What are the alternatives to capitalism? Are they worse?

[Conscentia]

What "problems" were these?

The fact it was possible for the USSR to exist as a viable state with worker's control. Too many workers were unskilled. Lenin recognised that Marxist-Leninism needed decades in order to develop. He knew that in the short term it was unviable. They had to organise their industry to catch up with other nations an skill up their workers. This would eventually lead up to the NEP which resulted in an economic recovery.

So socialism isn't universally applicable. Neither is feudalism. Neither is capitalism. Neither is liberal parliamentary social democracy. This does not mean socialism cannot "work" - only that it takes work to make it work, and in that regard it is no different from anything that has preceded it.

There were people advocating for worker's control (the Worker's Opposition), but the result would have been workplaces acting in the best interests of their own workers as opposed to workers across the country, which what Lenin's reforms enabled.

And a capitalist owner acts in the best interests of themselves as opposed to those of their own workers or the workers across the country.

And capitalism would improve this how? Seems the complaint here is that their employees in South America don't have enough autonomy - that the problem isn't worker's control, but a lack of it.

The point is that workers within individual workplaces have no care for workers outside their workplace, or those who aren't regarded as holding the same privileges and entitlements. A state is needed with a monopoly on violence to ensure fairness within the country, otherwise you get another Catalonia.

So what? I'm not an anarchist and neither are you. Even if we accept what you say here, this is no worse than capitalism.

Even if I took your word for it, this isn't a problem inherent in worker's control. This is a problem with the specific policies of the Catalonians.

Not really, it is inherent. Workers can't have full control because firstly (through rational self interest) if workers are more inclined to raise their own wages, cut their hours and decrease output by increasing their liberties, then it would cause real wage unemployment for the rest of population and in time would result in economic growth being limited.

Capitalism itself produces unemployment, so even accepting that unemployment is an inevitable consequence it's no worse or less functional than capitalism. As for limiting economic growth, we live on a finite planet - perpetual economic growth isn't possible and insisting on growth as an end isn't sensible. To say that economic growth would be limited is not a problem in itself.

You could, of course, say 'that wouldn't happen', but really? Trade unions organise to secure the best possible rights and concessions for their workers from management. Cut out management and you just got workers setting their own rates. Where once they would have compromised or negotiated with management who'd set rates based on the economic circumstances that were ongoing, this no longer exists.

The management isn't looking out for the economy - they're looking out for themselves. Why does the management oppose these concessions that trade unions push for? Because the management owns the workplace (or is at least accountable to the owners) and as such bares the liabilities and expenses - any benefits or privileges afforded to the workers comes at an expense to the management. The union does not own the workplace so only stands to gain from demanding more. Worker-ownership makes the workforce responsible for the costs and consequences of any privileges they afford themselves, and as such would still need to respond to ongoing economic circumstances. Real wage unemployment occurs because wages are kept high while demand for workers falls, leading bankruptcy or layoffs which causes the observed unemployment. It is in the interests of the workplace not to go bankrupt or layoff large sections of it's own members.

Thus it's inevitable a privileged set of workers would emerge over other workers; it's a class system all over again.

I don't see how this is a class system. They lost their jobs because demand for labour has fallen. That's not a class system.

[Imperializt Russia]

Even if I took your word for it, this isn't a problem inherent in worker's control. This is a problem with the specific policies of the Catalonians.

Not really, it is inherent. Workers can't have full control because firstly (through rational self interest) if workers are more inclined to raise their own wages, cut their hours and decrease output by increasing their liberties, then it would cause real wage unemployment for the rest of population and in time would result in economic growth being limited. You could, of course, say 'that wouldn't happen', but really? Trade unions organise to secure the best possible rights and concessions for their workers from management. Cut out management and you just got workers setting their own rates. Where once they would have compromised or negotiated with management who'd set rates based on the economic circumstances that were ongoing, this no longer exists. Thus it's inevitable a privileged set of workers would emerge over other workers; it's a class system all over again.

