[beaconstudios]

Putting aside the fact that I do try to help people out financially where I can - this is just a deflection from reform. We ended slavery because it was immoral, and I'm sure there were people saying "if you love slaves so much, why don't you buy slaves and free them yourself" at the time. While it's possible to do that on an individual basis, that doesn't lead to the end of slavery, which itself should not exist at all. Neither should exploitation of poor countries by rich ones. I'm sure you realise that this is bad.

[yetihehe]

Of course, I'm whole heartedly with you in that matter, I don't think many people here would be against such cause. I wish people in underdeveloped countries earned at least as much as I do. I just would like to see that "many options" you talk about. Typically people who claim that "someone should do something about this" are just publicly grouching and I just don't like that. Either give some substantial way to achieve your goal, or don't comment. You are adding noise to noise/signal ratio.

[beaconstudios]

The "many options" I'm talking about are otherwise known as "left-wing politics". Unionisation, building a cooperative-based economy, UBI (though for some reason this has right-wing support too), minimum wages, nationalising important industries and resources, building systems of mutual aid, honestly I could go on for a while. Equality versus hierarchy is what the left-right political struggle is about, after all.

[yetihehe]

Apparently those options are not good enough to be implemented.

- Unionisation - helped for a while, then those companies where it was implemented didn't survive because they could not make anything effectively.

- building a cooperative-based economy - would be nice in theory if all people could cooperate. But in reality, they do not, there will be freewheelers who game the system.

- UBI - not tried yet is the only difference between UBI and communism. So, it's good but only in theory, we don't know practice yet. I personally believe it's the best solution out there, but life may verify that like communism.

- minimum wages - we have minimum wages in Poland, they don't help that much, but weren't updated and inflation eaten them away.

- nationalising important industries and resources - all nationalised resources are being wasted away for political reasons sooner or later. I know this from practice

- building systems of mutual aid - that helps, but if nationalised - they are squandered for political reasons. If commercial - being squandered due to greed. But yes, they are mostly working in most countries.

Options are many, implementable are not.

[beaconstudios]

> Apparently those options are not good enough to be implemented.

These options have actively been opposed by those in power, because left wing politics weaken their power. Case in point, all those coups backed by the US government against left-wing governments.

> Unionisation - helped for a while, then those companies where it was implemented didn't survive because they could not make anything effectively.

Not true - Hollywood is heavily unionised to this day. I'm curious to know why you believe this though; is it just an assumption because we don't see many union shops these days, or do you have other reasons to believe this? Because there are other reasons to credit for the lack of unions nowadays, namely anti-union propaganda and deliberate weakening of unions by neoliberal politicians (which is basically all of them nowadays, but Reagan and Thatcher are the classic anti-union tag team).

> - building a cooperative-based economy - would be nice in theory if all people could cooperate. But in reality, they do not, there will be freewheelers who game the system.

That's not what a cooperative economy is. A cooperative economy is an economy based in cooperatives; basically a company but owned by the people who work there.

> UBI - not tried yet is the only difference between UBI and communism

At least we're in agreement that UBI could be good. Love the 'real communism has never been tried' reference though.

> minimum wages - we have minimum wages in Poland, they don't help that much, but weren't updated and inflation eaten them away.

Yes, minimum wages should be pegged to standards of living. Otherwise politicians intentionally don't update them so they become redundant.

> nationalising important industries and resources - all nationalised resources are being wasted away for political reasons sooner or later. I know this from practice

That's not universally true. They're certainly trying to disassemble nationalised healthcare here in the UK, but it's usually done by right-wing politicians who are anti-nationalisation anyway.

> building systems of mutual aid - that helps, but if nationalised - they are squandered for political reasons. If commercial - being squandered due to greed. But yes, they are mostly working in most countries.

Mutual aid is community networks of people who help each other out, not a national or economic political project.

I do understand the skepticism around leftist politics - after all, many have failed under pressure from right-wing power structures. Some have devolved into worse systems than the ones they opposed (though it's important to point out that libertarian socialists and anarchists opposed the USSR right from the beginning). But don't assume that because leftism is not currently winning, it's because it's inherently flawed, rather than facing a stronger opponent that must be overcome.

