Removing Social Constructs from Capitalism
So here is the proposal I made to @freebornangel:
"I will make a proposal here, i will read the top three books that influenced you the most, if you spend a few hours thinking about how capitalism looks different if all the social constructs are removed."
(I have completed: Kropotkin- The Conquest of Bread, Hubbard-Science of Survival
Have yet to start: Berkman- What is Communist Anarchism)
Freeborn is not sure about what I mean by removing social constructs out of capitalism. I have included a list of social constructs, not all of them apply but it should be a good start to show what can(?) be removed.
I will leave most of the unpacking to be done in the comments. The expectation is that the comment threads will be rather long.
(Feel free to jump in)
hierarchy
ruling party
accreditation
guilds
faction
cartel
union
social group
slavery
race
class
institutions
leadership
army
rules of engagement
militia
gang
state
nation
national borders
culture
politics
political parties
political oaths
policy
law
law enforcement
prison
rule by law
social contract
social morality
media
public policy
constitution
church
social religion
marriage
governments
taxes
public schools
hospitals
socialized health
college
debt
fees
license
majority consent
representative consent
social objectivity
universal truth
universal principles
public property
public infrastructure
social projects
corporations
stock market
shareholders
industry
monopoly
foreign policy
market value
social value
rent
financial institutions
price index
fiat currency
patents
copyrights
funds
banks
firms
wages
hourly wages
supply of wage labor
salary
social redistribution
capital outside of personal property
means of production outside personal
markets beyond/outside of personal exchanges
private property beyond/outside of personal property
controlled economies
(let me know if I missed any)
Added-
War
"[T]he forming of societies or any other artificial combinations IS the first, greatest, and most fatal mistake"-Josiah Warren
Capitalism, in it's pure form, creates the highest living standard for all involved.
Dogma.
Dogma says the dude using the 100 year old model as the 'new paradigm'.
100 year old dogma as the outline for a new paradigm, obviously if the ideas were ready for primetime they wouldve been adopted in their day.
True beliebers gonna true beliebe.
Preach it brother.
Truth
Having peace and the ability to genuinely and freely trade with your fellow human beings is definitely the best model to follow. Someone wants to wield the power to control the markets? They will never succeed for the masses of people. That system will always be taken over by powerful oligarchs who'll use it to enrich themselves and maintain/grow their power.
What really sucks is that we aren't even talking about capitalism,
or the accumulation of capital so that you can build a factory.
Capital doesn't come from nowhere.
...well, that is the problem with captialism today. Capital comes from nowhere. It is printed out of thin air. And those nearest the money troughs get free money. And so, we have crony capitalism, where people pay (bribe) to be nearer to the troughs.
Those nearer to the troughs are infinitely more able to compete then those further away.
If house buyer A can get a loan at 4%, they can afford a $100,000 home
If house buyer B can get a loan at 1%, they can afford a $1,000,000 home.
So, who wins if they are bidding for the same home?
I agree, the whole concept of making capital from thin air is just this weird thing that can only happen if a grouping of people makes it so.
I find myself making distinctions between 'tangible capital formations', and 'non-tangible capital formations' to note the differences.
When 'risk/chance processes' enter social constructs, it really screws stuff up.
I guess I'm curious about your list -- what constructs, to you, are necessary to remove, necessary to keep, and necessary to modify? As long as humans are on the same planet together, some have a desire to function together successfully, some have a desire to get on top while pushing everyone else down, and some desire to be alone. This list is extensive, to say the least, many of these are outdated or the source of corruption and greed (ruling party, political parties, banks, slavery) and many of them are parts of society I very much enjoy and think you do too (hospitals, schools, culture). If everything is a social construct, how do we weed out the destructive ones?
I will try to explain with schools. Schools are just buildings where the service of teaching is done. The teacher can continue to teach, but he/she becomes a owner-operator of the service. She/he can either open her own building (possibly home) or goes to the homes of the students.
Part of the broader point I am trying to make is that there is a lot of socialism that people are calling capitalism.
