaties to get all systems aligned. That takes time and effort and we are getting there.
I think this goes back to my original question, obviously capitalism has had it’s disasters, that much is known, but at the same time you have disasters like Chernobyl, Kyshtym, Dzerzhinsk. I understand the USSR was not the ideal communist/socialist system, but it’s the most apparent we have (going back to my original question, I think?). I just feel like statements in OP are not the right rallying call if actual change is desired, as it implies we just need to shift to our current implementations of other systems. I think the only real answer, like I mentioned in other comments is to bypass current systems and investigate new options.
You’re suggesting heavy regulation of social and economic systems which is the entire point of socialism. You say socialism doesn’t work, but that is exactly what you’re describing.
And capitalism does not want to exist in a society of international regulation. Those concepts are at odds with one another.
The pure socialism people keep asking for hasn’t worked. It’s been taken over and corrupted throughout history.
Capitalism does not want socialist policies, but you can still force it to apply them. Because it’s not a god, a person, an all encompassing system, any of that. It’s a tool just like socialism should be treated.
If you like markets you might be more interested in learning about democratic market socialist countries and how they operate. The Nordics lean in that direction - after all, social democracy spawned out of orthodox marxism. The core idea in OG Nordic economics is simple: more democracy. You don’t need a min. wage, let unions bargain for their salaries, which is why McDonalds famously pays such a massive min. wage in Denmark. Fund and support democratically owned housing (housing coops, of which 20% of Norway resides in and still growing vs pop. growth despite no more gov. funding) or democratically run grocery stores (Finland has the highest density of consumer coops in the world) - housing coops usually have democratically agreed policies like not being able to treat your property like a commodity/investment by primarily renting it out (thus not contributing as much to rising housing prices), and consumer coops have been at the forefront of more environmentally and labour friendly behaviour. All the Nordics have worker board representation - workers make up a percentage of the board and help steer the company. There’s also the social wealth funds in Norway that give the government the power to guide corporations towards more ethical behaviour by owning significant amounts of shares in businesses, both domestically and internationally - although some argue Norway could learn from the Alaska SWF which pays its citizens dividends from the SWF. All of this builds towards economic democracy, or more commonly known as “socialism”, but in a way that has had great success. They’ve reeled some of those things back in recent decades, and the negative effects are clear to see - Norway stopping its funding of housing coops has meant a growing housing crisis much like the rest of Europe (with few exceptions, like Vienna (Austria) and Finland where socialised housing plays a bigger role).
It is absolutely not our growth as a population that has affected climate change. That’s capitalist doomer propaganda. Those actually responsible for it are the few at the top of capitalist hierarchies. Politicians, billionaires, oil and coal barons. Right now we van feed up to 11 billion people, yet there is still mass starvation and poverty. Capitalists require poverty so that people are desperate enough to work the shitty jobs the capitalists “create”.
As for the rest of what you said, I briefly touched upon this, but even CCP and USSR admitt(ed) they weren’t really communist, and whether they’re socialist is extremely debatable. They’re not communist because by their own admission they’re preparing for a communist world, but they keep saying that and it never comes about. These regimes lie constantly, but even if they lied rarely I’d still not believe they want actual communism because it’d involve giving up their power. What these states actually are is state capitalist.
They’re communist in the same way the Nazis were socialist, or the DPRK is a democratic republic: they’re not.
That’s the thing, you can never reach a full socialist system in the anarchist sense. Anything short is authoritarianism and that is what you propose we move towards. I am not disagreeing with you but you are missing the fact that those examples were absolutely trying and did try to get there.
Anarchism is fundamentally anti authoritarian so I don’t see how you think I’m proposing that.
The existence of a state and communism are an oxymoron. How can there be equality when there’s still a hierarchy? These nations were also nationalist, which is also at odds with communism. I get how it appears they tried and failed, as did other countries, but there attempts were just for show and don’t indicate that communism is impossible. In fact, humans have lived under what Marx called (though I don’t like the term) “primitive communism” since we first started walking on two feet.
