Orloff, who had come to the Asterite Republic from the Soviet colonies, asks whether the Astra cannot do better than "'...the extreme libertarianism...'" (p. 115) which had produced selfish, materialistic individuals unconcerned about society.
Lindgren responds:
"'I don't imagine we have room aboard for unregulated capitalism... But I'd hate to see an outright socialism evolve. Not simply because its stifling. I think it'd discourage the creativity this ship will need for long-range survival.'" (ibid.)
Lindgren says more which is worth reading but I try to limit the lengths of quotations. Phrases like "'...an outright socialism...'" should never be used without some explanation. If it were self-evident and if everyone were in agreement that something called "socialism" was stifling and discouraged creativity, then why would anyone call themselves "socialist" as many do in response to current crises? Because they're mad, of course... Let's not go down that road. Since many people argue that democratic (not bureaucratic) control of economic resources will not stifle but liberate, this argument should be engaged with, not treated as if it did not exist, which is what happens when the phrase, "outright socialism," is simply identified with "stifling" and discouragement of creativity. I imagine Astra crew members calling themselves "socialists" arguing for a greater degree of democratic decision-making in the ship and others replying that this is impractical, of course. That would be a more constructive debate.
35 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
My belief remains that you cannot have "democratic," political control of any economy without it inevitably becoming an oppressive, heavy-handed bureaucratic despotism. Real world history and experience have shown socialism to always be stifling.
All that the people on the "Astra" needs are the usual laws penalizing fraud, theft, corruption, and a few others, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
My belief remains that you can have democratic (no quote marks needed) control of an economy without it inevitably becoming an oppressive, heavy-handed bureaucratic despotism. I have argued how this can be done, especially when technologically produced abundance makes continued economic competition redundant. Real world history and experience have shown undemocratic bureaucratic state capitalist "socialism" to be stifling just as they have shown some forms of Christianity to involve burning heretics. The future can and should be different.
People on the ASTRA will do fine with the usual laws but can continue to discuss what kinds of societies they want to build on the colony planets.
Yet again, merely using that loaded word, "socialism," without any clarification or discrimination gets us absolutely nowhere. We merely repeat that our beliefs remain as they were before.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except, most times, people are willing to accept whatever regime happens to be ruling, esp. if it governs NTTB.
Free enterprise is far more truly democratic than all these cumbersome and failed attempts at governmental control of economies. "State capitalism" is an oxymoron.
I have defined "socialism" over and over. I will not accept fanciful definitions which has never been borne out in real life and real history.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Free enterprise will be redundant when wealth is abundant.
In the USSR, the bureaucracy exploited workers in order to accumulate capital in order to compete militarily against Western powers. Internal exploitation and external competition are the two features of capitalism. Therefore, "state capitalism" is not an oxymoron. Those cumbersome attempts were not workers' democracies.
You cannot define "socialism" to socialists! My definition is what socialists mean by "socialism"! It is not fanciful. Workers' control has been attempted only twice, in the Paris Commune and the Russian Republic 1917-1927, and was defeated both times. The struggle continues. We have a whole future (hopefully) of technological advances and of further social changes ahead of us. Look ahead. Read sf and think about what it means: change; a different future.
Paul.
As the saying goes, capitalism has many problems. Socialism has only one: it doesn't work.
Kaor, Paul!
And my answer remains that of Stirling, as given above. You are clinging to an impossibility.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You like to keep stating that as if it were a fact. The fact is that we just disagree and presenting your point of view as if it were a fact is just not the way to conduct any disagreement.
Technology CAN make wealth so abundant that competition becomes redundant. Humanity CAN use technology to keep competing - wars and more wars - until we destroy ourselves and our environment or we CAN reorganize society on a completely different basis as has been done more than once before, from hunting and gathering to slave-owning to feudal to mercantile to industrial. None of this was impossible.
If we took the time to discuss the ideas that come up instead of automatically disagreeing with them, then we might both learning something. My ideas have changed completely over a lifetime and continue to change but not on the basis of a "Wrong," "Disagree," "Impossible" competition. This just entrenches already existing views.
Paul.
both learn something
(Poor editing.)
Kaor, Paul!
No, you keep making unfounded, unproven assertions set in the remote future. Assertions I will never believe because they are based on a false view of human beings, human nature.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
No. I do not keep making unfounded, unproven assertions set in the remote future. I show how human beings have changed their societies enormously in the past, are changing them now and CAN change them even more in the immediate and longer term futures. They can build and utilize technologies that will make economic competition redundant. That, if and when it happens, will change human interactions, behaviour, perceptions, expectations, motivations, consciousness, everything. Our descendants CAN be even more different from us than we are from our pre-linguistic ancestors.
