[grabcocque]

This is the same argument left academics have been using to excuse the repeated failure of electorates to vote for socialism for a century.

It's not a new argument. And it nicely avoids left wing thought ever having to take responsibility for its own electoral failures.

[lumberjack]

That's true. In the Netherlands the centre-left just lost a huge amount of seats. People voted for socialism when socialists had good ideas like building the welfare state or reforming healthcare to make it more inclusive. Nowadays they don't want to deviate from the same economic policies that the centre-right proposes. So then what's the point of voting for them?

[ue_]

Can you give any more references to the sort of thing you're talking about? I believe it's lack of significant class consciousness and the large-scale remnants of propaganda from the Cold War (on which many if not most people are misinformed about Socialism) which are the biggest obstacles to electing a Socialist candidate.

[raverbashing]

What's there to be misinformed about socialism when they gave us the Berlin Wall and big socioeconomic disadvantages that were not solved even in East Germany today (not to mention Eastern Europe as a whole). Those are facts, not misinformation. Not to mention the usual excuses of "not real socialism"

And those were the ones who got the "best" socialism

"Class consciousness" is divide and conquer crap

[ue_]

> Not to mention the usual excuses of "not real socialism"

I feel as though I've gone into this a thousand times. If I had a penny for every time someone said this, I'd invest in stocks and shares and become a capitalist.

The act of refusing to back up or defend all or any implementations or interpretations of an idea, especially given pre-existing economic conditions and various external factors is by no means making a No True Scotsman fallacy.

Even if I were to accept your premise that Socialism actually existed in GDR, it wouldn't rule out anarcho-Communism, anarchism, communalism, gradualist Communism, non-Leninist Marxism and a whole host of other leftist ideologies.

Class consciousness refers to the proletariat recognising their interests as a class; it is only divide and conquer in the sense that recognising the division of society (albeit a little more fuzzy nowadays) between the bourgeoisie and proletariat is a startig point to conquer capitalism.

[raverbashing]

> I feel as though I've gone into this a thousand times.

And repeating it doesn't make it true, though repeating a lie makes some people start believing it

> it wouldn't rule out ... and a whole host of other leftist ideologies.

Agreed on that

> Class consciousness refers to the proletariat recognising

Splitting the population into proletariat and 'big bad businessman' excludes all those that work for themselves, excludes the non-factory workers (hence it is a division made to divide and conquer). Not to mention the fallacy of the surplus value, because apparently to Marxists having a factory costs nothing and somehow businessman would hire people if that cost them more than they're getting out of it.

Your proletariat will be increasingly replaced by robots, and as much as I'm in favour of giving everybody living conditions all socialism has given is poor conditions to everybody except if you were one of the higher ups.

[ue_]

>Splitting the population into proletariat and 'big bad businessman' excludes all those that work for themselves, excludes the non-factory workers (hence it is a division made to divide and conquer)

No it doesn't. Those who work for themselves are peit-bourgeois, who own the MoP but do not exploit labour; their trade is of commodity for commodity (e.g money for a painting) rather than of labour-time for wage. As I said, the division is rough, though for most people it exists very clearly. Those who are petit-bourgeoise can be considered for the most part proletarians as they are not exploiting labour; many transition to a state in which they employ wage labour and at that point they immediately become in possession of private property and bourgeois.

As Marx put it,

>The self-employed labourer, for example, is his own wage labourer, and his own means of production confront him in his own mind as capital. As his own capitalist, he employs himself as a wage labourer.

>excludes the non-factory workers

No. Engineers, project managers, accountants etc. who are employed for wage labour are workers, because they add value to the product and they sell their labour-time on the market to sustain themselves. They are in every respect proletarians.

>because apparently to Marxists having a factory costs nothing

No. The costs of maintaining the factory are taken out of the revenue; the profit which is left over at the end (i.e the amount extra which the capitalist has in his bank account after the production process is complete) is a result of surplus value, and is either used for the capitalist's personal wealth, for shareholders, or re-investment into future actions of the business. Maintenance of the machinery, rent etc. is all taket out of the revenue and it is not profit.

Labour from machinery (i.e dead labour) is merely transferred to products, it is not augmented or created a new. This is done in proportion to the wear and tear of the machine.

>somehow businessman would hire people if that cost them more than they're getting out of it.

Precisely. This is the whole point. Capitalism would not exist if the capitalist could not profit; i.e if the workers would not give their value, the capitalist would have no reason to employ them. The reason why businessmen currently employ people is beacuse these workers are paid for their labour-time but in the course of this inevitably provide surplus labour.

Even in a system of equal exchanges, this still happens. It is clear that workers apply some amount of value that the capitalist can sell despite paying for the labour-time he purchased because when strikes happen, the capitalist makes less money (tending to no money in the long term).

>Your proletariat will be increasingly replaced by robots

Again, you are right on the money. But not everyone can be replaced by robots, beacuse people need to buy back products with their wages. So capitalism must keep people employed, so when one job is taken by a robot, it is very advantageous for the capitalist to find another job for the displaced worker. This happens with sponsorship of the state, such as with job seeker's programmes.

I suggest that robotics be used to help workers rather than be used against them. The fact that a worker doesn't need to work as much should be an advantage, but instead the capitalist makes the worker produce more. It has been estimated that people would only have to work between 7 and 8 hours a week if automation were used to make life easier for the workers rather than short-term profit for the capitalist.

I advocate for direct democratic control of the means of production by distributed voluntarily organised of self-interested workers; the workers receive the product of their labour and any surplus product is subject to a collective democratic decision as to how it will be distribtuted, probably to those who cannot work (e.g elderly, infirm and children) or those who do not need to work because production is so efficient.

Large-scale automation is used against the workers in capitalism. In Socialism, it can be used for the workers to improve living conditions, as the falling rate of profit would be of no concern at all in a society where products are made for use rather than exchange.