Capitalism: the cause of and solution to all life's problems

[MacAnDàil]

How about first world workers? In Europe these vote right-wing or don't vote at all. I understand very well those who don't vote at all; I understand once upon a time people could actually get excited about candidates or parties, now it's really a tedious chore of figuring out which of the assholes on offer is going to do the least damage.

It is certainly true that, the last French presidential election, Le Pen got far more votes from workers than Mélenchon did, in contrast to the unemployed. But the same can not necessarily be seen across the board: workers still voted more for Corbyn than they did for Johnson in the UK for example.

[Ares Land]

An interesting paper I found on that topic: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02299019/document
There's an interesting table on the sociology of votes at the end; it's interesting that Great Britain and Sweden keep a pretty strong correlation between left-wing vote and being working-class.

Too bad they don't include those who don't vote!

Corbyn seemed a bit more convincing and less divisive than Mélenchon, but I don't know if that opinion's really justified.

[MacAnDàil]

AFAICT Corbyn is calmer, but less decisive. The main problem with Corbyn is that he would have decided opposite on some aspects of the program: he's an anti-nuclear eurosceptic, but ran on a nuclear renewal programme with a second referendum.

[rotting bones]

Regarding the idea that payment by average man hours encourages half-assery: The way I see it, doing your job as fast as possible and then goofing off is an incentive built into the human brain. I'm relying on Breadtreon's functionality of adding and removing jobs from individual producers to disincentivize it. On Breadtreon, you can either vote for "new bean farmers", in which case the job will go to new applicants, or one of the existing bean farmers, establishing competition between them. (Edit: It may not have been clear that each of these "farmers" is a co-op, not a worker.)

All economic systems generate perverse incentives. Which ones you allow should depend on which categories of crooks you think your administrative system is better equipped to handle. For example, there are several methods to discipline workers by administrative means. In contrast, I have never seen an administrative proposal that is even remotely capable of addressing the problems of capitalist demand creation. Also note that unlike the Soviet system, the whole point of my proposal is to avoid pushing workers to their limits to produce 10^n tons of steel, etc. Why run the risk of being fired (or in extreme cases, sued) for doing a crappy job?

Honestly, I'm more worried about combinations like A voting for B's shitty products and B returning the favor. I'm relying on questionable market logic (e.g. larger networks like these will be more fragile) to full-blown courts to keep these combinations in check. In the end, whether my proposal can work must be established experimentally.

Regarding the argument that unregulated capitalism enriches the poor: By "problem", I meant a decisive problem. Yes, working together makes everyone richer in the long run except, eg, on downturns of a capitalist business cycle. On that subject, compare previous discussions on the effects of inequality. Could you elaborate on what point you think I'm not getting?

Regarding the idea that some jobs should pay more: Are the effects of inequality worth it because certain kinds of personalities are preferable over others?

Regarding mèþru: I didn't think it would be a big deal because I was only reminding him of things he previously said on the ZBB. In hindsight, I should have been more circumspect, and I'm sorry I said that. However, I don't think it was an actual Ad Hominem fallacy. IIRC:

Ad Hominem fallacy: X believes Y. Unrelatedly, X is Z. Being Z is bad. Therefore, Y is wrong.

Tu Quoque fallacy: X opposes Y. Concurrently, Y applies to X. Therefore, (edit: opposing) Y is wrong.

What I said: X opposes Y by strategy Z. This enables Y to oppose X by strategy Z. Therefore, X should not oppose Y by strategy Z.

Maybe it was a Slippery Slope fallacy?

Also, this post is kind of half-assed. I'd appreciate being reminded of important points I glossed over, if any.

[zompist]

Regarding the idea that payment by average man hours encourages half-assery: The way I see it, doing your job as fast as possible and then goofing off is an incentive built into the human brain.

This is an unsolved problem in socialist economics, so I wouldn't expect any of us to solve it. One joke about the Soviet system was "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us." People respond very well to the incentive of "work harder and you'll be more comfortable." Anything from a co-op apartment to a commune to a state doesn't respond well to appeals to work hard with no incentives.