But that being said, I have no idea how anarchism would work on a large scale like with the population of a city.
This is where I get really doomer and say my expectation is that as global warming and wars and famine and disease and authoritarian governments get worse the only places left that you can be free will be anarcho communes. Such a thing is possible in our modern day. Zapatista in Mexico and Rojava in Syria have achieved it as far as I can tell, but I have yet to look into how those communities are run. Rojava I know its situation is far from ideal with them having to make deals with devils, like to give America oil rights. Living in Canada myself I can find a comnune on ic.org to join. Though admittedly I haven’t looked into that past skimming their website.
Well, I’ve been to one of the ones you mention and it’s largely corporate. I’m not sure what you’re expecting out of geopolitics. Social science says that trust breaks down inherently with organizations larger than about 300 people. You can argue against pretty structures all you want but all you end up is at the whim of those that prepare for them. Go be in a commune. See what it’s like. I mean that wholeheartedly. There’s nothing sustainable about it but it is an interesting experience.
I guess where I get thrown off by statements like this is thinking of socialist and communist examples of recent history. They all seem to consume as fast as their capacity allows, never seems that different from capitalism. I know a lot of examples aren’t perfect representations of that economic style, but closest examples we have. Just always seemed to me the idea of eliminating capitalism to heal climate change should be, eliminate all systems we currently have in favor of something new.
That’d just it, there’s nothing as efficient as it current system. There are plenty of options that are less efficient and better for the environment/people but nothing that’s as efficient in terms of resource allocations.
I think one way to make capitalism suck less would be abolishing publicly owned corporations. Having shareholders to please creates pressure to grow the company’s value even when there is no good reason to. I think it would be far better if companies stayed as family owned mom and pop shops and weren’t allowed to snowball.
Remember that the only reason for the enshittification of Reddit is that it’s doing an IPO. Likewise, I recently noticed that the company that owns my local mini golf course is publicly traded. Since the course has already been built there is no room for meaningful growth and any attempt to grow the company’s value by turning visits into an ‘experience’ or a ‘package day out’ will irritate people like me who are just looking to pay to use a barbones course.
Honest question, what economic or political system exists out there that would be better for climate change?
Or is the assumption that system doesn’t exist yet?
There are several ideas out there, but yes they generally require transitioning away from capitalism. The one I’m particularly fond of is called a “library economy”, where we no longer commoditize anything that isn’t consumable. Imagine instead of buying a wheelbarrow and shovel to do some yard work, you go to the gardening library and checkout the things you need. When you’re done in about 3 weeks, you return the items back to the library.
In general though, any planned economy would be far more efficient and less wasteful. Imagine that instead of 30 different TV’s with the exact same panel, there’s 2 or 3 types of tv with that panel. The way Walmart operates is a perfect example of a planned economy.
Library actually sounds nice. Funny you mentioned wheelbarrow, I actually need one for a project, but have no space for one, and hate the idea of buying something I’ll need once. I’ll end up renting one, but would be great to check one out.
My library literally has vacuums. Forcing one system down society’s throat is why socialism ultimately loses the narrative game. It’s a religion.
I don’t see how a library economy would work with a lot of things. Like, if I wanted to do a house cleaning day, I go to the cleaning library and rent a vacuum. But what if I drop something on the floor…I have to check out a vacuum, just to clean it up? Then what if all the vacuums are checked out? It really seems horrible inefficient and a logistical nightmare.
Yeah it’s not really a feasible idea, imo. People are terrible and it would be a classic tragedy of the commons.
The ‘tragedy of the commons’ is very much exaggerated and misunderstood. It is 100% possible to collectively govern commons without a tragedy situation, and there are plenty of examples of it happening in real life. The economist Elinor Ostrom actually won a Nobe Prize in Economics for demonstrating this.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/06/17/elinor-ostroms-work-on-governing-the-commons-an-appreciation/ https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false-and-dangerous-myth
The real tragedy of the commons is that we lost the commons to the wealthy elite. We can govern the commons collectively by ourselves without the need for governments, corporations, or the influence of money. I also have a hard time imagining someone deciding that they need 10 wheelbarrows and taking them all from the library, which can acquire more. Are there people checking out every copy of Harry Potter from a book library just to deprive others from reading it?
