Comment on If you want communism, you can start a commune
redempt@lemmy.world 2 months agodude you’re insufferable oml
investments can come from public funding for research which is democratically decided or headed by democratically elected experts
the entire ideology I hold is that people need to be directly involved in economic decision making. that is all. it can’t be held away from the people, because then the decisions won’t benefit them.
can you please not act like such a prick when making your points?
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Bot those are details you are leaving out. How is this public funding collected, who decides where it goes, how are these people elected.
These are the kind of things you need to figure out. My belief is you can’t, because it does not work. You will not be able to create a system that works for the greater good.
But maybe I am wrong. Prove me wrong. Show me a detailed plan. “Some committee will distribute some funding” is so vague there is no way to debate over it.
redempt@lemmy.world 2 months ago
okay, why are you imposing that on me though? I’m not a violent revolutionary, I’m just someone who believes we need a far more democratic approach to our economy. I can’t resolve a perfect system for you in perfect detail and I find this kind of argument frustrating. if you want an example of a system, I believe something similar to project cybersyn would be great. unfortunately the US has overthrown or otherwise stunted every socialist project, but we have lots of data to suggest that UBI, co-ops, and social welfare are highly effective at improving quality of life for everybody, as well as productivity.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You are the one who said it was not vague. If you don’t want communism, but just social policies in capitalism, then I am on board with that.
redempt@lemmy.world 2 months ago
co-ops get outcompeted by corporations. this is a capitalist economy we have, and so it’s very geared towards competitive profit seeking. co-ops provide better worker protections, better working conditions, better stability and resilience, and better products. corporations are better at being single-mindedly profit driven, which is what our economic structure rewards.
communism is not a vague concept, but I’m not an expert and it’s not my ideology; I’m a democratic socialist.
it’s important to remember that under capitalism a company is very much motivated to curtail workers’ rights and anything that would threaten the status quo. I find “just start a commune” to be an unhelpful argument because the system is rigged against it, which is why they tend to fail.
capitalism is not markets, nor is it free trade. capitalism is the specific system where there is an owning class that dictates how the economy is run (CEOs / shareholders), thereby holding that power away from the working class, whose lives are dictated by their decisions. I see no reason for the economy to be organized this way, which is why I believe democratic organization (either central planning or a more bottom-up approach) is an improvement.
if you’re genuinely interested in finding a system better than what we have, I don’t think arguing with strangers on the Internet will accomplish what you want. I think Second Thought makes some very good videos on these topics, though he seems to have some authoritarian leanings I don’t agree with.