Now, Wilde's socialism answered the question idealistically but honestly: no one should be coerced to work, and machines should do any onerous work. This was somewhat absurd when he was writing, but it's realistic and even desirable now, or in the near future.

Personally, I think it's still fair if a worker (or a co-op) does more or better work, they get more rewards, provided that a) basic needs are met, and b) inequality is kept within strict limits. What those are is probably hard to get consensus on. But if the maximum reward is (say) 3x the basic income, that would be far fairer and more tolerable than almost any known system. (By comparison it was about 25x in mid-20C Japan, and 500x or more today in the US.) But it would be enough that there is an incentive to do work and to increase productivity.

All economic systems generate perverse incentives. Which ones you allow should depend on which categories of crooks you think your administrative system is better equipped to handle.

That's a good point, and one that could be expanded into an interesting set of heuristics.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Regarding the idea that payment by average man hours encourages half-assery: The way I see it, doing your job as fast as possible and then goofing off is an incentive built into the human brain.

This is an unsolved problem in socialist economics, so I wouldn't expect any of us to solve it. One joke about the Soviet system was "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us." People respond very well to the incentive of "work harder and you'll be more comfortable."

Actually, having worked mundane jobs (and this is more qualitative than quantitative, I know), but I and most other people try to strike that same balance — trying to be just useful enough we're inconvenient to replace, but not working nearly as hard as we *could*. Such will incentivise some to work harder, but I think the average person is "lazy" in this regard (really, striving more for balance than for optimal productivity, rather than being actually lazy in the sense a worcoholic, or somebody who wants worcoholic employees to be motivated to work hard for little reward, might define laziness)

Personally, I think it's still fair if a worker (or a co-op) does more or better work, they get more rewards, provided that a) basic needs are met, and b) inequality is kept within strict limits. What those are is probably hard to get consensus on. But if the maximum reward is (say) 3x the basic income, that would be far fairer and more tolerable than almost any known system.

Things like this do, I would agree, seem to be the best humans have been able to implement in reality.

All economic systems generate perverse incentives. Which ones you allow should depend on which categories of crooks you think your administrative system is better equipped to handle.

That's a good point, and one that could be expanded into an interesting set of heuristics.

It is, though I haven't much of anything to add to it other than that, yes, the most easily and severely punished taking of perverse incentives are probably also the most admissible. What those are is also certainly a matter of discussion.

[communistplot]

Regarding the idea that payment by average man hours encourages half-assery: The way I see it, doing your job as fast as possible and then goofing off is an incentive built into the human brain.

This is an unsolved problem in socialist economics, so I wouldn't expect any of us to solve it. One joke about the Soviet system was "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us." People respond very well to the incentive of "work harder and you'll be more comfortable." Anything from a co-op apartment to a commune to a state doesn't respond well to appeals to work hard with no incentives.

Why do people edit wikipedia? Or volunteer? Why6 do people make art? I doubt we'd see the mass abandonment of work. Certain kinds of work, unnecessary work, but people love working. The USSR also wasn't socialist since socialism, by necessity of being a classless, stateless society, cannot exist within a state

Now, Wilde's socialism answered the question idealistically but honestly: no one should be coerced to work, and machines should do any onerous work. This was somewhat absurd when he was writing, but it's realistic and even desirable now, or in the near future.

This is the answer right here. Most people will continue to work because of the natural human inclination to work to better ourselves and society. And anything dangerous or unsavory can be offloaded to machines and computers.

A lot of objections to communism/socialism, in my experience, are from people who are so entrenched within the capitalist system that they can imagine no alternative, so when it's mentioned they think of capitalism (and all its pitfalls) but we share now. A socialist society will be as radically different to us as capitalist society was to those who'd lived their entire lives under feudalism. So we can't assume the same societal pressures are at play.

[Ares Land]

I started writing a response to the posts above and then I though, how about some alternate proposals instead?

Some of these are stolen from Piketty, some seemed dead obvious.

