Libertarian Leftist Wants To Debate Market Socialism
Вставка
- Опубліковано 17 чер 2024
- Watch the Majority Report live Monday-Friday at 12 p.m. EST on UA-cam OR listen via daily podcast at www.Majority.FM
www.house.gov/representatives...
www.senate.gov/senators/senat...
#SamSeder #EmmaVigeland #MajorityReport #politics #news
Support the show by becoming a member: www.fans.fm/majority/join
Find out more about the Princeton hunger strikers & their demands here: / princetondivestnow
Help out the state of Utah by telling them what you see in public bathrooms here!: ut-sao-special-prod.web.app/s...
Check out this GoFundMe in support of Mohammed Nasrallah, whose family is trying to leave Gaza for Egypt: www.gofundme.com/f/help-moham...
Check out this GoFundMe in support of Mohammad Aldaghma’s niece in Gaza, who has Down Syndrome: www.gofundme.com/f/yyxhnf-hel...
Check out the “Repair Gaza” campaign courtesy of the Glia Project here: www.launchgood.com/campaign/r...
Check out StrikeAid here!; www.strikeaid.com/
Gift a Majority Report subscription here: www.fans.fm/majority/gift
Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: www.am-quickie.ghost.io/
Join the Majority Report Discord! www.majoritydiscord.com/
Get all your MR merch at our store: www.shop.majorityreportradio....
Get the free Majority Report App!: www.majority.fm/app
CHECK OUT MORE from the MR crew:
Matt Binder DOOMED / mattbinder
Brandon Sutton DISCOURSE / expandthediscourse
Emma Vigeland ESVN / esvnshow
Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING / leftreckoning
OTHER LINKS:
Twitch: / themajorityreport
Facebook: / majorityreport
Twitter: / majorityfm
Instagram: / majorityreport.fm
glad this guy called and made this point: the workers need control of their workplace not just nationalization and social programs.
That is the essence of socialism.
I'm in total agreement, a cooperative economy concentrates wealth and power in the community. The value of worker cooperatives is underestimated.
Expecting the state to pick up the slack is the exact opposite of socialism.
@Trainrhys It can be quite difficult to accomplish this, as our legal and financial systems are geared towards more common capitalist modalities. That's not to say it's not possible, but worker-owned coops face systemic barriers that are not present in the creation of a more traditionally structured business.
@Trainrhys Democracies seem to manage.
It seemed to have worked reasonably well in Yugoslavia. That was during a period when the US was helping to bankroll their government.
When "I'm not like those other libertarians" is actually a true statement and not splitting hairs over a right wing dystopia.
Me sitting here wishing he was like the other libertarians
Me realising this guy doesn’t sound like a total moron: “oh he’s a left libertarian not a rightwing lolbertarian”
We are the only logical type of libertarians.
Yup, like Kyle on Secular Talk.
@@TheDarwinProject1 I thought he was a social democrat?
Left libertarians represent!
Now this is my kind of libertarianism.
Libertarianism started as a left movement. Noam Chonsky called himself one for a long time.
This was my initial thought. The conversation was productive, and no matter how far left a person is, these conversations can only be beneficial to our causes.
the most normal libertarian caller to ever be on TMR
You are brainwashing yourself. Smart people are held in a Stockholm situation. They play coy to save argument pains. A word with two suffixes is stupid. Said by stupid people. A liberal is the person. Libertarian is a government. Or a person from that liberal government. Doubling down is only brainwashing yourself. A strawman fallacy.
Doubling down is only brainwashing yourself. A word with a double suffix is incorrect. Do not harass the smart people. This is called a Stockholm situation. Smart people will stay quiet to save argument pains. This is called playing coy.
Good substance happening here.
As a Libertarian-socialist, I really appreciated this call.
Ill bet you did.
State ownership for markets with inelastic demand. Every other company should be worker cooperatives.
why state ownership here? I assume you mean like basic food, and I don't see the reason to trust the state to handle that more than the particular workers
@@zuz-ve4ro decomodification is all I mean
@zuz-ve4ro you don't trust the current state to handle things. But we live in bourgeois state not a workers state
This is the way. Centralization makes sense for essential goods and services, in which the perverse incentives inherent to profit cause the most harm. For everything else, there's worker coops.
@@logancatron2239 idk, all the workers state we've seen decayed back to some sort of workplace dictatorships, but with bureaucrats replacing "entrepreneurs". I don't trust any state with power.
We need more libertarian leftists . Cause rn we got a whole lot of the other guys.
Fucking tankies yeah
I love libertarian socialism
Sam's audience sees libertarian and goes into a blood frenzy. The gap between a left libertarian and a conservative libertarian is as big as the gap between Sam and Ben Shapiro.
That is because Sam's audience has no clue what a libertarian leftists is.
Yeah, "Libertarian" was originally the term used by anarcho-communists and such - it wasn't until the word was coopted by american capitalists in the 50s that it got it's current meaning. That said, me and all my AnCom friends basically have abandoned the word cus it's pretty good and tainted by this point.
@@TheLokiBiz I agree, the word "libertarian" means something completely different to the US compared to the rest of the world. In the US, the conservatives took the party and never looked back; to the point where I'm willing to bet the vast majority of Americans in their Libertarian party are just Republicans that want weed to be legal.
That being said, it's refreshing to hear an actual libertarian, a leftist, talk to Sam.
