this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
961 points (94.5% liked)
Lefty Memes
4355 readers
461 users here now
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Socialism probably won't be moneyless. Communism is moneyless but that's a long ways away and there are no shortcuts. In any case, the value form is a nightmare, and has to be overcome. Ever heard of alienation, like from a Marxist perspective? The idea is that the extrinsic social relation we call "value," has become so internalized that we can't tell the difference between ourselves and commodities. On some level, we are always comparing things to other things, a new vacuum cleaner holds more value than a used pencil for an extreme example. Everything is reduced to what it is worth money-wise, which is a development that is unique to capitalism. And we even do it to ourselves and each other, comparing ourselves based on how much money we make, or how much cool stuff we have. So much so that Marx simplified this whole complex social clusterfuck called alienation as, "material relations between people, social relations between things." And this is all tied to the value form, which is not a social necessity, but under our current system it is. Capitalism steals our humanity and turns it into value which is a measurement taken in dollars. And I don't know about you, but I'm not too keen on having my time, labor and humanity robbed from me, but more importantly I'll never get it back unless we take it back, all of the workers together demanding only what we already own, and what was taken from us.
Username does not check out
The very concept of money has changed a lot for the past 200 years. In Marx's time, the dominating view of money was that of a trading good like any other. Economists wrongly believed that money had appeared through barter, that primitive economies were barter economies, and that money, originally as fragments of precious metals, appeared from its convenience of being small and relatively weightless, easy to divide, long-lasting and impervious to rotting, etc. properties. Nowadays we understand that money appeared as a quantifier of debt, in centralized economies where one central authority would request goods and services to be provided by the subjects of that authority. These debt-notes would eventually turn into money.
Many modern economists understand money not as yet another commodity, but as a debt-measuring utility. Money would be, in short, a quantification of the right to request something from society. "Moneyless" society was understood at a time where money was poorly understood. For example, if you fix the prices of most goods and services, or even provide them at no cost, then what's the point of money? Many people argue that the Rouble in the late USSR (70s onward) wasn't really a currency at all. If money stops being a good indicator of the amount of goods and services that you can obtain, is it really money anymore?
This just goes to say that Marxism is open to discussion, and that everything should be analyzed with the most current and applicable knowledge, and be subjected to the harshest scrutiny. You're very welcome to discuss the implications of a moneyless society, I just suggest that you do it in a more well-versed and less authoritative way than you did in your last comment.
That's simply because I'm not particularly well-versed into the advantages or disadvantages of moneyless societies, and I'm not particularly for or against them, if anything I'm im favour of the existence of a centralized currency as we have now. My point was only that discussion is l best done when nuanced and interested, and not "but avocado". My point was also that Marxist terms are to be discussed and revised at all times, and maybe you're right and moneyless societies aren't the best alternative given our modern knowledge of money.
Regarding the second half of your paragraph, my problems with IOUs are a bit different. The problem with non-centralized, promise-based forms of money, is that they're very prone to being violated, and that barter is a very inefficient form of exchange of goods and services. I'm not well-versed in the concept of a moneyless economy, but I'm a bit more well-versed in the nature of money. For example, money's worth doesn't come from "everyone agreeing that it's worth something for some reason". It comes from taxation. A central authority, in this case the state, imposes compulsory taxes using the monopoly of violence, in a given currency. The fact that people will have to pay their taxes in that particular currency, means that they need to obtain that currency in the first place to pay said taxes. This makes people more likely to engage in economic activity with that currency, since it's suddenly very useful for everyone in order to pay their compulsory taxes. Taxes are also very useful as a redistribution mechanism. All in all, a central currency whose monetary policy is decided collectively by the workers in a democratic fashion, can be argued to be a useful thing for a democratic communist society. I'm sure there are arguments against this but I'm not very well versed in the critique as I said.
Conclusion: question everything, but let's do it in a serious way to improve our knowledge and to possibly envision better societies.
Are you familiar with the bartering system? Rather than money, you would judge the value of the object by how much you needed it. If you really wanted the avocados, you would ask the person who had avocados what they would trade. If you didn't have what they wanted, you can bargain or try someone else who has avocados who wants what you currently have.
Basically, a money less society goes back to a very simplified society. You won't be able to get everything you want and will have to, sometimes, settle for what you currently have. It also gives you the ability to trade your skills.
So, you go back to the avocado trader and tell them that you'll build an avocado shed for them in exchange for a crate of avocados. You both negotiate, exchange and then move on.
It's more work because you have seized the means of production by making things yourself in order to trade, rather than off shoring to someone else who is likely not getting paid at all. This is why the wealthy absolutely don't want this system because it's more work for them, while in the lower class it'll give more control back. When balancing, there will always be people who lose and people who gain.
Hey so the barter system never really existed, not in any real way. There were absolutely communal living pockets, like peasant villages in Russia, but barter would not work as a basis for a socialist society. You seem to have some interest in this stuff, so I think you should read Marx and Engels, and work your way through some of their economic stuff till you can work through Capital. Its a fucking fantastic book, but its pretty difficult, especially solo. Lots of great resources out there though, like David Harvey's lectures and the Reading Capital With Comrades podcast. But start with Socialism: Utopian and Scientific which will prepare you for their analytical style, then read Wage Labor and Capital, or Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Sorry if you're already familiar with some of this work but I figured from reading your comment that this stuff might still be new to you.
It sucks we were taught about the barter system in school, but that's just some shit Adam Smith made up, he didn't have any historical or material basis for it. Yet they still teach it as part of the liberal illusions about capital and private property.