This is a... really peculiar line of argumentation.

There's a couple of explicit issues - firstly, the 9-5 lifestyle, despite automation and improved machinery, isn't a necessity - it's part of capitalism's self-fulfilling nature. It's consumerism. Make products, endless products, and make several of them in such a manner that the person will have to pay for a replacement later because it breaks, or because it's become obsolete and now they need to upgrade to a newer model that was probably already in development before the previous one even hit the market. It's the incessant need to tell people that they need to buy things that they really don't, to fuel the machine and its hunger for endless growth for growth's sake.

It's patently needless. So yes, workers probably would reduce their working hours, because no-one needs to work those hours, unless they freely chose to. But this isn't because they're "lazy", or conniving, or whatever you believe to be the case.
In almost all cases, we work because we have to. We may want to take these jobs we take on - how I hope my life pans out - but the fundamental reason is that we have to work, for a corporate paymaster.
If there was no capitalist system that cost money to live in? I'd still work in the nuclear power industry, because I really want to do that.

---

And, as Conscienta said, that's not a class system.
Consider a commune, where a powerplant operates continuously to meet electricity demands, a food factory operates for 30-40 hours a week to meet food production demands, and an electronics factory operates for 10-20 hours a week because there simply isn't the need for as many electronic devices as food items. To reflect these needs, workers at the powerplant have longer shifts than those in the electronics factory.
Is this "classism"? No.

I've recently been (repeatedly) rejected from my local Tesco. I'd have been well over the minimum wage, on something like £7.50/hr (I am currently entitled to £7.05), permanent 10% discount on Tesco shopping, other perks.
I've recently been accepted at a local branch of a national restaurant chain. I'm receiving £7.05/hr, 30% off drinks on shift, relatively limited perks (not in absolute terms, but limited compared to the utility of Tesco's wide-ranging perk scheme).

Are Tesco employees in a "class" above me? No. This is not what class or classism are. Class and classism are about social hierarchies, the concept of superiority and oppression - intentional or otherwise - down the hierarchy.

[The Wolfiad]

The fact it was possible for the USSR to exist as a viable state with worker's control. Too many workers were unskilled. Lenin recognised that Marxist-Leninism needed decades in order to develop. He knew that in the short term it was unviable. They had to organise their industry to catch up with other nations an skill up their workers. This would eventually lead up to the NEP which resulted in an economic recovery.

So socialism isn't universally applicable. Neither is feudalism. Neither is capitalism. Neither is liberal parliamentary social democracy. This does not mean socialism cannot "work" - only that it takes work to make it work, and in that regard it is no different from anything that has preceded it.

That's not a verifiable statement. Even if it was, what would be the point? 'Work' is a small word for big consequences - what is work? Is it people with dissenting opinions being slaughtered? Is it people deemed class enemies being liquidated? Is it poor central planning damaging the health of a nation? Really this is all another way of saying 'the ends justify the means'. I don't know about you, but in the West you don't killed for dissent and your government doesn't conduct economic experiments to reach a far-off utopia that has been tried throughout history yet has failed. Finally, the statement is false - capitalism and Western liberal democracy is universally applicable. Since 1945, no Western liberal democracy has collapsed under the weight of itself. Two fascist non-democracies (Spain and Portugal) became one. One country (South Korea) went from a feudal society to a dictatorship to adopting the principles of Western liberal democracy.

Countries that aspire to socialism, communism or anarchism go two ways: they collapse almost immediately due to opposition forces, an inability to bring a wide swathe of society on side and an organisation model that is severely disadvantaged against more tightly controlled and hierarchical ones. Or they survive under a harsh dictatorship with all the faults of dictatorship. Cronyism, corruption and state-sanctioned terror are the big ones, as ultimately dictators are focused upon ensuring they survive and thus they seek to keep their underlings loyal, even at the detriment of the wider of the population. Terror meanwhile needs to be utilised in order to suppress dissent and opposition to the dictatorship. This isn't healthy and buries problems under bullets as opposed to solving them.