@TheKrossRoads The suffix "ian" added to a word is a government and not the person. The three branches of government would be libertarian. There is a two-dimensional political spectrum out there. Where up and down is the "ian" and left and right is the person.
You say that, but in my experience both left and right libertarians fall in to the same potholes: Lack of oversight.
Sam talking to right liberterian: 😂😎
Sam talking to left liberterian: 🥰🤔
This was an interesting exchange for me as someone who more or less shares the caller's views. I am a libertarian socialist/anarchist. Where I'd like to see society go eventually is one where we don't really need the state and we have autonomous communities, and the workers controlling the means of production, and where the hiearchies are flattened, and we have more horizontality with regards to political power. Not likely to happen in my lifetime. A lot of minds would still need to be convinced and direct action done on this end to build these structures and relations outside the typical power structures. Despite these views of mine though, you'd never know it as I do engage in practical politics, voting and the like which many on my side don't like to do. I feel until we do have the upperhand we simply have to make use of the current system as best we can to get what little we can out of it.
Worker ownership is the best path in my mind. I believe once we have that would enable us to build democratic superstructures that can build a society that functuions on democratically negotiated contracts rather than capital.
So if I assault you since you believe in anarchy, thats fine.
It might be happen faster than you think. The internet is allowing people to be deprogrammed from Capitalist propaganda more and more.
YOU SHOULD GIVE IT MORE THOUGHT SAM
Caller is based
Caller is naive and exploitable is what he is, even if his intentions are good.
This kind of hyper-focus on a prescriptive outcome is what leads to, as Sam points out, someone charismatic stepping in and taking advantage of people's frustration when things don't work out exactly how they read it should in old dead guy's treatise from a hundred years ago. That's when you start to get progroms and camps and all that nonsense.
@@cosmicmegafauna that already happens during capitalism and it’s called fascism. Also, it’s funny you’re defending capitalism but claim to care about exploitation.
@@Imahardhardworkereveryday Where did I advocate capitalism? I literally JUST said that having strictly prescriptive thinking is what leads to fascism. That applies to people who believe the market will fix everything too...
Your inability or unwillingness to parse what I'm criticizing is itself emblematic of the exact mode of thinking I'm talking about. You've got this tunnel vision on The True Cure to all of societies ills, when the cause of societies ills is people themselves and always will be. You're dogmatic, and that's how you get exploited.
@@cosmicmegafauna what are you defending then?
@@cosmicmegafauna all politics are prescriptive statements, and yeah we have to have ideas on what fixes problems or society crumbles, your not saying anything of value
All essential services should be public owned, power, food, healthcare, police, prisons, education & public transportation i.e. city buses & trains.
Amen.
Dude, Jose just might be the smartest guest ever. Glad he called in, I love these kinds of conversations.
I actually like hearing more libertarian leftists.
Read about and watch video on anarchy. It is the only realistic way to bring on socialism. The means and ends are aligned so no to create state capitalism like the USSR and China. Anark on UA-cam is a good start.
You'll love anarchy then. It's is the only realistic way to bring on socialism, since the means and ends align, unlike the Marxist Leninists. The state is counter revolutionary promotes hierarchy and will be come the industrial monopoly just as USSR and the China. If you are interested Anark on UA-cam is a great place to start.
There was one a while ago who omitted the fact that he was a leftist, and just started to argue lib-left ideas with lib-right sounding language, slowly revealing himself and Sam catching on where it was going ;)
Sam: left is best
Also Sam: I'm agnostic on the economy and ownership of the means of production
He wants to nationalize utilities.
So... "left is best" + "I don't know what 'left' means at all."
@@CaptainSnackbeardPretty much!
Richard Wolff, arguably the most prominent American proponent for worker-coop based socialism, has been on the show, so I'm somewhat surprised Sam seems relatively unfamiliar with the idea. If memory serves me, the late great Michael Brooks was a huge fan of Wolff.
From the conversation, it definitely looks like Sam wasn't trying that hard to really understand the caller. That said, I do respect Sam's desire not to engage to directly with it because I think when you live in this political discourse and sometimes debate space you can experience some ideology fatigue. What I mean by that, is that a lot of people have ideas that they put neat labels on and that have a certain degree of assumptions that are bundled in with these ideologies. The problem with that though is that it quickly loses the practical aspect of it, and I think that as Sam's career progresses she's lost interest in these sorts of ideological solutions that do sort of require a snap of the fingers to implement in totality and instead would rather engage with the ideas that make up these ideologies, lose the labels, and talk more about how do we actually get to to these places.
That's how I interpret Sam's position in this call, and I personally feel this way. There's so many ideologies out there and they can be so drastically different from the reality we live in, and no matter how good they sound the truth is that real life is messy. Once we start shifting things step by step in a better direction we will undoubtedly discover new things about how the real world works that will completely change our view, so it seems prudent to push for the best ideas and then reevaluate, because pretty much any ideology, especially the ones that are very different from the real world, will have to be modified if they don't completely fall apart.
Sam, you really shouldn’t be agnostic on this one. Workers should own the means of production
Sam isn't agnostic on this issue. He's just pretending to be. At the end of the day he is a capitalist who is in favour of moderate reform.
I've been watching Sam for a long time now, and my biggest gripe is that he is far more pro-establishment than he claims. Michael Brooks was able to push back on him far more than Emma or Matt have been able to.