- Public health care.
- A high marginal tax rate on both capital and income. This is explicitly not intended to finance the state, but to force wealth redistribution. Strong penalities for tax evasion.
- The creation of public sector jobs with accompanying training as needed.
- I'm still divided on universal basic income but mostly in favor. The key advantage of this measure is, I think, that it sidesteps the issue of who deserves help or not.
- What I'm sure of is that we need an universal capital grant. Capital will necessarily outperform labor in the long run. How about periodically redistributing it, then? I think what capital you own should not be tied to your workplace; ideally, in fact, it should be unrelated to it.
- A whole scale restructuring of public education, with the understanding that higher education should be an actual possibility for all that desire it.
- A stakeholding model where public authorities and employees have an actual role in enterprise leadership.
- Health assurance should be public and not handed to private agents; higher education should not be handled by the public sector.

I would suggest (if at all politically convenient): constitutional reforms. Redistribution and high tax rates have been rejected on constitutional grounds before. That bit is Piketty's.

And if we have a mandate to fiddle with our respective constitutions, how about fiddling with them some more?
That idea is, by the way, entirely my own so I should be sole responsible if it sounds wacky. (To be entirely honest, this is distantly influenced by zompist's proposal of seperate votes on the budget.)

To the three branches of government, how about adding some more? I'd suggest the following:
- Public Investment, also in charge of controlling shares in private companies.
- Health Care. For, you know, Health Care.
- Environment. In charge of environmental regulations.
- Education. Think of an american School Board on a national/state level, and importantly covering education as well.

We could decline these on whichever federal / local leve you'd so wish.

These would be independent, with their own budget, their own taxes (within some limits, I suppose) and with their leadership elected democratically but independantly from the executive and the legislature.
Why would I do that?
1) Our system was designed at a time when governments didn't, frankly do much. One consequence we're living with is that we're mixing entirely unrelated issues under two large packages called 'Left' and 'Right'. But frankly, there's no reason that people who trust conservatives more on, say, national security necessarily agree with them on the environment or health care.
2) Accountability. The minister for the Environment (in France) is accountable to the president (who himself will largely be held accountable on other topics...). Same with the US Administrator of the EPA, who I think has to please the President as well. This generally means they have an incentive not to do much. The president of the Environment Council (or however we call the head of that government branch) will be accountable to the voters, and the strategy of doing nothing for four year isn't great for reelection. Generally, besides, conservatives have nothing to say on the environment (except saying they're in favor of it): having to face a popular vote on the specific subject would be a powerful incentive for them to come up with something.
3) Damage control. You'd still get a Trump from time to time, but at least he won't get to touch public health. Maybe the executive increased the national debt, but it can't touch education funds.
4) Constitutional protection. The head of state/environment might get annoyed at the Council of Education or the Council of Education, but he won't be able to control or eliminate these without constitutional reform.

I would suggest that this is not an all or nothing proposition. We could start out with part of these reforms (slightly higher taxes, some government jobs, a few seats for employee representatives or an equal share) or implement the full thing, complete with constitutional reform depending on what the political situation allows.

[Ares Land]

This is the answer right here. Most people will continue to work because of the natural human inclination to work to better ourselves and society. And anything dangerous or unsavory can be offloaded to machines and computers.

This is basically ignoring the problem of free riders. Like you, I believe most human beings aren't free riders.. But there would be enough of these to lower living standards for all, I'm afraid.

Plus, there's also the question of what kind of work is necessary now?
I'm lucky in that I like doing my day job, but honestly I'd rather spend the day writing and conlanging instead. In both case, I'm working, but as it happens people are very much in need of my IT skills, but not that interested in my upcoming science-fiction epic, or imaginary languages spoken on other planets. In Utopia, how do I choose between these?

Besides, I can think of quite a few jobs that can't be offloaded to machines: plumbing, warehouse work, caring for the elderly.