Democracy's faults come nowhere near the faults of the alternatives - they are stable, they are prosperous, they are free and fair, you are guaranteed rights and overall are better for the typical worker. If we want to compare it to the level of the Second World, you're also less hungry, you have more choice when you shop, there is more social mobility, you're less likely to die, you have a better health care system, you have a better car and you have more holidays.

And a capitalist owner acts in the best interests of themselves as opposed to those of their own workers or the workers across the country.

They can do. That's why you have a central government to regulate things, correct market failures and ensure a competitive market. That's why they guarantee worker's rights, provide benefit payments and ensure companies meant certain obligations. Ultimately in the context of Lenin's reforms it was better than what Worker's Opposition were proposing because at least it had about 2/3 of the triaparite contracts of business, labour and state, whereas Anarchist Catalonia only had labour and look how that turned out.

The point is that workers within individual workplaces have no care for workers outside their workplace, or those who aren't regarded as holding the same privileges and entitlements. A state is needed with a monopoly on violence to ensure fairness within the country, otherwise you get another Catalonia.

So what? I'm not an anarchist and neither are you. Even if we accept what you say here, this is no worse than capitalism.

It's one of the few examples of a radically left worker owned country and the one we have the most information on. Just because it's anarchist doesn't make it irrelevant. Similar systems like council communism and libertarian socialism that posit themselves in opposition to state socialism don't have any sufficient enough meaningful difference outside theory to be different in practice, unless you can provide an example otherwise.

Not really, it is inherent. Workers can't have full control because firstly (through rational self interest) if workers are more inclined to raise their own wages, cut their hours and decrease output by increasing their liberties, then it would cause real wage unemployment for the rest of population and in time would result in economic growth being limited.

Capitalism itself produces unemployment, so even accepting that unemployment is an inevitable consequence it's no worse or less functional than capitalism. As for limiting economic growth, we live on a finite planet - perpetual economic growth isn't possible and insisting on growth as an end isn't sensible. To say that economic growth would be limited is not a problem in itself.

Marxists have misread mainstream economic theory in order to validate their belief in a reserve army of labour. In a market economy there will be some unemployment and that's perfectly healthy. If there was 100% employment then you'd simply have a job imposed on you, no one would actually look for jobs. Frictional unemployment is good because it indicates individuals are seeking better positions, results in businesses having a high caliber of candidates and is also the only form of unemployment by worker's choice.

Generally frictional unemployment will be between 4%-5% of the economy and this corresponds to the so-called natural rate of unemployment - the UK is quite close to full employment today, whilst the US is in full employment thanks to Obama. This unemployment is further necessary to ensure that we meet the NAIRU - the point where if unemployment falls further, it'll result an increase in inflation and in time hyperinflation.

There are two main other types of unemployment: cyclical and structural. Cyclical occurs during the bottom end of a business cycle, which results in less demand and thus job lossers. The post-2008 recession is an example of this type of unemployment being widespread. The other is structural unemployment, which is when there's a mismatch between the skills of workers and the vacancies for them. An example would be technology supplants the need for a great number of labourer in a car factory. None of these are inherent to capitalism, though structural unemployment I admit is far less likely to exist within socialist countries due to the fact there is little incentive to innovate. But overall this means socialist countries are less likely to experience the benefits of technology has to growth and thus to wages, new employment being created etc.

The management isn't looking out for the economy - they're looking out for themselves. Why does the management oppose these concessions that trade unions push for? Because the management owns the workplace (or is at least accountable to the owners) and as such bares the liabilities and expenses - any benefits or privileges afforded to the workers comes at an expense to the management. The union does not own the workplace so only stands to gain from demanding more. Worker-ownership makes the workforce responsible for the costs and consequences of any privileges they afford themselves, and as such would still need to respond to ongoing economic circumstances. Real wage unemployment occurs because wages are kept high while demand for workers falls, leading bankruptcy or layoffs which causes the observed unemployment. It is in the interests of the workplace not to go bankrupt or layoff large sections of it's own members.