If you remove the socialism out of capitalism it looks very different than what people have been calling capitalism.
The only way I know how to disassemble social constructs is to remove(divest) authority in them, and not fund them.
Excellent questions.
You think teachers across the states want to become owner-operators of their own service? That puts a lot on them, most are not willing to take that on. We all know teachers don't get paid enough, but if you take away the school system, they'd be hard pressed to find pay at all. Additionally, school curriculum is important for getting kids a somewhat balanced education. Otherwise, we'd have 100% private teachers teaching what they want, which gets real ugly real quick. There's already too many teachers teaching kids that evolution isn't real and that the world is 2000 years old, teaching a bastardized version of American history, etc... I say we take that socialism you mentioned and re-purpose some of our gluttonous defense funds to pay teachers what they deserve, and increase the quality of life for kids across the board.
If the social constructs are removed there is no defense fund. That wealth stays locally, to where people can afford to give teachers a lot of wealth for the service they provide.
Plus what the states waste in education would be gone. So all the wealth wasted in inefficiencies would go directly to the teachers. There would be absolutely no loss between the person providing the teacher wealth, and the teacher receiving that wealth.
Curriculum may be important, so why would you ever trust a social construct to get that right?(the social construct may intentionally have motive to get it wrong) (can we mention the social construct of religions mixing in the social construct of education, that's like a whole post right there)
Subject matter and specialization isn't a great thing when distributed with a wide brush. Why not have teachers more oriented in what they teach?
Allow the teaching value provided to determine the wealth they receive. It has a direct incentive for the teachers to be good at what they do. I certainly wouldn't give wealth to some of the teachers I have seen, yet wealth is taken from me and given to them anyway. There is no choice. These social constructs are not voluntary if they require taxes.
It is true that owner operating isn't for everyone, but it has potential for better outcomes than when many social constructs distort what it is supposed to be doing.
Ok, that is quite a list, i can see why you didnt want to list them in a comment.
Where should we start?
I think we start with the ones that taking rule by force off the table eliminates or modifies in ways that alter them fundamentally from their current forms.
As long as you can see the model that remains when they are eliminated.
Ok.
Isnt how much wealth you have the only form of social construct?
In emerging economies, the lack of financial development has led to social constructs around family. Family supports education, funds marriage and in return kids take care of parents. Thats a social construct.
Capitalism is what steem it, capital dictates loyalty and accountability. Those with capital decide social customs, and how society should be made to think.
A lot of these aren't social constructs. Banks institutions. And how do you remove social constructs from capitalism. Social constructs take ages to form and change.
Family is somewhat a biological construct. (You don't really get to choose what family your born into)
Now if a family endeavors to be some type of cartel or empire, it may qualify in that context.
Which ones do you specifically not see as a social construct?
(A person doesn't need the concept of society to exist to be wealthy)
What are the social constructs in Steem that led to it being what it is?
(You mentioned banks, there is a problem with 'risk processes' or types of 'gambling'
i explain it further here:
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@joesal/the-pareto-problem-and-capitalism
)
The more people that move from these social constucts to truly capitalist endeavors, like your example of the school teacher, and create viable alternatives to socialist, publicly funded programs will create a domino effect. Especially if they do it right, through the grey market and people start to see the benefits of this type of entrepreneurial activity. But I think there would be large groups that cling to the concept of socialism.
The question is, which of these social constucts will the status quo (the first realm) cling to? Most of these would be safe to assume like schools, hospitals, banks, etc. And taxes (because muh roads!) As you said people are quick to label socialism capitalism. This boils down to people not wanting individual liberty because it requires individual responsibility. Many of these socialist constructs eliminate most if not all individual responsibility, leaving the servile society to mindlessly consume frivolous crap and technology that makes a sedentary, unproductive life increasingly more comfortable.