What is my false view of human nature? My view of human nature is that our species has cooperatively changed its environment with hands and brains and has changed itself into rational, linguistic beings in the process so that active change, not anything unchanging, is essential to our nature. How is this view false? Surely it explains who and what we are and how we came to be here?
Do you require me to PROVE that a particular kind of society will exist in the remote future? Of course I cannot do that and neither claim nor even attempt to. I have acknowledged that our future might be very bleak indeed, or even nonexistent, if present trends continue. (Keep on drilling, bombing and excluding...)
My views are founded in the evidence of human activity to date plus present capabilities and potentialities. That is not making unfounded, unproven assertions set in the remote future. You seem to want to dismiss a line of argument out of hand by falsifying and trivializing it. Please either leave the matter or respond to what I have in fact said.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, my view remains you are asserting what you hope for will come to pass. You have shown nothing convincing as regards economics, politics, or even "cooperation." Because you keep passing over how "cooperation" is also used for warlike purposes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am not asserting that what I hope for will come to pass. I have just acknowledged that disastrous events might very well happen instead! We are just not communicating. You believe that I am saying something that I am clearly not saying!
I am not trying to convince you! But I am determined to show that I have an argument and will maintain it.
Economics: technology can make competition redundant; everyone can be a shareholder, receiving what they need and more, able to pursue social, recreational, educational etc activities (including activities, e.g., off Earth, that we do not know about yet) instead of drudging to stay alive or getting rich at the expense of others.
Politics: deployment of universal literacy and of information and communications technology to implement fully democratic discussion and decision-making about deployment of common resources; election and instant recallability of delegates and of any public officials; a culture where all of this is taken for granted as the norm; no need for means of coercion when no one is any longer trying to "steal" anything from anyone else.
I have to convince you about the meaning of "cooperation"? It is how we survive. How do I pass over cooperation for warlike purposes? There will clearly no longer be any motivation for war in the kind of society that I describe: no production of weapons; no division of mankind into armed nation-states contending for territory and resenting foreigners/immigrants; no bodies of armed men earning a wage by obeying orders - everyone will have far better things to do.
The purpose of this is not to convince you. Every time that I am challenged on this, I will clearly state what I hope for and why I think that it is possible. We can indeed continue to repeat this indefinitely but I do not see the point.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But you keep advocating for what you seem to insist "can" happen.
No, you can't even continue to have an advanced economy/technology without competition. Attempts to abolish competition will only result in stagnation and stasis at best. It might even end in something as horrific as what we see in "The High Ones."
I don't share your idealism about what we might see in a world where we can all live comfortably on "citizen's credit." Most humans are not going to be aesthetes, philosophers, artists, or even chess players! We are far more likely to get what we see in "Quixote and the Windmill," boredom, frustration, people more and more drinking to excess, etc.
Disagree, what you said about "getting rich." Entrepreneurs who provide innovative new goods and services via technological advances are not getting rich at the expense of others. That cannot be the case if we freely chose to buy those goods/services.
No, I don't believe in your dreams of some kind of "advanced" democracy, because human beings are far too imperfect, flawed, prone to strife and violence, etc., for such notions to work. The limited State, in no matter what form, is far more realistic.
People will continue to fight and quarrel because IWHBD. No matter how advanced and prosperous a society might be, that is what I expect to see happening, as in Chapter Six of GENESIS.
I clumsily omitted signing my above comment: "Ad astra! Sean"
Sean
Sean,
Of course you don't believe! I am not trying to convince you! We seem to be at complete cross-purposes here.
I disagree with everything that you have written above but why go through it all yet again?
Paul.
Sean,
Of course I keep advocating for what I insist "can" happen! That is what we are disagreeing about! Before we even start a conversation, I am supposed to accept your view that certain things CANNOT happen? You do not seem to understand that we start a discussion/disagreement/argument (whatever we want to call it) with different and contradictory opinions. That is why there is an argument. It is very difficult to get to some common understanding of what it is that we are talking about and that in turn helps to explain why we do not get anywhere.
Paul.
No. Competition will produce technology that will make competition redundant so that it will not be necessary to attempt to abolish competition. And socially controlled high technology will be dynamic, not stagnant.