@@Acanthophis I think that’s what makes him agnostic on the issue-he’s not pro-capitalist, but he gets that the structure of capitalism is what we have and just throwing out that structure and replacing it with that of market socialism isn’t gonna just work automatically; people will have to choose to adhere to that structure, at least at first, which entails a hierarchy to enforce (bad) or a proletarian revolution, which is more complex than the caller seems to say (though he does come back and agree with Sam in the end)
@@andyghkfilm2287 That is a disingenuous argument though, because its framing relies on complete abandonment of the system in an instantaneous fashion, or the historically tried-and-tested failure of moderate reform.
Regardless, I believe Sam is a tad more to the right than he was back in 2016, and I think this is partially due to him trying to advocate for stability in the absence of justice, as opposed to justice in the absence of stability.
@@Acanthophis well, yes-it’s a false binary, and it’s more complex than that. But those are the terms the caller presented, I.e. “snap my fingers”, and the point Sam was making regarding that framing.
Also… do you think Sam’s advocacy for the campus protests, for example, or against Netanyahu’s crimes in Gaza, are “advocating for stability in the absence of justice as opposed to justice in the absence of stability”? I don’t know, I see kind of the opposite.
He's saying he's agnostic on the question of worker co-op vs. state ownership when it comes to non-necessities
I think the real benefit to state ownership over worker-owned is that necessities should not be tied to a profit motive. Worker-owned businesses are better for workers in theory, but they're still businesses. They want to make a profit, whereas a state-owned company can operate at a loss in the interest of the public good.
Think about food deserts. Sure, it would be better for workers if Wal-Mart were worker-owned, but there would still be no incentive to open an unprofitable store in an underserved location.
But if you don’t want anyone to work for a profit, would you want them to work for free? Are you making a case for slavery?
Sure, but not everything that is produced is a need. So you have state control of vital services, and then you have room for a cooperative market on luxury goods.
@@juniorgod321 Profit is the money retained after costs, including wages, so no.
That's true, but state ownership only eliminates the profit motive if the business doesn't charge for its services. So in a universal healthcare model, state owned hospitals have no profit motive because people just come in and get treated without giving the hospital money. But if the hospital did charge for service, there would suddenly be a profit incentive for the government to restrict expensive care, raise prices to get more funds, etc.
@@juniorgod321they didn't say NO ONE should work for a profit. They said that sometimes, in order to get people the things they need, profit motives would be a bad thing. Which is undeniable. And that's where state ownership of certain things comes in.
I get frustrated when political commentators talk about "wishful thinking." The idea seems to be that huge goals are hard to achieve, and therefore we ought to focus on incremental reforms. But at least in my experience, small reforms don't animate movements. They don't get people out on the streets, putting their bodies on the line and making meaningful sacrifices. It's the big ideas that do that. If your political vision is "let's get halfway to Norway" then I don't think you're going to motivate people to move an inch, and you end up interminably stuck in the status quo. But if your political vision is more radical and your dream is bigger, even if you don't get everything you want, you end up getting much more by generating a much larger movement. At least, that's how it seems to me.
Interesting conversation, though.
You need to keep both small and large goals in mind. The problem is that a lot of people who are focused on large goals ignore or hand wave the steps needed to get there or get upset that they can't achieve the large goals immediately. It is great to have a big world changing goal it is when you think it will be easy to achieve it that it starts to be a problem.
When people talk about wishful thinking they are saying you haven't put enough thought in what individual steps you will work on to achieve the end goal, not that the large goal is not something to strive for. Or at least those who have honest criticism rather then trying to dismiss the idea out of hand they mean that.
On the other hand you are also right focusing on the small incremental steps without an end goal usually means your movement will be highjacked before you know it.
I don't understand why Sam seems to be dodging the question by focusing the conversation on utility companies specifically. Caller is saying that workers should democratically control their workplace across the economy; that really wasn't addressed during this conversation.
There needs to be more discussions and advocacy around worker-owned cooperatives. They serve strategy to move away from economic centralization. Worker Coops are an effective and sustainable way to maintain community wealth and empower workers.
Cooperatives are incredibly based, especially if part of an active movement, like Fejuve is a good example of a larger network of worker-cooperatives, cooperative housing, neighborhood assemblies, mutual aid organizations etc.
Without that structure they're still cool, but often fall victim to some of capitalism's inherent issues.
I don’t like how this channel always tries to make libertarians and libertarianism seem dumb and wrong. Many Americans who self-describe as “libertarians” are really just Republicans or sometimes neo-Nazis. REAL libertarianism is a left-wing/socialist concept. I believe in socialism (worker co-ops, market socialism, etc.) wholeheartedly. I’m also disabled. I had a stroke when I was 12 and have a couple of other neurological disorders. I’ve had to fight the system my entire life, so excuse me if I don’t subscribe to the liberal/soc dem creed of “the government can fix anything.” They don’t care about us. They care about themselves and their donors. You guys admit that, and then turn around and expect them to solve all your problems. That makes no sense. I believe in providing social services and the decommodification of essential resources, but the government isn’t interested in providing those things, especially not OUR government. I read all the time and am very well-educated. I’m not stupid. Not every “libertarian” is a far-right lunatic complaining about seat belt laws. THOSE are stupid people. I am not.
Left libertarians are alright. The rest are usually just fascists though...
Governments can provide for people in need, but it’s up to us to make them do so.
With that being said, I’m personally of the opinion that people should own their own means of production.
Sure. And American conservatives aren't actually conservative. They're radical rightwingers avowedly bent on destruction, not incrementalists looking to preserve.
