We should be careful to condemn too quickly a current system.
It reminds me of when a new developer comes to a code base and says it needs to be thrown out and rewritten completely.
Rewrites and revolutions are costly and shortsighted.
Let's first try to figure out what is right with what's here because usually it's like it is for a reason.
Corporate structure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Electoral system:
What we have now - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
Range voting - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig
Alternative vote - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
Single transferrable vote - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI
Marx wrote about the theory of societal evolution; That there are certain phases civilization must pass through. The communism he wrote about would have to be very far down the road, 100+ years (IMO). This does not mean people sit back and do nothing, we still would have to work towards it. (Most) Capitalists profit from the status quo, and work to keep in place systems to maintain their spot in the hierarchy. Thus the antiquated electoral system in the USA, and the top heavy power/pay structures of business.
TL;DR: give the average person more of a say/choice in the world they live in (politics/workplace), and they will find their way forward. (IMO)
2. “Socialism” is present and a fundamental part of (probably) every government on earth, in terms of public education, healthcare, and countless other public services.
3. The US could use some public services it is lacking right now, like national healthcare—our private costs are obscene.
You can frame socialism in terms of reduced shared costs. In my experience, this is an effective pitch to otherwise politically apathetic people.
> on the same issues the major alternatives attempted in the 20th century were actually far, far worse
Actually, I’d take national health care over the current situation in the US any day.
I’d hazard a guess that there are multiple places where most americans could appreciate socialist approaches to running public services.
I’m curious as to what specifically you’re talking about when saying capitalism did far better in every regard in every problem in the 20th century, because you seem emphatic.
The main alternatives to the system originally described as “capitalism” that was tried in states which already had developed capitalist economies in the 20th century were blends of elements of democratic socialism with capitalism that have since been dubbed the “modern mixed economy”; they were so successful compared to actual capitalism that they have essentially completely replaced it in the West, while there are persistent efforts (which sometimes succeed in driving some policy) from the capitalist class to drag the West back to (or at least toward) 19th Century capitalism.
(The only other alternative tried in any significt way in the developed West in the 20th Century was autocratic fascist corporatism, which, yes, is far, far worse than liberal capitalism.)
And the main alternative to that regressive pro-capitalist drive proposed in the modern West (aside from simply preserving the status quo design of the mixed economy) is simply progressively implementing more elements of democratic socialism, not adopting Leninism or any of the other attempts made in the 20th century outside of the developed West that attempt to bypass rather than advance from capitalism.
Though, I guess, it's worth noting that autocratic fascist corporatism still seems to have some adherents.
With this, right of return for anyone living in diaspora.
We can transition from capitalism to that via an intermediate stage of anarcho-syndicalism with syndicates that own property and pay taxes.
Capitalism isn’t “evil” or “useless” it’s just a temporary stage in our development.
This sounds like democratic socialism with some arbitrary restriction on polity scope.
> With this, right of return for anyone living in diaspora.
How do you concretely define this? This would be a big deal with existing scale polities, but it with your implied smaller polities, it becomes an even hotter issue.
> Capitalism isn’t “evil” or “useless” it’s just a temporary stage in our development.
Agreed.
There's no implication of socialism, but yes I expect some form of democrasy could be involved.
All laws are "arbitrary restrictions on policy scope".
> How do you concretely define [right of return]?
I don't have any strong expectations about the details. In my head as a straw man is something like:
If you (A) were born in a place, or (B) lived there for 4 years before the age of 20, you can claim it as your homeland. You may claim up to two homelands. Half of every 10,000 hectare region on earth must be reserved to be split equally among indigenous people.
I agree it'd be a hot sell. I see it more as a guiding principle than a practical global policy proposal. I believe we will end up in a world that approximates that policy, through gradual embrace of caring policies in all locales.
He became seriously disillusioned with socialist ideals later on in his life. And famously said "Socialists don't care about the poor, they just hate the rich"
EDIT: Found this quora question: https://www.quora.com/What-s-the-full-Orwell-quote-that-is-o... The quote you provided is a summary by a person that is definitely right or at least alt-right leaning, so he is definitely heavily biased. In any case, as you can read in the quoted passage (this time the real thing), Orwell criticizes the "book socialist" or the orthodox marxist, which he already did in Homage to Catalonia. He's criticizing the soviet union's socialism, not the CNT-FAI's one.
How about a system which:
1. Acknowledges the realities of automation and globalization
2. Does not have maximum employment and perpetual growth as primary goals
3. Does not create artificial scarcity
4. Understands the broken window fallacy
The first phase of the systems development life cycle requires you to define (and agree upon) high level goals/requirements/parameters, which is what I was doing.
Yes, but when people ask for a system, you can't just give them that list of goals as an answer. Not only is it not a system, but agreeing on goals doesn't make a system meeting all of them logically possible much less practical.
When someone asks for a satisfactory alternative that doesn't yet exist, intelligent creative people think about ways to make a new one. Are you suggesting we don't do that?
>agreeing on goals doesn't make a system meeting all of them logically possible much less practical.
False. Making sure users values align with the system goals is crucial for a successful, practical system that people want to use.
I think you'd have got a better response if you were clearer that that's what you were trying to do. "I don't know of a system but if we're to try and come up with one, [...]" or similar.
> >agreeing on goals doesn't make a system meeting all of them logically possible much less practical.
> False. Making sure users values align with the system goals is crucial for a successful, practical system that people want to use.
Making sure goals align with values is worthwhile, but it doesn't answer the question of whether a system that achieves all of those goals is possible.
In a different context, we can have as many meetings as we want where we all agree that maintaining complete consistency and availability while being robust to partitioning is very important and aligned with what we want out of our distributed system; that doesn't mean we're going to get a system that reaches those goals.
Of course, it's fair to say that the discussion of what goals to trade away against others should be a separate process from getting everything we might want on the table - but again, you should make it clear that that's what you're doing up front.
Perhaps you're right, though I'm sure the responses would also have been better if the system in question was an actual objective, technical system and not an ideological system. Decades of propaganda has caused many to automatically attack anyone who dares question the status quo economic aparatus.
Also, there's a huge difference between pointing out problems and pointing out solutions.
Climate change says the cost of not switching is far greater. Also, that's what phased roll outs are for.
>there's a huge difference between pointing out problems and pointing out solutions.
Obviously... But we can't find a solution without first defining and understanding the problem.