There are, besides, a lot of jobs that in my opinion cannot be offloaded to a machine: teaching, caring for small children, medicine,...
These are jobs people tend to like, mind, but they are certainly onerous. Considering teachers, for instance, I'm entirely confident in saying that while high school teachers love their jobs, they'd often prefer to do something else than teach ungrateful teenagers.
Shouldn't they get some compensation for their effort?
For that matter, why wouldn't it be fair for a very good teacher to get extra compensation for their outstanding work.

Human beings don't respond well to unfairness. Even potlatch societies, which are about as far removed from capitalism as it gets, have a means of rewarding extra effort. (Or, you know, discourage it, which in some cases is desirable!)

A lot of objections to communism/socialism, in my experience, are from people who are so entrenched within the capitalist system that they can imagine no alternative, so when it's mentioned they think of capitalism (and all its pitfalls) but we share now. A socialist society will be as radically different to us as capitalist society was to those who'd lived their entire lives under feudalism. So we can't assume the same societal pressures are at play.

Sure, but I, like most people, would very much prefer to know what I'm getting into before embarking on a violent revolution.
With little things, like:
- When we say, 'workers own the means of production', who exactly counts as a 'worker'? Same question when we speak of dictatorship of the proletariat, who exactly is the proletariat and how will they exactly enforce their rulings?
- What is the exact plan from going there from here? That is, once we got rid of the market, what replaces its functions and how does it work?
- What happens exactly when a toilet gets clogged on a weekend under Fully Automated Gay Space Communism? If you think we can build a robot to handle that now, there's that bridge I can sell you you might be interested in...

And, I'm sorry to repeat this again, why did the proletarian uprising turn out as it did in the Soviet Union and how do you guarantee your scheme won't end in the same way?
(There's really a twin fallacy at play: of course in politics right now any attempt at adressing inequality is treated as a slippery slope leading directly to the Gulag. But the other side of that fallacy is that you can't exactly pretend 70 years of failed communist experiments never happened either.)

[communistplot]

This is basically ignoring the problem of free riders. Like you, I believe most human beings aren't free riders.. But there would be enough of these to lower living standards for all, I'm afraid.

Freeloaders are currently a problem under capitalism, and there's no incentive to not work since not working = starvation for the vast majority. I'd rather a society in which everyone is free to not work and not a society where one is compelled to make someone else rich to survive. Besides, it isn't belief that shapes my view but the facts as laid out by decades of social science work.

Plus, there's also the question of what kind of work is necessary now?
I'm lucky in that I like doing my day job, but honestly I'd rather spend the day writing and conlanging instead. In both case, I'm working, but as it happens people are very much in need of my IT skills, but not that interested in my upcoming science-fiction epic, or imaginary languages spoken on other planets. In Utopia, how do I choose between these?

Besides, I can think of quite a few jobs that can't be offloaded to machines: plumbing, warehouse work, caring for the elderly.

That's your prerogative. As for those others, we all know that one nerd really into toilets (I kid, maybe). There are people who want to do these jobs but can't do to economic circumstance, instead I think lots of caring work would increase. Especially as the societal ideology shifts from one based in a parasitic individualism.

There are, besides, a lot of jobs that in my opinion cannot be offloaded to a machine: teaching, caring for small children, medicine,...
These are jobs people tend to like, mind, but they are certainly onerous. Considering teachers, for instance, I'm entirely confident in saying that while high school teachers love their jobs, they'd often prefer to do something else than teach ungrateful teenagers.
Shouldn't they get some compensation for their effort?
For that matter, why wouldn't it be fair for a very good teacher to get extra compensation for their outstanding work.

Okay, so this is operating under the assumption that this is how it works under capitalism. It doesn't. Having worked in food service in both staff and management positions I can tell you and lots of others can tell you that that isn't how it works. Also teachers do often get extra compensation from grateful parents and coworkers. Can't see why that wouldn't be the same here, especially since the school will be owned by everyone involved in it.

Human beings don't respond well to unfairness. Even potlatch societies, which are about as far removed from capitalism as it gets, have a means of rewarding extra effort. (Or, you know, discourage it, which in some cases is desirable!)

Yes, hence the rise of socialism against capitalism. History shows us moving from societies with many classes to now only having two, why not just abolish class completely?