We are not imperfect, flawed, prone to strife and violence etc. I have outlined conditions in which there will no longer be any motivation for strife or violence. There will be not a limited state but no state.
I have replied about GENESIS, Chapter 6, before. That was not a democratic society using its resources for the free development of all its members.
But you seem to forget that you have said all this before and that I have given the same replies to it before.
Kaor, Paul!
Your fatal error is your stubborn insistence that human beings are not flawed and imperfect, etc. A patently false notion.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Your fatal error is your "stubborn" (let's drop such words) insistence that human beings who have already transformed their world and themselves cannot continue to do so. A patently false notion. The future will be different for good or ill. The latter is all too probable but we can and should work, argue and campaign for a better outcome.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Impasse and deadlock. We have irreconcilable first principles.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That has been said before and has made no difference.
And what are those first principles?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
First and most obviously: we have irreconcilable differences about human beings/human nature. I believe, from both divine revelation and everyday observation, that we are all flawed, imperfect, prone to strife, violence, etc. All other disagreements on matters like social organization, economics, politics, etc., flows from that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
As I expected, that is not an obvious first principle. It is a conclusion deduced from revelation and observation. I have explained why I deduce a different conclusion from history and observation.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except real history, including what has been discovered via archeology, as in works like FOSSIL MEN, supports my beliefs, not yours.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Those were conclusions, not first principles.
Archaeology does not tell us what will happen in completely different conditions in the future.
Real history shows us that society has changed and continues to change and now has the potential to change much further. Automation, AI, robotics and nanotech have the capacity to make economic competition and working for a living redundant so that, after a period of adjustment, new generations will instead be able to work for enjoyment and fulfillment and it will be possible to bring them up to do that. I have replied about Anderson's GENESIS, Chapter 6, several times before. This is repetition.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, if real history, including the knowledge gained from archeology, shows us humans behaving exactly as we see them, here and now, for literally millions of years, then I have zero reason to believe in your hopes and speculations.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
No. I have given multiple reasons!
We need to analyze and understand what is happening here:
I say "a";
you say "b" in response to "a";
I say "c" in response to "b";
you repeat "b";
so I repeat "c."
And my attempts to stand back from this process and reflect on it do not prevent it from continuing. We have now been doing this for a very long time and are still continuing to do it even now. I am trying to get us out of it.
To fill in the sort of thing I mean:
(a) advanced technology can produce abundant wealth, making economic competition and associated social conflicts, e.g., theft, resentment of immigrants and wars for resources, redundant;
(b) human beings are prone to strife and violence in any and every social conditions;
(c) there are many conditions in which we do not attack each other because we have no reason to do so and instead have every reason to interact harmoniously with each other - these conditions can be extended so that there is no longer any strife or violence anywhere on Earth;
(b) (now repeated) human beings are prone to strife and violence in any and every social conditions.
I have paraphrased your views and you will word them differently but this IS essentially what we are caught up in. Can it stop?
Paul.
Also:
I present reasons why society and psychology have changed in the past and CAN change even more in the future. Your response is not to discuss the proposed reasons but to state that you see no reason why there should be ANY change: no difference between human behaviour in a high tech civilization with democratic institutions and human behaviour in the primitive and barbaric periods studied by archaeologists! Since there is no point in me merely repeating the reasons that I have presented, this is another dead-end.
Kaor, Paul!]
No, we cannot "move forward:" because my impression that would only be possible if I assented to ideas I believe to be false and unrealistic. Which I will not do.
Nor do I believe in your "conditions" or that technological changes will somehow innately change human beings.
You also stubbornly overlook those peaceful "conditions" you talk about are only possible because of the existence of the State, with its monopoly of violence. No State and we get the war of all against all.
Nor do I agree with your views about technology, which requires competition to stay dynamic.
Refused, what you said about immigrants. Sovereign nations have the right to set the terms and conditions for allowing in foreigners.
I don't share your views about democracy, because it's only possible when the right laws, customs, ideas, beliefs, etc., exist. So, I expect it to come and go in the future as it has done in the past and can do now.
Human beings were primitive and barbaric in the past--and often still are now, if a barbaric religion like Islam justifies barbarism. Civilizations will continue to rise and fall, and we will have future ages of barbarism.
The dead end is because we have irreconcilable first principles. Best to terminate this discussion.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You do not believe that, in one set of social "conditions," a man will live peacefully with his neighbours whereas, in another set of conditions, that same man might join a mob to lynch one of his neighbours because a minority is being scapegoated during a social crisis?