I remain pessimistic that people will abandon socialism even after the Agora has reached critical mass. The welfare ideology has been shoved so deep into the subconscious of most people that they dont even think about it. Its like the programs in the Matrix being so helplessly dependant on the system they will fight to defend it. Or the allegory of the cave when they kill the guy for telling them there is sunlight.
Maybe I'm too much of a pessimist but as extensive as that list is and as indoctrinated as people are, I don't see the willingness to even think about defunding the statists beloved socialist constructs.
Excellent comment.
The way I am seeing it unfold is the first realm population will move to where the most social constructs are (high population states and cities).
As the social constructs pile up there tends to be multiple taxes layer up. Federal, then state, then county, then city. Four layers of taxes eventually. Proliferation of fees also occurs.
A vast majority fall into poverty, remaining poor, or having to leave. The tax base gets eroded. The local governments cut spending on infrastructure. Debt spirals out of control. Same ole stuff been seeing playout.
I call it first realm hellhole creation.
So, im seeing some of those as desirable.
Accreditation and guilds serve to train workers, gather wisdom, and spread the standards wisdom brings.
Of course, no coercive traits would follow them from the old paradigm, but learning trades will have to happen somewhere and be taught by somebody.
Leadership is staying because id much rather be led into dismantling a nuclear sub than figure it out on my own as i go.
Not to equate a leader with a boss.
Culture developes from living together.
The rest of them i can do without.
Wow, that's a long ways to go in the span of a day or so. Honestly, when I started processing the model, it took me months to really shake them out of the model.
As far as accreditation and guilds, these often become barriers to entry into different fields. I understand why they are viewed as important. It's the social constructs that make them a problem. Like the association of having a piece of paper, makes someone, somehow better at a task than another. It only means they went through some measure of training or competence testing.
If the guild or accreditation is used to exclude perfectly able people that have the capacity to perform those tasks, then the values are somewhat artificial. It is used as a mechanism to produce artificial scarcity and dependence on the social construct that provides it. Note that this can even happen in socialized constructs, in that the 'director' involved can artificially reduce the numbers of workers that can do a task, to make their own social construct more valuable than it would/should be.
I recognize it is a complicated subject, and other folks have probably written better and more thorough explanations than I have here.
I would rather people who had no leader and no devotion to social constructs disassemble the sub, because there would be no other agenda than dismantling the sub in a manner that everyone survives it. Plus what would be the cost of having a terrible leader directing the dismantling a sub....I think we can figure it out ok, especially if we know there isn't someone blindly pushing us into tragedy.
I'm not completely convinced that culture doesn't lead to war, maybe time will rest my conscience.
I guess i dont follow.
I just think those listed will be difficult to get the people to let go of.
If i have a sub to disassemble id sure want to look into the background of the ones doing the work.
Guilds facilitate that, though the blockchain could just as well.
I agree that artificial barriers need to come down, but if i am responsible for dangerous work i dont need somebody saying they can when they havent ever done it before.
Id want that from my barber, too.
A culture that values violence, domination, and warriors over less macho pursuits, such as ours, certainly would lead to war.
I hate it when i see parents pushing their kids to play fight.
Fighting aint playing.
Life isnt the wwe.
Yeah many people are born with a desire to plug into them.
I wouldn't much care what breaks up the social constructs of guilds, as long as it doesn't form another, or similar construct that creates the scarcity, and would allow capable people to do what they can.
I think rule by force is the disease, who does it how is secondary.
If we can get that off the table most of these conflicts end themselves.
https://steemit.com/zad/@submedia/2ahvplv5
Ending rule by force is the big step. Many social constructs have considerable potential to backslide into use of force. They will always cast a shadow.
Thats why rejecting rbf would result in a paradigm change.
Who knows what happens when a kids first lesson in life isnt do it or violence?
That has not existed culturally in many places.
Small pockets, but not worldwide.
Capitalism is a social construct.
Not when you take socialism out of it. Capital exchange between 2 people is not a social construct. That is the point of the post, which you have completely missed.
(Communism is the ideology that always has the social construct of distributing production.)