I don't see how this is a class system. They lost their jobs because demand for labour has fallen. That's not a class system.

It's effectively a new class system because you end up with those in the privileged closed shop of high paying jobs with great benefits or unemployment/maybe low paying 'jobs' with little benefits. If that's a bit much, then it's certainly a new form of social stratification and inequality. This problem isn't exclusive to state and libertarian socialist countries - Macron is running on a platform of introducing more labor market flexibility due to current French employment laws resulting in increased unemployment that results from high labour costs and in particular, extremely high youth unemployment as young people compete with older people who have more rigid contracts and are unable to access long-term secure jobs to the same capacity of them.

Worker control of the means of production does make them liable for costs and consequences of privileges afforded to themselves, but without a state to override workers when they're not acting in a manner beneficial to the common good (and thus break the principle of worker's control), there is no incentive for a workplace to have any social responsibility beyond fear of violence from an envious population (and if it comes to violence, then really the system that exists is about to be overthrown). Without a state, there's nothing to stop a set of workplaces agreeing to set a cartel or fix prices. Worker's control is really no different to a libertarian's paradise, except you'll all be thinking you're really left-wing. Labour needs to be balanced with both business and state to ensure the common good is maintained, there's no way around that.

Not really, it is inherent. Workers can't have full control because firstly (through rational self interest) if workers are more inclined to raise their own wages, cut their hours and decrease output by increasing their liberties, then it would cause real wage unemployment for the rest of population and in time would result in economic growth being limited. You could, of course, say 'that wouldn't happen', but really? Trade unions organise to secure the best possible rights and concessions for their workers from management. Cut out management and you just got workers setting their own rates. Where once they would have compromised or negotiated with management who'd set rates based on the economic circumstances that were ongoing, this no longer exists. Thus it's inevitable a privileged set of workers would emerge over other workers; it's a class system all over again.

This is a... really peculiar line of argumentation.

There's a couple of explicit issues - firstly, the 9-5 lifestyle, despite automation and improved machinery, isn't a necessity - it's part of capitalism's self-fulfilling nature. It's consumerism. Make products, endless products, and make several of them in such a manner that the person will have to pay for a replacement later because it breaks, or because it's become obsolete and now they need to upgrade to a newer model that was probably already in development before the previous one even hit the market. It's the incessant need to tell people that they need to buy things that they really don't, to fuel the machine and its hunger for endless growth for growth's sake.

It's patently needless. So yes, workers probably would reduce their working hours, because no-one needs to work those hours, unless they freely chose to. But this isn't because they're "lazy", or conniving, or whatever you believe to be the case.
In almost all cases, we work because we have to. We may want to take these jobs we take on - how I hope my life pans out - but the fundamental reason is that we have to work, for a corporate paymaster.
If there was no capitalist system that cost money to live in? I'd still work in the nuclear power industry, because I really want to do that.

In Revolutionary Catalonia the point is that they reduced their hours, increased their wages and reduced their output, thus imposed more labour costs whilst profit fell overall. I'm also puzzled by your criticism of economic growth... economic growth is literally someone else's spending becoming someone else's income, to put it simply. Without economic growth you're denying incomes to other people. I have a lot of criticisms of consumerism being Catholic, but 'it puts people into work' isn't one of them.