A library economy doesn’t mean you can’t also own things. You can own a vacuum, and then borrow a steamer for the big spring cleaning. Or say you’re like me and vacuums aren’t necessary most of the time. Instead of owning one, I could go and get one once a month.
Interesting! Would there be a limit to how much any person can “check out” or for how long? How is this different from renting tools in the current system?
So most of what I see about a library economy is that you can use items indefinitely, and I absolutely think that we should have that ability. The actual mechanism of how it works is up in the air, and hasn’t been deeply explored to my knowledge. What I imagine is that people say “I need this for x time” and it gets catalogued. If someone tries to check out a luxury item (imagine like a book or something) after the due date, they must return the other item first or has the option to extend the borrowing term as far as needed. Things that would be essential would still be available, but the person gets reminded about their obligation to the community to have the item returned.
As for how it’s different, an everything library can exist in some capacity in all systems. The difference is that a library economy allows for items to be used without cost, and doesn’t commoditize the items. It creates a system of mutual respect towards the rest of the community, and incentivizes groups of people to act creatively together for projects. It functions more like a store where you don’t buy anything and return it to the community, rather than paying money to use a tool for a week. It also incentivizes highly durable, extremely usable objects (imagine the right to repair, but without any anticonsumer behavior)
I get the sentiment but that sounds awful. Do I need to go borrow a mountain bike every time I want to go for a ride which I now do about 3 times a week? What about my hobby as a maker? Do I need to go borrow all the necessary tools every time I want to build something?
This would basically mean that I get almost nothing done ever because when the inspiration strikes my tools are nowhere to be found.
No not at all! Instead of thinking about this as the only way to get things, think about how you get things now. Just replace stores with libraries. You can own things that you use regularly (basically through an indefinite borrow from the transportation library), but borrow other things as needed
I can already go to a library and borrow a power tool or a shovel though. No need to end capitalism to do that.
That’s great! I’m willing to bet that they call it “the library of things”, right? Yes, these everything libraries exist already in a small and limited capacity, generally serving a small area. The reason I brought it up is because the library economy is an alternative to capitalism in seeking solutions for climate change.
The reason capitalism would need to end is because capitalism is all about growth for the sake of growth; the ideology of cancer. This means that capitalists aren’t happy with creating what’s necessary, they want to manufacture as much as possible as cheaply as possible to get all of the money. If a library economy exists beside capitalism, it will be attacked and eroded endlessly. Just look at the publishing industry’s attack on libraries for digital media. They’re creating artificial scarcity on digital goods, something that is literally unbound by quantity.
Only just discovered the concept now in this thread but I guess it’d work like any other library. You’d just check out the stuff you need that you choose not to own for what ever reason.
If you want to own a mountain bike because you would use it regularly then that would be fine. But if you need a drill press for a project you can go check one out.
Just guessing here as I’ve done no reading on this subject.
That’s exactly right! Library economics are incredibly simple. You own what you want to own, and borrow what you need
How does it handle things that are borrowed more than they’re returned?
Assuming you aren’t talking about consumable items, then the library would get more from manufacturing them. A library economy doesn’t mean we stop all production, we just produce what’s needed and distribute them to libraries. This has major advantages, like essentially eliminating waste from overproduction, permanently ending planned obsolescence and the incentive to create more durable items, fosters community cohesion, and a lot more. Here’s a more thorough introduction to the topic through the lens of political anarchism, though it could exist in any leftist economy
I’m still skeptical of the idea, but I’ll give that a watch when I have time.
I’m really having a hard time differentiating this from the current system… You can already own things and already rent things, and already check things out from libraries. Is it about spreading the cost of having/maintaining those items across everyone instead of just the ones using them like in a rental system?