But that's an awful lot to say every time these labels come up.
What a great caller and a great conversation.
Comments give me hope
1 don't think you guys know what libertarianism is. The term was co-opted by capitalists in the gilded age. It was originally left wing thought. It basically just describes the concept of positive freedom. Where someone is the most free if they have tools next to them to accomplish their highest passions and interests.
So they do know what it is lol. It's a right wing ideology in America, which is what this show is focused on.
@@dougrattmann3554 that is not what right wingers are focused on😂 right wing conception means “government do nothing” I’m literally describing free health care and schooling in my original definition
@@Imahardhardworkereveryday right. We know what Libertarianism WAS, and we know what it IS now. It is not what you're saying it is, in America
@@dougrattmann3554 the academic conception still stands, people just aren’t firmiliar with it, we just need to use those basic arguments again for positive freedom, not take the bait on the right conception of liberty,
@@Imahardhardworkereveryday words and meanings change. Liberal can mean a million things. Libertarianism can be any number of things.. but today, anyone who calls themselves a libertarian will be lumped in with the people from the libertarian party and movement, a movement which is fiercely right wing free market capitalists.
Words change meaning, it’s just what it is. If you want to call yourself a libertarian and have to explain to everyone that they’re wrong about libertarianism…. Maybe find another label for yourself. Or none at all.
"You need this tension, because there is no way to function without it?" What da hell does that mean? Failure of imagination on Sam's part.
That 'tension' or 'dynamic' continues to exist in market socialism; you still have goods with prices and a sector-specific incentive to innovate that's more market -driven (for better or worse: in Sam's case it would be for better). It's just worker-managed and proceeds worker shared. As people elsewhere have said, market-socialism/co-ops for elastic demand items, then democratic management of public utilities (funded via taxes/nat insurance) for inelastic goods. You can also incorporate forms of selective 'social credit' or 'time-banking' or credits for 'non-governmental/firm' labour activities too, or forms of value-form in a hybrid system. You're not going to elect all that into being though, even with the most progressive legislation and takeover, which is why Sam is wary. He's too much of a normal soc-dem (which is obviously pretty left for US mainstream political/discursive standards) at heart...
Debate? Seems more of a conversation.
Debates are about presenting opposing ideas and each side building a logical case for their beliefs to be examined. I’d say that happened.
They are always a version of a conversation.
I came here to say this!
Would say its an actual substantiative debate rather than the internet version of a debate which is mostly dunks and one- upping
That's what debates are supposed to be: two people cooperating to find the truth. Yelling at each other is not "debating", that is arguing and it is largely pointless.
@@PlatinumAltaria no shade, but this is not what debate is. Debate is taking a position and defending it. Dialectic is searching for the truth.
Elon's recent $56 billion Tesla bonus, is roughly the equivalent of about 4.3 million years of minimum wage. Does he work that hard? Is he really worth that pay raise? Is he that much smarter or more deserving than you? That's $430 for every American in the work force. Personally, I think every American deserves that $430 more than Elon being awarded another 25% of an Elon.
At this point he is being paid to destroy the company, and he is busy for sure.
good call! good conversation.
Hell yeah brother
This is the unironic best libertarian call of all time
This was an actual productive conversation. Refreshing.
Awesome conversation I really appreciate the thoughts.
Ngl for a moment, I thought it was that Dave Rubin impersonator again lol
I would love for worker cooperatives to be more of a topic on the show…there’s a ton of fascinating research on them and it’s definitely the responsibility of left-leaning ppl to advocate for democracy in the work place 👍🏼
I don't see any possibly reason or justification, for private banking. Also, to decommodify healthcare, you'd have to do away with stuff like Obamacare, a public option, or single payer health insurance. Do away with health insurance entirely, and just make all healthcare (hospitals, dentistry, psychologist, prescription medication, wheelchairs...) 100% free. As it should be ...and also do the same, with the justice system: No paying a fortune for lawyers, or winning cases based on having the most expensive lawyers. It must all (incl legal advice) be completely free, so that everyone can actually get their legal rights, and the laws can be properly upheld.
Though there should still be a price for water and electricity, mind you. Electricity being based on how high the demand is, on the grid (with the exception of when there is high demand, due to an accident or the electricity provider [needs to be nationalized] messing up), and having the exact same price to buy from the grid, as to sell to the grid. (with the above exception, not applying to the price of selling to the grid)
...
I could go on.
Worker cooperatives aren't exclusively libertarian leftist. I'm 100% on board with coops, but would never describe that view as libertarian. Coops are more efficient than capitalist businesses AND they expand democratic control into the economy. As it stands, democracy has little impact on our lives. No longer support for it is declining. Putting democratic process front and center in the workplace invests people in democracy and teaches us how it works and why it is important.
So you would nevwr describe a mainline libertarian leftist view as libertarian leftist? That sounds like a you thing.
Disagree, it is libertarian, it allows worker democracy, democracy is an exercise or extension of a liberty provided to workers.
economic power outside of state, party, or private power is pretty libertarian if you ask me.
Reducing hierarchy is the fundamental point of libertine thought
@@Imahardhardworkereveryday do you not understand the difference between democracy and the market? Democracy can curtail markets as easily as embrace them by collectively deciding to produce this rather than that, to charge below market price or provide them at no cost, setting limits on what can be commodified etc
Hearing this discussion makes me want to jam to "When sailing the seas, depend on the helmsman".....BANGER.