Sure, but I, like most people, would very much prefer to know what I'm getting into before embarking on a violent revolution.
With little things, like:
- When we say, 'workers own the means of production', who exactly counts as a 'worker'? Same question when we speak of dictatorship of the proletariat, who exactly is the proletariat and how will they exactly enforce their rulings?

For the first, since in a communist society there is no class stratification, everyone. As for the second, that comes from a fundamental misunderstanding, or deliberate obfuscation, of the fact that when Marx originally wrote (and was translated) dictatorship didn't have the pejorative meaning it largely does now. Dictatorship, in the Marxist conception (as would have been common at the time), simply means 'rule', we currently live under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie/capitalists, as they are the ruling class. Feudalism could also be called the dictorship of the aristocracy, to extend the analogy. Likewise while all nations, currently, are dictatorships of the bourgeoisie (in that sense) not all of them are dictatorships (in the modern sense).

- What is the exact plan from going there from here? That is, once we got rid of the market, what replaces its functions and how does it work?

You should see Cuba's democratic system, highly responsive. The economy should largely be organized like that, with people electing representatives to local councils/unions/co-ops from amongst themselves, they control production at the local level, responding to the needs and concerns of everyone within an area. These would then elect a delegation amongst themselves to serve production on a larger area. These organizations could freely associate as needed as a sort of federal entity. Of course, there are as many ideas out there as there are splits in the party :p, and I don't claim to predict the future.

- What happens exactly when a toilet gets clogged on a weekend under Fully Automated Gay Space Communism? If you think we can build a robot to handle that now, there's that bridge I can sell you you might be interested in...

again, there's always that one friend who loves toilets.

And, I'm sorry to repeat this again, why did the proletarian uprising turn out as it did in the Soviet Union and how do you guarantee your scheme won't end in the same way?

They hadn't yet reached the material conditions + two destructive wars back to back + having to have an arms race with the most powerful country in the world. And still managed to be the world's no 2 economy. Ask yourself, if communism is doomed to fail on its own why the capitalist nations attack them so hard? Could just leave them be if that were the case.

[Moose-tache]

The essence of the free rider problem is that if the necessities of survival come from labor, then you need to require labor in exchange for necessities, or else society's net flow of necessities will become negative. But the whole problem of late stage Capitalism is that labor is essentially valueless because it is no longer used to create most of our necessities. In other words, the more broken Capitalism becomes, the more its own demise renders the free rider problem irrelevant. Once "the economy" is another name for the robot that spits out food and clothing like a reverse Kardashian, who cares what percentage of the population chooses to sit around and watch TV?

But of course few of them will. It turns out people have lots of reasons for making things (I doubt all those people on Wattpad are investing in a future literary career). A few free riders has not yet broken a single economic system, and there's no reason to assume that removing the threat of legally enforced starvation is likely to take away our reasons for creating.

[communistplot]

The essence of the free rider problem is that if the necessities of survival come from labor, then you need to require labor in exchange for necessities, or else society's net flow of necessities will become negative. But the whole problem of late stage Capitalism is that labor is essentially valueless because it is no longer used to create most of our necessities. In other words, the more broken Capitalism becomes, the more its own demise renders the free rider problem irrelevant. Once "the economy" is another name for the robot that spits out food and clothing like a reverse Kardashian, who cares what percentage of the population chooses to sit around and watch TV?

But of course few of them will. It turns out people have lots of reasons for making things (I doubt all those people on Wattpad are investing in a future literary career). A few free riders has not yet broken a single economic system, and there's no reason to assume that removing the threat of legally enforced starvation is likely to take away our reasons for creating.

You def put it way more succinctly than I was able to. 100% this tho.

[Travis B.]

The USSR also wasn't socialist since socialism, by necessity of being a classless, stateless society, cannot exist within a state

I would disagree that socialism is necessarily stateless; rather, socialism is worker ownership and self-management of capital, whether in individual co-ops or collectively across society, which may or may not be stateless (e.g. anarchism is supposedly stateless (even though I would argue otherwise), while democratic socialism is not). One thing to be careful about is not trying to define big-C Communism out of the discussion, as it is still a good example of what not to do.