The reason it’s different is because it replaces the other 2 methods serving capital with the 1 option that serves the community. It’s more like a store where you don’t buy anything, but then give those items to the community when you no longer need them. Buy? Rent? Why do those things when you could borrow from the community, help improve it, and then return it to the community? Having a picnic next to the lake? Borrow a cooler for a day! Need to drive across the country? Borrow an electric car for a year! Need something at all times, like a cellphone or a washing machine? Borrow it indefinitely!
Instead of overproducing items at the expense of killing us all in climate crisis, a library economy produces what’s necessary and lets the people decide what’s best for the items through direct democracy and electing library stewards to handle the operation of the library. Nothing is commoditized, nothing prevents you from owning things, and nothing prevents you from building your own things. It incentivizes highly durable, repairable items. It creates the foundation for mutualism and helping each other. Most importantly to me, it creates a society where we no longer have to consider money while also enriching our lives.
Don’t Google what planned economies did to the Aral Sea and it’s climatic consequences
Not disagreeing with your central point, but it’s worth noting that planned economy has been tried and it failed, not due to planning errors but fundamental systemic issues with the approach.
No place has a fully free economy - for good reason. Such a place would have no labour condition laws, no social security, no pensions, no free healthcare, etc.
Every economy to an extent already is planned. They do not fail per se.
There have been failures, yes. However, look at any company, especially the megacorporations like Walmart. They all have planned economies. Walmart IT isn’t placing contract bids with the Walmart marketing department, they just help the marketing department when needed. The meat department isn’t shopping around for cheaper suppliers, they get meat from the logistics network Walmart controls. The only example of a free market business I know of is Sears, which was already sinking. The free market idea from the CEO was catastrophic and sunk the company in under a year. The IT department needed to turn a profit, so their prices were high. When the marketing department needed IT and Sears IT placed a bid, it was higher than contracted IT so the marketing department didn’t work internally and ended up costing the company massive amounts of money.
There are also successful planned economies in existence right now; Cuba is thriving in spite of the economic sactions by the US, and Vietnam didn’t stop being communist after the war with the Khmer Rouge. This also excludes other realities, like what constitutes the failure of a country? Is it a failure of a planned economy, or is it a failure of government? If it’s a failure of the economic system, then why aren’t failing/failed capitalist nations attributed to capitalism?
Companies fail all the time and it is critical to ensure that bad systems are not allowed to continue. A government doesn’t fail. It’s issues are enabled to continue unabated.
The ultimate issue with a centrally planned economy is not environmental though. It is putting additional power into the hands of a majority which gives minorities no recourse. At least in a capitalist country minorities can form their own communities and local economies. If the majority wants to allocate food and resources to the majority in a centrally planned system, the minorities starve. Sure, there are still issues in capitalist systems with regulations targeting minorities and the stealing of resources like Tulsa but there’s no recourse at all in a centrally planned one.
Vietnam transitioned from central planning before even the Soviet Union.
Are you really sure Cuba is the best example right now? Go look into how they are doing and get back to me. I won’t claim that a centrally planned economy cannot be efficient when the leadership places great emphasis on it. Cuba has some very efficiently run state programs. They are also unfortunately not very nimble.
Central planning can make for some oppressive and robust environmentalism. We see that in Cuba. It also works the other way. What makes you think that after the revolution you will be the one making the decisions and the same grifters won’t take part in that system for their own benefit?
What happens when the needs of the state outweigh the needs of the world? Does the majority in any country really care about the environment over jobs and prosperity? How likely is this central plan to place a focus inherently on resource efficiency and actually be successful without an incentive when lives are on the line? We know from the few large centrally planned economies that they’ve largely failed at that task rather dramatically.
All of this should not be weighed against hands-off capitalism but instead the modern liberal mixed system. Externalities are covered with regulations and government programs based on contracts and markets. That’s reformed capitalism.
Reforms to socialist systems have not addressed the core issues of power imbalance but instead, allow corporations as long as they align with the efforts of the state and the majority. That’s literally economic fascism and comes with all its own issues.