There's no "one and done" moment but we do need goals, strategies, choices. The system we have is certainly the result of conservatives and capitalists imposing their goals and choices on the rest of us. Capitalism is an option that is being decided on, one that is very quickly taking us to a lot of misery and death.
1:42 there are no stapler companies. There are massive corporations that have staples in their range. Almost all products are near monopolies globally.
Well, markets are heavily concentrated on different levels, yeah. In some cases the 'bigger' you go the more companies there are, but then in individual states it's pretty much a monopoly. In other cases, the TNCs just dominate globally in a highly oligopolistic/sonistic fashion. And vertical and horizontal integration are pretty expansive in general.
But he's just using that as an example of things he'd break up, rather than nationalise. Markets tend towards consolidation without question in a largely unregulated environment, and that has been the pattern. Even standard oil basically stitched itself back together over time.
I'm surprised Vaush called into the show.
Vaush rad 😎
Vaush absolutely and unironically bad 🤢
@@voxomnes9537vaush bad 😭
Market Socialism is da way. It's the next step forward. Or, I should say, the best step forward for We the People and humanity collectively. Neo Feudalism is what the nobility are pushing for. Majority rule v minority rule.
SRSLY wrong turned me onto the idea of "library socialism" and I can't get it out of my head.
Actually a very fruitful and polite conversation that isn’t 5 hours long! I must be dreaming lol
Giving people a better education and quality of life will encourage people to have smaller and closer families with less turmoil.
Libertarian socialism sure seems like the best kind of socialism 🤔
Now I want to see a clip of CGI Thanos Sam snapping his fingers and icons of capital dissolving into dust.
Speaking of share-holders: Payments to share-holders, dividends and any other form of share-holders getting so much as a penny, for being share-holders, should be made completely and extremely/strictly illegal. The money of a company, should only be allowed to be used for the employees, the work of the company (manufacturing, design, R&D etc) and such thing. Purely for the company, and maybe some charity. (with stricter regulations on charities, ensuring they're not money laundering schemes, slush funds, or tax write-offs)
Definately decommodify essentials such as utilities (including internet), housing, food, etc. And companies not doing those would be worker coops if they were large enough. easy w for everybody and more money would be made overall. Also legislate out billionaires.
I love the "mustache considering corner"
Great conversation honestly. One point I wish had been brought up more however was the role of Unions as effective forces for democratizing the workplace without completely giving the state control of the firm. I agree human necessities like energy and healthcare should be nationalized, but Unions also provide a great alternative, similar to worker ownership.
Prefiguration is the path. It won't happen overnight, and it won't be a top-down transition. We have to build it from the bottom up. Unfortunately, I'm not smart enough to describe that process.
I learned a lot from this call
We need more democracy, not less. So, so many problems arise from the dictatorships that we work in. Just at my last job I had a manager who was openly anti-black. Americans are so indoctrinated into capitalism, being in the belly of the beast so to speak, even the most well reasoned and intelligent people I've met and enjoyed watching, are just completely unable to make the leap. Social democracy does not work. They will just repeal any advances you make, I've seen it in my lifetime and I'm under 40. I'm also a Canadian. The only group who indigenous people fear more than the police are social workers. And a lot, a looooooooot of them are liberals who start out with good intentions. And that's to say nothing of the condescending way that social programs are often administered.
Those who toil in the mills should own them.
wholesome and informative debate
I just want to live in a society where the human condition is irrelevant to how much care you receive to the person next to you. In-fighting be damned, greed has to be the absolute last factor for corruption, not the first. Hence why i hate lobbyists.
I was looking forward to some good comedy. Kind of disappointed that it was an intelligent and reasonable person....
I think Yugoslavia had it pretty good on a theoretical level. There was the State, which owned the land and some buildings it has built. There were overall plans and designs on a yearly, 3 years, 5 years period, whatever, but no micromanagement. The State would say, "hey, we need elevators, anyone down for building some elevators?" maybe it would start the seed of the company, provide a building, finance training for early employees abroad etc. People were free to employ wherever they wanted (no, State didn't control who is employed where!), and most importantly, workers would run the company. So State would kick start it, and then largely move out and let workers self organize. So long as they provided elevators to the market (maybe in some quotas or whatever), workers were free to elect people they wanted into company boards, organize how much they work and when, how many people are in the company, what are the pay grades etc. Every worker had a vote. A mini-democracy inside of every company.
And they of course were free to distribute the profits among themselves. For example, it was popular among many companies to invest into housing market - companies would buy whole-ass apartment buildings from accumulated profits, and workers would get one flat unit each (of course, in theory). Of course not everything worked as theory said it would, but those are daily details, I'm talking about the principle of organization, ownership over means of production and how profits are distributed.
I don't think everything needs to be worker owned (though some being so, is perfectly fine) ...but workers need to have a massive say, in terms of what the working conditions. The workplace should be able to decide what work is to be done, without the workers having a say in that ...but not being allowed to decide the working conditions, without a massive (at least equal, but maybe best to have a greater) say in them, from the workers. Also, worker owned stuff, unions, and the like, where you have a representation of the workers, need to be far more democratic. There is often a great gap, between what the representatives of the workers think and decide, and the actual will of the workers. (this is, of course, far more true and significant, when it comes to the representatives of the people, in ruling "democratic" countries. None of which are actually terribly representative ...with the US, being among the worst)
The problem with centralized economies is, that while useful in wartime situations, they stifle the natural creativity of the population in peace. The system has to have a measure of chaos to be dynamic. As long as you don't let the oligarchs take over, because they also stifle creativity.