It's up for debate as to whether hours as they stand are sufficient or if they should be reduced. Some studies have found that 4 days a week increases productivity. There can be such a thing as 'hours wasted' and cutting them is reasonable. But really management can do that themselves and it often does, or at least allows flexibility (i.e. flexitime). 9-5 does have its benefits as well by ensuring there is a fine line between 'hours for work, hours for leisure' - often flexibility in terms of hours (at least in the modern economy) has resulted in people taking work home and thus eating into leisure as they measure people's efficiency (whether this would occur in your ideal society is up for debate, but Anarchist Catalonia suggests not seeing as when hours were cut productivity was reduced). Some businesses have found 9-5 is essential for them to operate to maximum efficiency - Best Buy for instance scrapped their flexibility to turn around their company.

And, as Conscienta said, that's not a class system.
Consider a commune, where a powerplant operates continuously to meet electricity demands, a food factory operates for 30-40 hours a week to meet food production demands, and an electronics factory operates for 10-20 hours a week because there simply isn't the need for as many electronic devices as food items. To reflect these needs, workers at the powerplant have longer shifts than those in the electronics factory.
Is this "classism"? No.

I've recently been (repeatedly) rejected from my local Tesco. I'd have been well over the minimum wage, on something like £7.50/hr (I am currently entitled to £7.05), permanent 10% discount on Tesco shopping, other perks.
I've recently been accepted at a local branch of a national restaurant chain. I'm receiving £7.05/hr, 30% off drinks on shift, relatively limited perks (not in absolute terms, but limited compared to the utility of Tesco's wide-ranging perk scheme).

Are Tesco employees in a "class" above me? No. This is not what class or classism are. Class and classism are about social hierarchies, the concept of superiority and oppression - intentional or otherwise - down the hierarchy.

That's a minute difference. It wasn't a minute difference in Catalonia for those who were unemployed or in jobs that paid significantly less. The point is inequalities were high and were actually implemented by the CNT. That does result in what is essentially a new class system - those who are within the closed shop and can have great jobs with great benefits and those who aren't.

Fine, but to me it still seems like puritanism. The reason why people like Bernstein, Crosland and Tawney shifted towards reformism was due to deficiencies within orthodox socialism after Marx's predictions didn't play out. They recognised socialism could be advanced better through legislation and the way that Continental Europe in the West turned out as opposed to the East pretty much vindicates that. The idea that a certain set of means is required to achieve the end of equality of opportunity and outcome is arbitrary.

Marxism claimed that it was impossible to achieve equality and concessions within a capitalist society, yet the Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto have been applied in virtually all Western countries from a progressive income tax to universal state education to the centralised regulation of transport. Rights for workers have been secured, the NHS has been established and a comprehensive welfare state exists in the UK. The Tories want to revert these, but the fact is it's been proven that working within the system produces good outcomes. A number of these policies (i.e. universal health care) are so well-integrated within British society they can't be repealed; that is the long standing legacy of socialism.

No-one is denying that these are "socialist principles", with roots in socialist ideology.
Without worker control over the means of production - it's not socialism. Socialism is the dismantling of capitalism, and the abolition of the capitalist class.
It's fundamental, I don't know how we're still needing to make this distinction.

I'm half tempted to say that calling social democracy "socialism" in common public discourse is OK, but I'm coming closer to refusing to accept that, because of how "socialism" is used as a slur and a dirty word in the US, and even here in the UK. Again, Labour removed Clause 4. Even Corbyn won't commit to reinstating it, even as a symbolic change.

I've hardly been following his public speeches, but I don't think I've ever heard him use the term "social democracy" or "socialism" for his vision for the UK. I've heard plenty of Labour Party MPs, including Jess Philips and possibly Corbyn himself describe themselves as "socialists", but never as having a "socialist vision" for the UK. There are a number of reasons why this could be, but this would be mind-reading to posit them. They are all, in practice, social democrats (and I'm not saying this because they're not fighting an insurrection, therefore "no true socialistman").

'Worker's control' to me seems like a means rather than an ends to me. To me the ends of ending inequality (however utopian a goal that is) really is more important, but I guess we have to agree to disagree.