There’s a lot more that can be covered here including numbers that support these narratives but there’s a reason the Western left shifted from a revolution to a reform mindset in the 1960s and it largely follows the above logic.
It sounds like you’re more interested in the few from the majority deciding everything on behalf of the minority. It feels like you understand the problem with our bourgeois democracy, but use it as a bludgeon to attack true democracy. We can decide to elevate the voices of minorities. We don’t have to perfectly model our planned economy based on previous attempts, instead we can create our own system based on our culture and collective experiences. One of the huge failures of the USSR was not ensuring people that identify as kazakhs were part of the governing body of Kazakhstan. We don’t have to repeat mistakes, we can choose to learn from them. I imagine elected reps from unionized ethnic groups to help make guiding principles for governing the commons by the commons. It may work, it may not. I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try.
There’s literally nothing inherent to a socialist system that makes a society less racist. You are giving the majority more power over vulnerable groups though. You can say that sounds like I’m defending the rich but I never said that. Sure we can learn from it. We can eliminate majority power over capital control. The CCP argued that the USSR had strayed from the true intent of Lenin’s Communism. It got them famine and they reverted. Yes, Lenin argued that it was more an approach than a set system. The issue with that is what the proposed approach is inherently oppressive. Lenin himself argued that dissent could not be allowed to exist because it would undermine the system.
Your argument that we can at least try ignores consequences that we’ve seen before. We also could try an ethnostate. That would provide the unity required. Those pesky minorities keep getting in the way of progress. How dare they want to keep the value of their labor. We could try shooting ourselves in the foot through radical change to try an experiment that could just as easily be formed internal to the system.
There’s nothing stopping left systems for existing within western societies. The corporate structure actually allows for it depending on how you write the founding documents. Co-ops succeed all the time and they fail all the time. Nonprofits do a lot of the same. When these systems are not at a government level, when the trust fails and the system collapses it does not take everything down with it.
It’s really difficult for a government system supporting capitalism to break down because it doesn’t provide anything inherently required to live. In a command economy, when the trust is broken, the system breaks down. When the system breaks down, the people go to other systems for their needs. Then start the power struggles and the death. It’s authoritarian and unstable by it’s very nature and it has a tendency to become more authoritarian and consolidated as time goes on due to lessons learned.
Why would you knowingly choose this path when reform and regulations are an option? What is different about your approach from China or the USSR other than you’ll just attempt it better or be more forceful in pushing your ideal code of ethics?
Bro, you’re using way too many words to say that you benefit from the status quo and don’t want to change things too much because you’re afraid that it might impact your personal comfort. You want to move incrementally into a planned economy just in case, and I get that. I understand where that fear comes from. But the time for incremental change was 50 years ago, the current climate crisis demands we change now or face extinction.
I understand that socialism and planned economies don’t fix issues of racial and ethnic hate. It’s the responsibility of socialists and other leftists to have a healthy dose of intersectionality when talking about creating political systems, because discussing how to make sure minorities aren’t negatively impacted is essential to the system succeeding.
I’m actually kinda offended by your suggestion that “we should try something else when creating a socialist society to ensure minorities are heard” is equivalent to an ethnostate. Actually what the fuck. That’s a disgusting comparison and I don’t understand at all how you decided they were equivalent.
There is stopping something from creating socialism in the status quo, and it’s called capitalism. Capitalism has, does, and will continue to fight anything that challenges the status quo. The ideal for capitalists is to recreate a feudal society, child labor and all. You talk about instability within former socialist nations, but never draw the line towards the endless attacks placed on those countries by the imperial core. Most recent example? Zunzuneo, an astroturf social media site created by USAID as a CIA front to destablize Cuba. There’s also the 1990 US Appropriations Act, which caused Yugoslavia to collapse into reactionary ethnic hate that resulted in the Bosnian genocide. You point to failures of socialism as if it’s a fundamental flaw, but never examine the reasons for why those nations failed. If you did, you’d see attacks from the imperial core as well as mistakes from the local government being the point of failure, not socialism.
