[fao_]

> Communism is controlled by political influence and those who rise up don’t come down, even when they stop functioning in favor of the body.

Is this not the case with capitalism, right now? Except with political influence being led with money? The people with power, control, and political influence right now are absolutely not functioning in favour of the body.

> Still, as an organ you are only wanted when you are useful. If you are too young to be useful or too old, the system may shed you, unless you have fat deposits.

I'm so glad that you're equating me, and people like me, who the system repeatedly failed over and over, and who could be functional if I was able to afford even a minimum of help and support for my situation, to cells being shed in a body. This doesn't feel dehumanising at all.

The fact of the matter is that there is a very Gattaca-like system that exists right now in the world. It brands you valid or invalid based on values like inherited wealth, social class, race, mental health, etc. People who are branded as "invalid" are an underclass who could be functional, and contribute to society, and perhaps already are contributing to society in ways that are not accounted for in pure economic value (For example, I have talked a great many number of people out of suicide over the last ten years), and yet none of the support given to "valids" is given, and when it is, it is a bureaucratic fight to get it (I personally am thinking about a friend who is currently working as a graphic designer, who had a long period of disability and had to fight for support through the court system. Not because it was an abnormal case, but because the disability support system is set up to automatically deny support, and the system (as any caseworker will tell you) relies on the vast majority either dying or giving up, rather than suing them).

To put it mildly, this feels like a leaky metaphor. I won't say the rest of what came into my mind, to keep things civil.

[frankest]

The metaphor makes you break away from existing labels and think of newer approaches, enabled by the faster methods of communication we have available. In the past, the head of was many days or weeks ride away for most citizens. It made sense for people to relocate for 4 years and represent interests. Now that agency is proving very corruptible, especially because the enforcement of the rules is corrupted. What would be a faster, more reliable, less corruptible approach? You still need people to implement the will of the people, but can we come up with better ways to communicate that will to those in power?

[fao_]

There's whole volumes of academic literature where people debate this topic, it is filed under "communism", "anarchism", and "sociology".

[sophrosyne42]

If by capitalism you mean whatever is happening right now, then there is a mix of different things going on.

There is the system of private enterprise governes by capitalist accounting methods which is driven by the action and exchange of people acting to fulill their needs. This is like a functioning organism whose organs act autonomously, and in doing so affirm the life of the organism itself.

There is then the system of hegemony and bureaucracy which is organized by rules, dictates, and orders. It is like an organization, a machine whose parts operate according to a will, and function only so far as the will of the organizer operationalizes them into the pattern that fulfills the organizer's ends.

A natural, organic system can survive only as it functions in the matter of the former. When it functions in the matter of the latter, it dies with the failure of the organizing force which binds the parts. Society is an organism, not an organization. It is as senseless to organize society as it is to tear a plant to bits and make a flower out of the pieces. I should hope that we figure this out sooner rather than later before we smother society and its people with endless bureaucracy and regulation.

[sirponm]

The things you recognize are the tragedies of authoritarianism in all forms to me: nobody can possibly understand the system that well, and central planning simply doesn't work whether it's in a State or a company, because it just cannot and never will recognize each individual person for what they are actually worth as a human.

> It brands you valid or invalid based on values like inherited wealth, social class, race, mental health, etc.

Mostly inherited wealth I would guess, correlated to the other things for sure. Capital is everything in capitalism. Wealth distro follows a power law instead of Normal for this exact reason.