A lot of objections to communism/socialism, in my experience, are from people who are so entrenched within the capitalist system that they can imagine no alternative, so when it's mentioned they think of capitalism (and all its pitfalls) but we share now. A socialist society will be as radically different to us as capitalist society was to those who'd lived their entire lives under feudalism. So we can't assume the same societal pressures are at play.

The thing is how do you convince someone to throw their lot in with a system that they cannot imagine how it would work? In this regard market socialism has the advantage that it is not hard to imagine how it would work and why it would be better than the status quo.

[rotting bones]

Regarding free riders: I think the free rider problem is more subtle under mechanized production. I support maximum mechanization. Under this regime, workers still need to design, install, repair and operate these robots. At the same time, the goods produced have to be distributed fairly. This means we must produce jobs, but we must produce more jobs than a free market demands. Hence Breadtreon.

Regarding maximum payment: Ignoring free riders, my unsourced estimate is that a human being can be 3 to a maximum of around 15 times more productive than another. I really don't want to NOT remunerate someone for work they have actually done unless absolutely necessary. At the very least, I would require democratic legitimacy behind a decision like that. OTOH, I don't believe that overpaid people are really 500 times more productive for the same reasons I don't believe you can refine your qi and turn yourself into an immortal.

Regarding constitutional reform: As long as a capitalist system is in place, each voter is disincentivized to vote for socialism, and so on.

[Ares Land]

This is basically ignoring the problem of free riders. Like you, I believe most human beings aren't free riders.. But there would be enough of these to lower living standards for all, I'm afraid.

Freeloaders are currently a problem under capitalism, and there's no incentive to not work since not working = starvation for the vast majority. I'd rather a society in which everyone is free to not work and not a society where one is compelled to make someone else rich to survive. Besides, it isn't belief that shapes my view but the facts as laid out by decades of social science work.

I don't know, do you have any data on the free rider problem and how it wouldn't be a problem?

That said, I have no problem with people being free not to work! I mean, circumstances permitting (but honestly I think they do these days). I just think, not unreasonably, that all other things being equal, people who do work should get more.

I do think the free rider problem would get worse. If everyone gets the same, whether they work or not or regardless of how much or how well they work, inevitably people will feel they're being taken advantage of, and react appropriately.

That's your prerogative. As for those others, we all know that one nerd really into toilets (I kid, maybe). There are people who want to do these jobs but can't do to economic circumstance, instead I think lots of caring work would increase. Especially as the societal ideology shifts from one based in a parasitic individualism.

My prerogative, maybe, but my prerogative doesn't align with what people in general need. Which means if everyone essentially reasons as I do, standards of living go way down.
As for the plumbers, can you honestly come up with someone willing to go fix stranger's toilets for no extra compensation?
I mean, even when you know a guy to fix the plumbing, the done thing is to invite him/her for dinner or something.

Okay, so this is operating under the assumption that this is how it works under capitalism. It doesn't. Having worked in food service in both staff and management positions I can tell you and lots of others can tell you that that isn't how it works. Also teachers do often get extra compensation from grateful parents and coworkers. Can't see why that wouldn't be the same here, especially since the school will be owned by everyone involved in it.

This is essentially recognizing that finally, teachers would get paid more than people who don't work, and good teachers more than bad ones?

Yes, hence the rise of socialism against capitalism. History shows us moving from societies with many classes to now only having two, why not just abolish class completely?

Sure, OK, then how do we do that?

Sure, but I, like most people, would very much prefer to know what I'm getting into before embarking on a violent revolution.
With little things, like:
- When we say, 'workers own the means of production', who exactly counts as a 'worker'? Same question when we speak of dictatorship of the proletariat, who exactly is the proletariat and how will they exactly enforce their rulings?

Okay, this sentences were still said, so 'workers' obviously mean something; same with 'proletariat' and with 'bourgeois'.
I think it would be a good sanity check to make sure 'bourgeois' doesn't mean 'political opponent' or 'workers' doesn't exclude marginally richer farmers or hated minorities.