I am against it because people die. Full stop. Your insistence on radical change as a requirement to dramatic action is one of the main issues behind why we cannot actually move forward. You are not the only player at fault, but you are partially complicit.
You cannot eliminate prejudice. To knowingly give a system more centralized power is to enable it to be susceptible to it. It is negligent at best. This is why most theorists are anarchists. They are against centralized power structures. My issue with them is that so was every communist system so far. Every single one tries to decentralize power or promises to. When they do, the systems fail and they centralize again very quickly.
You should be offended. It is an offensive thing. The fact that you can recognize that should make a connection to you about suggesting we just try something. How do we know that fascism won’t help society? Well, it is right there in the proposed structure. It is designed to be oppressive. It is the same when you take economic power away from minorities. It is designed to be oppressive by its structure. Capitalism would be perfect too if everyone acted in everyone else’s best interests and weren’t racist. As it stands we need multiple levels of power to account for externalities.
There is literally nothing stopping you from going and setting up a commune in the West. Just don’t expect people to donate resources to you. Go ahead and try to set up a private company in a centrally planned economy. That is the difference and why it is oppressive by its design. It literally requires capitalism to not exist in order to force everyone into your perfect society. A liberal society is fundamentally incompatible with true socialism and it takes all of our other liberties with them.
Your examples are far from intellectually honest when put in context with what our adversaries do and have done to undermine free societies. I do find it actually pretty funny the lengths of which you twist events to pin the Bosnean genocide on the West though. Way to twist a conflict born out of minorities being oppressed by the majority in a socialist system into something useful to blame capitalism for. Is any of this connecting for you?
Any system that has some growth built into it will eventually cause problems, it’s just that some of them, like capitalism, are very efficient at getting us to these points faster. The best system for the climate was discarded long ago, as we moved out of the hunter-gather phase and discovered techniques in maximizing our energy into other things besides just surviving. Agriculture and all that it allowed were the first steps into taxing the earth’s balance.
Socialism.
Capitalism is inherently a wasteful of resources and also doesn’t value human life nor the planet’s life. The planet and people are just something to be exploited to enrich the top capitalists who contribute nothing.
It encourages planned obsolescence, short term profit making, and production of commodities which exist solely to turn profit, etc.
A socialist economy, if not being constantly undermined and sabotaged by the capitalist imperial core cough , would exist to meet the needs of the people, the workers. There is no capitalist class under this economy. All surplus value goes to some collective, the state usually, to be held and used in common for the betterment of the people who labored. If all countries adopted this outlook and abolished their capitalist classes and liberal democracies which exist solely to protect the capitalists, then all resources could/would go straight to necessary resource production. Things like food, housing, etc. would be met very quickly due to technology that already exists. This is absolutely not an issue. It’s only an issue due to hoarding, poor/zero distribution of resources under capitalism, and purposeful scarcity as a “disciplining” tool for labor.
Once basic needs are met, luxury commodities can also be created. This is where BUT NO IPHONE? VUVUZELA? comes in. People incorrectly attribute technological innovations to the economic system instead of realizing that 1) capitalism had absolutely nothing to do with smartphones or the internet existing and 2) these things would exist under a socialist economy as well, however the end result may look different simply due to a focus on things that last longer and aren’t meant to be chucked in the bin after 2 years. The only reason our gadgets die so quickly is so we can be sold more gadgets and this causes more surplus labor (profits) to be sucked into the capitalist class. Remove that thievish incentive and you remove the excessive waste associated with it while retaining better commodities that meet the desires of society in a “fair” way that doesn’t destroy the world for the benefit of the few.
