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LatentCC t1_j3y2pah wrote

Reply to comment by spottycow123 in Philosophy has never been the detached pursuit of truth. It’s always been deeply invested in its own cultural perspective. by IAI_Admin

There is an idea in Marxist economics called the "anarchy of production". Capitalist production does not hold social needs as the primary motivation but private profits. How about an example?

Think of how many different kinds of shoes there are. Thousands? Tens of thousands? What if we consolidated the resources and productive power of every shoe factory to produce a few hundred different kinds of shoes total? There are fewer options for sure, but everyone gets a pair or more as needed and there's less work required to produce the shoes needed.

The shoe designs could be rotated in and out as decided by popular vote every year or two but custom orders could be made to the nearest factory. Custom orders may be given lower priority to the shoes that are needed but I think reasonable people would be willing to wait if their custom shoes are free, comfortable and high quality.

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spottycow123 t1_j3y9oin wrote

I agree with the criticism of the current capitalist system, but I have a hard time seeing that democratic decision making at all levels would somehow produce the best outcome, this is the assumption I'm questioning here. To comment on your example, I would agree that that outcome would be preferable but I don't believe that it would be achieved with democratic decisions on everything. I believe it would be a lot more likely that the workers of the shoe factory would favor their individual immediate contentment, for example voting to work very little, invest majority of the income for their salaries and not better shoe making devices, thus the end result would be even less shoes for everyone and less money invested in R&D for new and better machines.

I'll admit that I haven't red that many books on Marxist economics, only what other people have written about them. Do you have any reading suggestions on the topic?

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LatentCC t1_j3yprid wrote

Your questions are legitimate but get into the realm of speculation. It really depends on the form the socialist society takes. The USSR had a negative feedback loop of constantly lowering quotas as factories performed worse and worse. I think a magazine article I read talked about how restaurants in the USSR were bad on purpose so they received less business. It makes sense in a way, if the factory just fails to meet a quota, you don't want to push even more work on them. They'll just be in a constant state of never reaching the quota.

In a way, the questions you're raising are akin to a serf working the land of their lord and wondering how a system like capitalism would ever work. The reality is that we don't know. We can only examine the material conditions as they exist currently and advocate for better ones.

One solution is to break society down into smaller, self-sufficient communities as we can reasonably achieve. Shoe factory workers would be less inclined to shoddy workmanship if everyone they knew wore the terrible shoes they made and they received constant complaints.

I certainly do have some recommendations for reading! Understanding Marxism is incredibly difficult and can only be achieved by actively working towards it - like a college class. I've read numerous works for the better part of two years now and I just now feel like I'm getting my bearings.

Why Socialism? | Albert Einstein (I recommend this as the starting point for anyone interested in learning about socialism more broadly)

The Principles of Communism | Frederick Engles

Value, Price and Profit | Karl Marx

Wage-labour and Capital | Karl Marx

If you want something more advanced, you can also read the first chapter of Capital (Marx) volume 1. I'm in the middle of reading Capital myself at the moment and I have to admit it is extremely dry.

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