You should see Cuba's democratic system, highly responsive. The economy should largely be organized like that, with people electing representatives to local councils/unions/co-ops from amongst themselves, they control production at the local level, responding to the needs and concerns of everyone within an area.

This is a country that has been run by the same guy since 1959, succeeded by his brother.
A quick glance through this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba is enlightening too.

So you know, I think I'll give that 'democratic system' a pass, thanks.

- What happens exactly when a toilet gets clogged on a weekend under Fully Automated Gay Space Communism? If you think we can build a robot to handle that now, there's that bridge I can sell you you might be interested in...

again, there's always that one friend who loves toilets.

I reiterate, I don't know anyone who loves wading in other people's shit for free. And to be honest, what's wrong with the standard arrangement of calling a plumber and then paying him a fair amount for his trouble?

And, I'm sorry to repeat this again, why did the proletarian uprising turn out as it did in the Soviet Union and how do you guarantee your scheme won't end in the same way?

They hadn't yet reached the material conditions + two destructive wars back to back + having to have an arms race with the most powerful country in the world. And still managed to be the world's no 2 economy. Ask yourself, if communism is doomed to fail on its own why the capitalist nations attack them so hard? Could just leave them be if that were the case.

I'm more than willing to grant the Soviets the benefits of the doubts on many things, but how do any of these explain forced labor camps for political prisoners, sentencing small business owners to prison for the crime of being small business owners, deliberately starving the Ukraine, establishing a one party state with party members as a privileged class, personality cults?
As for your second question, the answer is pretty simple: most everyone was convinced, or at least deathly afraid that the Soviet Union would succeed.

The Soviet Union wasn't just an economic failure; it was a moral one. The tragedy isn't really that it fell (for all the good that did); it was the Stalinian totalitarianism.
For that matter, so is Cuba. I get that the economic difficulties are due to an embargo, and all that. What I don't see is why, if communism is so great, it works as a one-party state with no dissenting voices allowed.

The essence of the free rider problem is that if the necessities of survival come from labor, then you need to require labor in exchange for necessities, or else society's net flow of necessities will become negative. But the whole problem of late stage Capitalism is that labor is essentially valueless because it is no longer used to create most of our necessities.

That needs to be proven, because I'm frankly not convinced. Can you eat without farmers (these still exist!), truck drivers, warehouse workers, retail employees? For that matter, can you do without doctors or nurses? Not to mention the people doing road maintenance, construction workers, everyone involved in maintening houses and buildings? Health and safety inspectors? Factories to produce these trucks? The mechanics who check and fix them? Everyone involved in paying all these folks? Courtrooms?

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of bullshit jobs and inefficiencies under the current system, but we are very very far from having a magic machine that magically sprouts out everything we need.

Now, we do have a lot of leeway with respect to how long we work, work hours, vacation and leisure time. But eliminating work altogether? That's probably not possible.

In other words, the more broken Capitalism becomes, the more its own demise renders the free rider problem irrelevant. Once "the economy" is another name for the robot that spits out food and clothing like a reverse Kardashian, who cares what percentage of the population chooses to sit around and watch TV?

I can't disagree with that, but the problem is, there is no such robot right now. So, let's try again in a century?

But of course few of them will. It turns out people have lots of reasons for making things (I doubt all those people on Wattpad are investing in a future literary career). A few free riders has not yet broken a single economic system, and there's no reason to assume that removing the threat of legally enforced starvation is likely to take away our reasons for creating.

Sure, and frankly I'm all in favor of paying people a basic income (or distributing capital grants, which IMO would be better!) on a no-questions-asked basis. What I oppose is the idea that somehow:
- People should be paid the same regardless of whether they work or not.
- All workers should be paid on an identical, hours worked basis.

On practical grounds, it won't work. On moral grounds, having people give a lot without getting anything in return is unfair.

[Travis B.]