Basically imagine a world run by those who labor and importantly a world not designed to simply suck all the profits of exploitative labor under bullshit made up reasons to the 1% and 0.1%. Some people call it utopian. To some, the idea of people cooperating, which is the “natural” state of man, instead of being at each other’s throats because some rich thieving class put them in that position, is inconceivable. And to those people, they should examine why it is they so readily accept the bullshit shoveled down to them from those with every incentive to kill them and the planet and why they dismiss so easily as “utopian” the most obvious solutions. “Oil companies are raping the earth to enrich a few people? What if we… didn’t have… oil companies…?” That logic is never allowed. And it’s worth asking why it is people don’t look to the simple answers that we can very clearly see would be better for the average person. Your “honest question” (ok dude) here is a perfect example of this fascinating phenomenon. You already knew the answer, yet something prevented you from embracing the solution and instead posting bad faith questions. Well, anyway, that’s a different topic, I suppose.
My “honest question” was not asking if a better system could be described, that much is obvious. My question was about the intent of statements like OP. I was probing at the idea that current socialist or communist examples are better than capitalism (perhaps marginally). My understanding is that doesn’t seem so.
Per my other reply, I think the answer to my question is yes, the path forward is to trash all the systems we have at the moment and shoot for something closer to what you described.
Read the phrasing of my question, I asked if any systems exist, not theorized.
If you want to avoid saying socialism, communism, or true communism (anarchism) then try library economy or gift economy. Some nice examples I’ve heard.
Except that some of the absolute worst ecological tragedies in the modern world were done in socialist systems, largely because they were inefficient, central planning made it more effective, and people couldn’t say no or mitigate it. I honestly think that people use socialism as a catch-all to be a system where they can force through the changes they would prefer to see in the world.
Meanwhile, some of the most effective ecological mitigations of the modern world were done through legislation and regulation of a capitalist system. Example: the banning of CFCs and water management.
It’s largely our growth as a population that’s caused the issues and it requires drastic action at all levels to live within our means. We can live more sustainably and we are getting there but it does require an efficient system and an educated populous. That results in better regulations on markets that can account for externalities.
Poisoning the waterhole hurts everyone regardless of the system. There needs to be consequences put in place for doing so, and by the international nature of the problem, it requires treaties to get all systems aligned. That takes time and effort and we are getting there.
The Dust Bowl. Exxon Valdez. Deepwater Horizon.
I think this goes back to my original question, obviously capitalism has had it’s disasters, that much is known, but at the same time you have disasters like Chernobyl, Kyshtym, Dzerzhinsk. I understand the USSR was not the ideal communist/socialist system, but it’s the most apparent we have (going back to my original question, I think?). I just feel like statements in OP are not the right rallying call if actual change is desired, as it implies we just need to shift to our current implementations of other systems. I think the only real answer, like I mentioned in other comments is to bypass current systems and investigate new options.
You’re suggesting heavy regulation of social and economic systems which is the entire point of socialism. You say socialism doesn’t work, but that is exactly what you’re describing.
And capitalism does not want to exist in a society of international regulation. Those concepts are at odds with one another.
The pure socialism people keep asking for hasn’t worked. It’s been taken over and corrupted throughout history.
Capitalism does not want socialist policies, but you can still force it to apply them. Because it’s not a god, a person, an all encompassing system, any of that. It’s a tool just like socialism should be treated.
If you like markets you might be more interested in learning about democratic market socialist countries and how they operate. The Nordics lean in that direction - after all, social democracy spawned out of orthodox marxism. The core idea in OG Nordic economics is simple: more democracy. You don’t need a min. wage, let unions bargain for their salaries, which is why McDonalds famously pays such a massive min. wage in Denmark. Fund and support democratically owned housing (housing coops, of which 20% of Norway resides in and still growing vs pop. growth despite no more gov. funding) or democratically run grocery stores (Finland has the highest density of consumer coops in the world) - housing coops usually have democratically agreed policies like not being able to treat your property like a commodity/investment by primarily renting it out (thus not contributing as much to rising housing prices), and consumer coops have been at the forefront of more environmentally and labour friendly behaviour. All the Nordics have worker board representation - workers make up a percentage of the board and help steer the company. There’s also the social wealth funds in Norway that give the government the power to guide corporations towards more ethical behaviour by owning significant amounts of shares in businesses, both domestically and internationally - although some argue Norway could learn from the Alaska SWF which pays its citizens dividends from the SWF. All of this builds towards economic democracy, or more commonly known as “socialism”, but in a way that has had great success. They’ve reeled some of those things back in recent decades, and the negative effects are clear to see - Norway stopping its funding of housing coops has meant a growing housing crisis much like the rest of Europe (with few exceptions, like Vienna (Austria) and Finland where socialised housing plays a bigger role).