[yetihehe]

> I do understand the skepticism around leftist politics - after all, many have failed under pressure from right-wing power structures.

Well, WHY did they fail. I agree with you that all your proposed solutions look and feel good and should work. But they don't work if we have right-wing power structures alongside them. If they were that good, maybe people would like that solutions more than right-wing power structures? My take: they failed because they require people to be universally good and don't account for selfish people gaining power. Selfish people WILL gain power because otherwise they couldn't do things they want for themselves.

>> nationalising important industries and resources - all nationalised resources are being wasted away for political reasons sooner or later. I know this from practice

> That's not universally true.

Nothing is universally true, including this statement. I have seen successful nationalized companies. But typically they work for the people employed there, a working product is only "byproduct" of their working. They don't stand a chance with companies making products to make best product out there. Alas, most companies making products now optimise for money given to CxO's and shareholders, so they have crap product anyways. Both pure communism and capitalism are bad.

>> Unionisation - helped for a while

> I'm curious to know why you believe this though; is it just an assumption because we don't see many union shops these

No, it's because my father worked in companies with strong unions from unionization start to bankruptcy and he told me how it looked, I have talked with other people and did my own thinking about this. Sorry, but I can't remember all those stories now, typically it goes like with all assured working conditions, where you can't fire worst performers because they have good connections, so they drag your company down. This is typical downfall of all communist-like companies and systems. Working people just work and don't care about politics. Those who don't want to work, just care about politics, are voted in and from then on, they are only parasites. You can't get rid of them, because they hold positions of power. If working people try to remedy this, they are fired until there are too many parasites for workers and whole system collapses.

Democracies of course are not immune to this, but a little more resilient, because you can change those in position of power, until you vote in some scumbags which change the rules. Only education helps with that.

[beaconstudios]

> Well, WHY did they fail. I agree with you that all your proposed solutions look and feel good and should work. But they don't work if we have right-wing power structures alongside them.

It's not that they don't work adjacent to right-wing structures - it's that right-wing structures lead to powerful people with vested interests in maintaining dominance, and those people will do anything they can to collapse anti-hierarchical change. When Allende was elected in Chile, he took over the factories that US corporations were using as cheap labour. In response, those corporations (including Pepsi) petitioned president Nixon to enact a coup.

> But typically they work for the people employed there, a working product is only "byproduct" of their working. They don't stand a chance with companies making products to make best product out there. Alas, most companies making products now optimise for money given to CxO's and shareholders, so they have crap product anyways. Both pure communism and capitalism are bad.

I agree that the flaw of market entities is that they function in a self-serving capacity and thus making the best product will never truly be their primary goal. I think that's so-far unavoidable, unfortunately - and in either case, a corporation only cares about its shareholders where at least a cooperative cares about its workers.

> No, it's because my father worked in companies with strong unions from unionization start to bankruptcy and he told me how it looked, I have talked with other people and did my own thinking about this. Sorry, but I can't remember all those stories now, typically it goes like with all assured working conditions, where you can't fire worst performers because they have good connections, so they drag your company down. This is typical downfall of all communist-like companies and systems. Working people just work and don't care about politics. Those who don't want to work, just care about politics, are voted in and from then on, they are only parasites. You can't get rid of them, because they hold positions of power. If working people try to remedy this, they are fired until there are too many parasites for workers and whole system collapses.

This is where I think it's so important that organisations be as democratic as possible. If your union official becomes a parasite, you should be able to elect a new one. All organisations should be beholden to all of their members in a way that maximises their autonomy. This is the reason I also like Stafford Beer's VSM model: it constructs a larger company out of smaller, independent companies who operate semi-autonomously while still being structured to pursue a strategic direction. Mondragon is a working example of this.

I believe that any leftist project that eschews democracy is bad, so I think we're on the same page there. Of course, these aren't magic tools - unionisation is not a one-shot change where you get to stop fighting afterwards, as unions can be corrupt too. But generally speaking, opening up the economy to greater democratisation is a good thing in my eyes.