I am personally not one to believe that robots will replace humans for everything, or even most things. Even if they do, who programs and maintains the robots? Ultimately it has to be people.

About free riders, I am all for people having a basic income so they do not starve or become homeless if they cannot work or the places they work are not profitable at a given time, but people getting a share of the profits of the co-ops in which they work if they do work (the proportion of which is determined democratically by the co-op members; they can be split equally, or the workers can decide some some roles get a larger portion if they are harder or involve greater risk or like).

About socialism and class, it should be remembered that most "socialist" societies that have existed so far have indeed had two classes, the workers and the party members.

To me "worker ownership if the means of production" mean just that - workers own an equal share of the workplaces where they work and that they have a vote in the operation of said workplaces.

As mentioned, no, Cuba is not democratic by any means at all, and the Soviet Union was a totalitarian nightmare.

[Ares Land]

One reason why co-ops might be less than ideal (example, again, from Piketty):

Say you want to open a restaurant, and invest, I don't know, $20,000 from your savings in it.
If you hire two other people, under the coop system, they automatically outvote you -- even though you got all of your savings in the business, while they might actually intending to switch jobs in a year or two.

Part of the problem is that criticism of capitalism tends to focus on large megacorps, while ignoring what I'd call small scale capitalism.

That being said, it could be a problem even with larger co-ops. For instance, who provides investments under an ideal ? Might be other co-ops, might be again, people's savings, either directly or through a fund; in which case it seems logical that they would get some kind of say in what happens to their savings next.

[Travis B.]

One reason why co-ops might be less than ideal (example, again, from Piketty):

Say you want to open a restaurant, and invest, I don't know, $20,000 from your savings in it.
If you hire two other people, under the coop system, they automatically outvote you -- even though you got all of your savings in the business, while they might actually intending to switch jobs in a year or two.

Part of the problem is that criticism of capitalism tends to focus on large megacorps, while ignoring what I'd call small scale capitalism.

That being said, it could be a problem even with larger co-ops. For instance, who provides investments under an ideal ? Might be other co-ops, might be again, people's savings, either directly or through a fund; in which case it seems logical that they would get some kind of say in what happens to their savings next.

How I picture it would be that the state would provide funding for co-ops, to encourage chosen sorts of economic activity, rather than co-ops being funded by individuals' personal savings.

Note that one thing that is done by co-ops in many cases is that workers have to buy into the co-op, by a certain percentage of their pay being set aside to pay for their share until they have fully paid for a share (and thus a vote). Of course, this has the downside that it creates two classes of workers, non-owner workers and worker-owners.

[Ares Land]

How I picture it would be that the state would provide funding for co-ops, to encourage chosen sorts of economic activity, rather than co-ops being funded by individuals' personal savings.

Note that one thing that is done by co-ops in many cases is that workers have to buy into the co-op, by a certain percentage of their pay being set aside to pay for their share until they have fully paid for a share (and thus a vote). Of course, this has the downside that it creates two classes of workers, non-owner workers and worker-owners.

I think there's a very real risk for the state to take some measure of control over the co-op.

The divide between workers is a real problem, I believe, unless non-owner workers are represented on the board in some way, which is a sort of stakeholder model.

[Travis B.]

How I picture it would be that the state would provide funding for co-ops, to encourage chosen sorts of economic activity, rather than co-ops being funded by individuals' personal savings.

Note that one thing that is done by co-ops in many cases is that workers have to buy into the co-op, by a certain percentage of their pay being set aside to pay for their share until they have fully paid for a share (and thus a vote). Of course, this has the downside that it creates two classes of workers, non-owner workers and worker-owners.

I think there's a very real risk for the state to take some measure of control over the co-op.

Yes, it does present a potential path to state capitalism, just as private investment in co-ops is a potential path to private capitalism.

The divide between workers is a real problem, I believe, unless non-owner workers are represented on the board in some way, which is a sort of stakeholder model.

I agree that the best way to resolve this is through some sort of stakeholder model, in which non-owner workers are still represented in some fashion, or a model in which non-owner workers still get a certain percentage of a vote.