SAM CONCEDES TO LIBERTARIAN come on Matt let me write the titles
MR fans just now realizing Sam is simply a critic of the right and pretty limp wristed on his beliefs? Say it aint so.
No, he's just a socdem.
I don't really think the caller understands that most civil service workers have unions. Just like teachers' unions are able to strike, despite being paid by the state, any other government workers' unions can strike if their working conditions/pay/benefits are not adequate.
I understand they have unions. The point with democratic workplace is to have the workers manage their work place since they are the ones who work there day in and day out. Unions just simply don't go far enough.
FDR the 3rd has a solid book on market socialism
I really liked this conversation because it gets into actual policy
10:21 I got that crappy ad from TPUsa about how socialism kills millions of people as soon as Sam said,”Only good things come along that way.”
Also, how many millions of people died under Capitalism?
It isn't mutually exclusive, although nationalizing non necessities doesn't make much sense, nationalizing necessities doesn't get rid of the power the workers have when they unionize. The means of production don't mean jack if they don't have workers to use them to create wealth through goods and services.
I m philosofically socialist but I dont know how we can abolish capitalism by democratic means
If it's not democratic; it's not socialism. Stop letting fascists run the narrative on what socialism is.
Socialism without democracy is like capitalism without profit. It literally cannot function. When you start thinking in these terms, you leave the door wide open for fascists to hijack the labor struggle. It's happened to socialist movements time and time again. The second you start thinking "yeah, maybe we should just overthrow capitalism by force and worry about the rest later", you've lost and you end up with the Bolsheviks, Khmer Rouge, death camps and dictatorship and ultimately, regression and failure.
What I think you should instead focus on is how we can make our current democratic systems more effective and wider reaching and how and which new democratic projects should be developed.
It doesn't need to be by democratic means.
@@Khalkara I dont support revolutionary approaches, I from Eastern Europe, you dont want whats happened here
The Russian revolution abolished capitalism democratically, at least until the bolsheviks took over. It's perfectly possible for people to just choose a better system. But you have to get out and do it.
The reasons for strikes in the NHS is due to low pay. Its been doctors in general and more so the junior doctors seeking a pay rise in line with increased living expense and not being offered a serious wage by the government who will be out of a job in a couple of weeks when they lose the election for reasons such as this. They don't want to own the means of production, the NHS already belongs to the people of the UK.
I agree with the caller that market socialism is an ideal hybrid socialist capitalism. It works in Northern Europe and it has worked just Canada . Indeed unless we had the corrupt oligarchy-ridden AIPAC functioning USA as our next door neighbour we would continue to have market socialism as one of our most powerful forms of Canadian democracy. Market socialism is the reason that we funded and have a functioning 3 party system in Canada.
Our cooperatives started as a function of European mostly English Agrarian socialists who helped Western Canada’s economy by instituting wheat and fairly pools. This movement took over the agrarian economy and became a power broker in Ottawa. They had a multifaceted and social justice movement involved with their political movement and bonded with labour in the late 20s to form a strong working class party. Unions therefore had less interference from crime when the UsA was rife with it. The party is now the NDP.
Cuba has worker control. Anyone who’s spent any serious amount of time studying their system and economy sees that. Workers associations and organizations enjoy privileged positions in the political and institutional realm, elections are non partisan, the proportion of elected representatives is high, and the number of “institutional checks” that can temper the democratic impulse is relatively low.
I think the outcome that should be pursued is a lot more public ownership of a few key industries like energy, healthcare, and housing, but almost everything else that isn't publicly owned and is still operating for profit should be owned by its workers. We would still have a market system but the major necessities would no longer be a part of it, and everyone who is working would now have a stake in the profits of their company (if the company isn't public). This would mean there would no longer be an extremely rich capitalist class influencing our political system and would represent a massive shift towards equality. If you all want to read about how this might work in practice, I highly recommend the book "Another Now" by Yanis Varoufakis.
In fact Sam if you do some research you will find companies in the USA that have sold their company to cooperative buy out. You can actually Google it. And when you find that big world outside of corporate NY you will discover that cooperatives are run more efficiently and make better profits than corporations. In my own town, I can point to one large corporate company that was about to sell out to another corporation but was bought out by its union members who now run the business as a market cooperative. The workers are making market shares as well as great salaries with top benefits. The tide is actually turned from the grass roots where all progress is made. Never by a lobby.
I’ve never even heard of a left libertarian. Isn’t that a contradiction?
No. Left libertarians are the original libertarians. The right wing ones just co-opted the term and made it mean something much dumber.
@@TitenSxull That somehow makes sense now that I think about it.
@@michaeltorris5675 Yeah, for the longest time I had no idea until I heard someone describe themselves as a Libertarian Socialist and I was confused and looked it up for myself. The more you know.
Lmfao no the big banks are not nationalized that’s insane! Go work for one of these banks and tell me the workers are being taken care of by law by the government. They treat people like ass😂😂😂😂😂
I'm kinda similar except I'm a lot more radical in this sense, I'm an anarcho communist.
I'm for abolishing the state and transfering all ownership of production into decentralized bottom up worker councils based around revocable delegation and consensus (think direct democracy except the goal is to find an agreement that works for everyone rather than just reach a 51% minimum votes) which could then confederate and do mutual aid and free association.