We come from two different places and approach this question in two different ways. I don't acknowledge for instance that capitalism is inherently impossible to socialise and that regardless capitalism as it has existed from 1945 onwards, even if you don't consider it socialised, was a far better place to live for workers than the Second World, whereas you believe this to be impossible and thus have concluded it needs to be overthrown.

I thought we'd already settled this as well, but OK. I don't know why you think I'm confused why living standards have been better in the first world than the "second world".

The western world was already industrialised. Our society had technology and equipment to better it.
The states that claim to have undergone "socialist revolutions" didn't. They spent a century playing catch-up to the west, from being two hundred or more years behind. Oh, and being variously devastated by wars in the meantime, much more than "the west", which obviously includes the unscathed US mainland. Unsurprisingly, Russia and China are still behind the west.

The cynical argument is that our living standards have only increased because if they hadn't, the capitalists would have been fighting off a socialist revolution already. Capitalists pre-monetarism were acutely aware of this. The New Deal, for example. Since Monetarism and the fetishistic fascination with Ayn Rand that (#NotAll) capitalists seem to have taken on board, they seem to have forgotten about this.
I think these two charts are very telling. The average productivity per worker, against the average wage per worker - in the US and UK.


The extraction of surplus value from the labour of workers is at the expense of workers. Had workers been "fairly" compensated for their increasing productivity, think how our living standards could be now - there wouldn't have been one million food bank visits in the last year. Or,
had the benefits of productivity not gone to the capitalist class but to "the co-operative", or alternatively, the state, the benefits of this could have been passed onto wider society, through the provision of social programmes.

But all it's actually been used to do, is enrich the already-wealthy capitalist class, at the expense of the workers.
It's not just the Tories, we can see from America this is part of a long-term trend of ideology, and New Labour has its part in this too.

Countries that have industrialised under capitalism and then progressed to liberal democracies (i.e. South Korea) have been better off than their socialist equivalents. If you open up your country to investment from the 'developed world', then it is possible to develop at a faster rate than other countries. But anyway, to address that in the context of the time period: I don't deny that a revolution was necessary. I do deny that the outcome of the revolution was inevitable and that Russia was relegated to constantly be at a significant disadvantage. Had Korensky remained in power, kept Russia fighting in the Great War then Russia and not adopt an ideology based around destroying the Western world then they could have opened themselves up to the West and liberalise their own country politically and economically. The USSR's economic development was effectively squandered - they went from being a net exporter of grain under the Tsar to being a net importer under the USSR, but that wasn't an inevitably. If they had left the markets to it and avoided the painful mistake of collectivization followed by central planning, they would have continued to be a net exporter of grain. Countries like the Czech Republic for instance have caught up massively with the West and they're probably the most democratic and most free Eastern European state.

Underdevelopment is an excuse. Germany was destroyed in World War II and is now one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Japan had not one but two nukes dropped on it. South Korea was occupied by the Japanese. Singapore was a backwater colonial outpost. Chile, after getting rid of Pinochet, slashed back on a lot of the more radical reforms whilst still maintaining the broad model and stopped throwing their intellectuals out helicopters in order to become the first developed country in South America. Seems to me that, generally speaking, the formula for success is democracy and capitalism.

Just for the record, the Marshall Plan isn't at all cynical. Saving people from the mirage of communism and the detrimental impacts it has isn't cynical. It was a case of 'everyone wins'. Furthermore, your analysis of productivity and average wage earnings is faulty. Perhaps there would be a case if the labour theory of value was sound economics, but the subjective theory of value is what determines value. Whilst productivity does correlate to profits, it is not the be all that ends all. Indeed a company could be productive but the value of their goods could decrease and be worth less overall, thus increasing wages significantly would be unfeasible. Additionally you posit that workers increased their own productivity and human capital when that increase in productivity correlates with the aftermath of an increase in mechanisation and structural unemployment in the 80s within the secondary sector. It seems tenuous to suggest that therefore this productivity is the result of labour when it seems to be more the result of capital.