Technological changes will NOT somehow innately change human beings. Please quote accurately. I explain how I think that technology can be used differently.
Socially controlled advanced technology will not need competition to stay dynamic.
I do not stubbornly overlook anything. I disagree with you about it. I have replied about the State many times. Of course we need police, courts, prisons etc in an economically and socially divided society but coercion will be unnecessary when abundant wealth is shared equally. We will have no reason to wage a war of all against all. I do not advocate simply abolishing the State here and now but a qualitatively different future for all is possible. But all this has been said before.
Refused, what you said about immigrants. You are merely repeating what you have said about sovereign states which I have replied to. (Can we drop the "Refused"?)
Of course you don't share my views about democracy! We don't need to keep saying this. A culture of shared abundance will be one that IS right for democracy.
We will indeed have future ages of barbarism if we just stay with the present system of economic competition and warring states.
What are the first principles? When I asked that question before, you referred to facts, not to principles.
It is not necessary for you to assent to ideas that you believe to be false and unrealistic. If you believe the ideas to be false and unrealistic, then obviously you do not assent to them! There are not just two alternatives: assent or endless word for word repetition of disagreements. There are more ways forward for a discussion than just those two options.
What I detect in your responses is not reasoned discussion and disagreement but determined resistance (even resentment) and rejection and obviously that will continue whatever is said. I have been trying to break us out of this cycle, not to stay inside it, but we have gone further into it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I will try again.
I absolutely believe that peace will only be possible in any kind of state/society if there is a gov't with a monopoly of the means of violence to enforce peace. It's no use talking about "conditions," because some kind of State first has to exist.
I don't believe what you keep saying about technology. Basically, all that any kind of technology does is to make doing things easier. Or to enable people to make things.
I oppose any kind of "Socially controlled technology," because I interpret that as just another way of saying "socialism," political control of an economy. All we have ever seen from socialism is corruption, stagnation, inefficiency, waste, tyranny, etc. And it will not be dynamic.
We have the State, and the inevitable means of coercion it holds because flawed human beings make that inescapable. Nor do I believe in impossibilities like "abundant wealth shared equally" because humans are not equal in abilities, virtue, vices, intelligence/talents, etc. That alone make "social divisions" inevitable. I don't believe in that "qualitatively different future" you hope for. It's sheer unrealism.
Noted, what you said about "immigration," and I stand by what I've said about it.
Regardless of whether or not wealth is abundant, a democracy will only be possible if the right laws, customs, beliefs, institutions, etc., necessary for it to even work exists. Also, a democracy is itself a State, a regime where it is agreed power will be transferred to those who manage to persuade the most people to vote for them.
We are going to have future ages of barbarism because I don't believe in what you say about human beings. We are flawed, imperfect, strife and violence prone, etc. That is a first principle, a conclusion drawn from facts and history. I have seen no reason to expect that to change.
Yes, I am determined to resist ideas I believe to be wrong. I believe some anger to be right when it comes to opposing catastrophic ideas that has never worked (like socialism) or will ever work. Too many tens of millions of people have died because of that hopeless futility alone. That means I have a right to feel angry.
A truly objective response is to face facts: socialism has never worked and never will. Only free enterprise economics, conjoined with the limited State, in whatever form, has been known to actually work, in real life/history. I don't believe in dreams of "ideal/perfect" societies.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We live in conditions which differ enormously! The conditions of a pauper and a prince differ. The pauper is more likely to pick a pocket.
I believe several things but not "absolutely." Knowledge, and still more belief, is provisional.
Look, I want to add a post to the blog, then get a bus across to Morecambe to visit Andrea for several hours so I will have to read the rest of your comment later but I want to keep trying to clarify what is going on here. I am simultaneously trying to do things which maybe work against each other:
(i) show that I can maintain my side of the argument on every disputed point;
(ii) show that the entire process of the argument has gone badly wrong if it is treated as a matter of life and death and if you think that your only alternatives are either to capitulate or just to keep insisting on the same absolute beliefs over and over again. That gets us nowhere. Discussions with other people that I disagree with are not like this.
I will (probably) reply later but I might also have to keep saying the same things over and over yet again.
Paul.
Sean,
A conclusion is not a first principle.
What was the point of repeating all that? I have replied to every word of it before and any further reply would only be further repetition.
I will not try again.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then this discussion has to be terminated. I stand by everything I've said.
Ad astra! Sean
Of course it is being terminated. I stand by everything I've said and I have replied to everything you've said innumerable times before.
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