Instead of a vanguard party have a platform (instead of owning and controlling everything the "anarchist experts" would serve as guides and communicators) and ideally we establish a redistribution network based on equity.
Any "snapping the finger and making things happen" scenario requires state power, just logistically
I SEE LIBERTARIAN CALLER I CLICK THE VIDEO
as much as i like sam, idk how do you look at the state time and time again destroying worker power through party politics and still think you can do it through reform. even nordic social democracies decay towards neoliberalism.
This exactly. "Maybe this time it will be different!"
I think it comes down to the 3 essentialisms progressives suffer. To "progress," there need first be: a system to progress, a "progressive class" to progress it, and lastly the progressive themselves, as they defacto can't be part of the problem because they are part of the solution.
Here we have the recipe for the progressive to reactionary pipeline. Threaten any of these things, and the so-called progressive will turn on a dime.
"The state" is not some mystical entity, states (plural) are just how humans organise themselves at large scales. And reform has shown to be effective where revolutions have invariably resulted in violence and suppression.
@@PlatinumAltaria You have the emergence in human society
Of this thing that's called the State
What is the State?
The State is this organized bureaucracy
It is the police department
It is the Army, the Navy
It is the prison system, the courts, and what have you
This is the State, it is a repressive organization
"But the state and gee, well, you know
You've got to have the police, 'cause
If there were no police, look at what you'd be doing to yourselves!
You'd be killing each other if there were no police!"
But the reality is
The police become necessary in human society
Only at that junction in human society
Where it is split between those who have and those who ain't got
--Chairman Omali
@@PlatinumAltaria no. state is policy enforced through violence. most humans organise based on consent, not based on monopoly of force everyday. state emerged few thousands years ago, it's not a common form of organisation historically.
I can turn your argument on you and say that all states resulted in violent unrest (revolutions). it's clear that current paradigm keeps producing violence despite it's insistence on its orderliness and non-violence and has to be changed, and that internal dynamics of the system tend to destroy socialists.
idk where is successful reform, all western people keep living under workplace dictatorships despite strong reformist socialist movements historically.
@PlatinumAltaria States are not how humans organize themselves on large scales, they are how humans are organized on large scales. I did not organize the state, nor did you, nor did any of us, none of us consented to its existence and it wields immense power over us which under any system no matter how democratic can be wielded to oppress. Reformism has consistently failed, with reforms being overturned sometimes by popular consent, as the state provides a direct means for those with selfish or destructive interests to manipulate the masses. As for revolutions being violent, so is reform, the inherent nature of the systems we dwell within is violent, choosing to continue the existence of these states with the vain hope of eventually altering them enough that they're no longer as terrible neccesarily implies that you are choosing to accept the violence of the state over the violence of revolution. There is no path to change that lacks violence, reform merely has the benefit of its violence being so normalized that it doesn't appear violent on first glance. The state is inherently oppressive, but revolutions do not have to be, there have been several anarchist and libertarian leftist revolutions and movements which have resulted in positive change without oppressive or coercive conditions. Rojava, the Zapatistas, the Makhnovtchina, and the CNT FAI all come to mind.
I think that worker democracy and decommodification/nationalization are solutions for completely different problems. Worker coops help with labor and worker issues, but they are still for-profit businesses. If the problem with our reluctance to move from oil to renewables is the profit motive, making Exxon Mobil worker owner doesn’t address that.
So when it comes to picking between the two solutions, the question to ask is what problem are you trying to solve.
There are community cooperatives and non-profit cooperatives that could work in those industries that won't put profit above all else. We don't need state control in those cases either.
@@Bolivian654thats an excellent point my friend 👍🙂
you ARE thanos sam lol
Wouldn't the workers just expend all the capital equipment, halting production?
You could just have a unionized stated workforce too
The problem is that I wouldn’t trust the state to properly regulate peoples wages and autonomy. I think it’s better for non essential markets to be cooperatives for worker autonomy
Yes you're gonna get companies where it's run badly under democracy just like what happens to democratic countries but that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.
This guy has the right goals, but viewing the conversion of massive corporations into co-ops as a stepping stone toward disempowering corporate power and lobbying is absurd. Why in the world wouldn't that corporate power be deployed to prevent their dissolution into co-ops?
Corporations mostly have power because the state protects them with the power of the police and military if need be. Regardless, I do believe that the workers will eventually need to use force to overtake capitalists. The capitalists did the same to the feudalists.
My big problem with the left version of libertarian thought is similar to the same as right libertarian thought (which is why, like Sam, I cringed at "if you could snap your fingers"), and that is that with no state or central arbiter, how are you going to keep the things that you think are bad from happening? For the left libertarian, if there is no state after private property is abolished, what will keep someone from finding ways to amass power and get property? If someone is better at handling money, what will keep that person from amassing enough money to set up new business and capital for him/herself?
I'm the one who made the call to Sam. The solution is that you would first need to abolish capital before abolishing the state. With no capital, people cannot amass power.
@@Bolivian654 Thank you for your response. People amassed power before they amassed capital. There was always some arbiter of wealth. There will be some sort of exchange of goods and services, so how do you ensure that someone isn't able to acquire them again without some larger power making sure that they don't?