It is absolutely not our growth as a population that has affected climate change. That’s capitalist doomer propaganda. Those actually responsible for it are the few at the top of capitalist hierarchies. Politicians, billionaires, oil and coal barons. Right now we van feed up to 11 billion people, yet there is still mass starvation and poverty. Capitalists require poverty so that people are desperate enough to work the shitty jobs the capitalists “create”.
As for the rest of what you said, I briefly touched upon this, but even CCP and USSR admitt(ed) they weren’t really communist, and whether they’re socialist is extremely debatable. They’re not communist because by their own admission they’re preparing for a communist world, but they keep saying that and it never comes about. These regimes lie constantly, but even if they lied rarely I’d still not believe they want actual communism because it’d involve giving up their power. What these states actually are is state capitalist.
They’re communist in the same way the Nazis were socialist, or the DPRK is a democratic republic: they’re not.
That’s the thing, you can never reach a full socialist system in the anarchist sense. Anything short is authoritarianism and that is what you propose we move towards. I am not disagreeing with you but you are missing the fact that those examples were absolutely trying and did try to get there.
Anarchism is fundamentally anti authoritarian so I don’t see how you think I’m proposing that.
The existence of a state and communism are an oxymoron. How can there be equality when there’s still a hierarchy? These nations were also nationalist, which is also at odds with communism. I get how it appears they tried and failed, as did other countries, but there attempts were just for show and don’t indicate that communism is impossible. In fact, humans have lived under what Marx called (though I don’t like the term) “primitive communism” since we first started walking on two feet.
But that being said, I have no idea how anarchism would work on a large scale like with the population of a city.
This is where I get really doomer and say my expectation is that as global warming and wars and famine and disease and authoritarian governments get worse the only places left that you can be free will be anarcho communes. Such a thing is possible in our modern day. Zapatista in Mexico and Rojava in Syria have achieved it as far as I can tell, but I have yet to look into how those communities are run. Rojava I know its situation is far from ideal with them having to make deals with devils, like to give America oil rights. Living in Canada myself I can find a comnune on ic.org to join. Though admittedly I haven’t looked into that past skimming their website.
Well, I’ve been to one of the ones you mention and it’s largely corporate. I’m not sure what you’re expecting out of geopolitics. Social science says that trust breaks down inherently with organizations larger than about 300 people. You can argue against pretty structures all you want but all you end up is at the whim of those that prepare for them. Go be in a commune. See what it’s like. I mean that wholeheartedly. There’s nothing sustainable about it but it is an interesting experience.
I guess where I get thrown off by statements like this is thinking of socialist and communist examples of recent history. They all seem to consume as fast as their capacity allows, never seems that different from capitalism. I know a lot of examples aren’t perfect representations of that economic style, but closest examples we have. Just always seemed to me the idea of eliminating capitalism to heal climate change should be, eliminate all systems we currently have in favor of something new.
Library economy sounds interesting
That’d just it, there’s nothing as efficient as it current system. There are plenty of options that are less efficient and better for the environment/people but nothing that’s as efficient in terms of resource allocations.
I think one way to make capitalism suck less would be abolishing publicly owned corporations. Having shareholders to please creates pressure to grow the company’s value even when there is no good reason to. I think it would be far better if companies stayed as family owned mom and pop shops and weren’t allowed to snowball.
Remember that the only reason for the enshittification of Reddit is that it’s doing an IPO. Likewise, I recently noticed that the company that owns my local mini golf course is publicly traded. Since the course has already been built there is no room for meaningful growth and any attempt to grow the company’s value by turning visits into an ‘experience’ or a ‘package day out’ will irritate people like me who are just looking to pay to use a barbones course.