There are also questions of distribution. For me, the most Underpants Gnomes part of _The Conquest of Bread_ was the idea that given that there would be no more private property, and thus no private farms, that in order to ensure that people had enough food that with no organizing force, people would take field trips to farm land for two days out of the year, that you wouldn't have a fight for the glamor jobs, that you'd have no problem finding someone to muck the stables, and that there would be a sufficient rotation for everything to get done. So, with no organizing force, with no taxation, with no money (and thus no bonuses for the people who do the dirty work that nobody else wants to do), other than hoping there are enough Hufflepuffs willing to do the job, how do people get fed?
@wvu05 People didn't really have much power before capital was created. People before did own resources that were essential to people and defended them with violence and force but we have advanced enough to create an abundance of food, shelter, water, medicine, etc. If things like money and capital are gone because of decommodification and post scarcity, then how exactly would some one amass power? No one would acknowledge their power.
@@Bolivian654 Didn't have much power before capital? I don't know, the ability to literally own another human seems like a lot of power to me.
The answer to the question of how power accumulates in a post-scarcity world is how things are distributed in a post-scarcity world. That's why I used the example of the field trips the farm and asked how it would happen with no government to organize it in a way that all the dirty work gets done and there is a sufficient rotation of time that crops don't wither. If you don't sufficiently organize, it's very easy to see a world where just saying there is enough for everyone becomes "snapping your fingers." Like Sam, I have no use for snapping of fingers. And "people sharing stuff" isn't a sufficient answer, either, because that assumes that somehow human greed is gone.
Someone will figure out how to keep more and someone else will lose the amount he/she has, and then you have the system start all over again.
I get what Sam's saying. It's not immediately apparent that even if we did just teleport ourselves into universal worker ownership that that would necessarily beget the optimal outcome. Not only that, but trying to find global or even local optimums is a lot less fruitful than focusing on the steps that people can see where they're from.
No, an executive order should make any publicly traded company a woker co-op.
I am not an anarchist because anarchy is the end goal, but because there is no end goal. - Rudolf Rocher
However, the US incarcerates more than anywhere else. If that's not authoritarian I dont know what is. I'd define authoritarian by number of free people, wouldn't you?
No
@@VitalVampyr ok, I'll accept I can be wrong. Hence the '?' and not a period. However, what do you know of US prisons? I'll take counterfactuals but just "no" doesn't really help me learn.
@@radaro.9682 You could in theory have an extremely liberal regime that nevertheless experiences a very high rate of crime, which would naturally lead to high prison population. Therefore that cannot be a definitive measure of authoritarianism.
You should just look to the dictionary if you want to learn a definition.
Yeah and considering what is being made illegal nowadays it seems like any one of us could go to jail/prison for what seems like reasonable action. And, even more fun, it's already happening to marginalized people for YEARS.
@@austincde it's not even "being made illegal". Just enforcing existing laws and digging hard enough would be enough to get most, if not all of us in front of a judge.
Look, are we brutal? Not unless you're a minority. Are we as deprived of survival goods? No. And that's what we need to be clear about; the disparity between means of survival and authoritarianism. We are horridly authoritarian. But we also don't need to compare different places that way. Each revolution is against local conditions. For now.
Public, State-owned 'essentials' with no-profit motive and Private, Worker-owned 'non-essentials' with a profit motive is the ideal mixed economy... Can we get there is another question...
I'm sorry to the caller, I wasn't familiar with your game.
Unfortunate Sam hasn't put more thought into this.
States are generally by nature authoritarian. A government could be run democratically, though almost none of us have really experienced that in practice (the only current example that comes to mind is the Kibbutz Movement). To take perhaps a familiar example, the NIH is a great institution for many things, but also leaves much shrouded in secrecy that is terribly harmful for society (like their involvement in US bioweapons research during the Cold War; do some google searching on Willy Burgdorfer & Erich Traub, it's quite the rabbit hole).
Personally I think it's best for local economies to be run independently (& democratically), but they should also share knowledge & resources on a global scale (e.g. science, technology, etc.). Cooperatives are great but they lack the benefit of economies of scale, and nationalization is great for scale but typically lacks democratization. Combine the two and I think you have the best possible economy. This is possible through Anarcho-Syndicalism, though would require quite a shift in our compulsory education systems.
8:00 so in my opinion, there would be a sort of tipping point. as you reduce the ability of the rich to buy elections, and increase the ability of voters to have a representative that actually represents them, their power weakens and since you’re moving in a direction of weakening their power, every improvement reduces their ability to fight back, and things tip over a balancing point and move instead towards what benefits people. this also of course goes the other way, the powerful are seeking to increase their power, which increases their ability to gain power. this is why i don’t believe in centrism (like actual not the US’s poor excuse for centrism), because you’re constantly fighting against the system’s tendency to move in the benefit of the powerful.
Libertarian socialism, anarchist communism, social anarchism, all kissing cousins. Also all constantly at war with each other in comment threads, unfortunately. He said it perfectly when he said "I'm anti-capitalist, but also pretty anti-state." I couldn't agree more.
im pretty far left socialist, but i wouldnt support a state monopoly on social media/internet, that kind of state monopoly on what is essentially a free speech (of course not absolutist) arena opens up enormous opportunities for abusem repression and surveillance, beyond what we even currently have. It doesnt matter if it doesnt start out corrupt and repressive, that kind of structuring will forever invite that kind of abuse. Just regulate it well.
coop internet products, as well as personal micro scale private projects are fine by me,
Based caller
Sam could use a bit of education on worker owned co-ops. Its been done, and its not like a meeting at occupy wall street.