[The Immortal Goon]

How does communist philosophy sought this problem out?

There is still authority, but without private property it will have taken another form. This is necessary as we work within the physical world. But what creates and created takes on another form in the human experience.

So to achieve communism we educate people in the communist intent until as many old generations die off as to wash away the old conception of property, and make the new conception dominant. That seems fair, but people have to know exactly what that conception involves in order for it to reasonably maintain itself as a practical and useful conception.

Part of it is that our reality is how we interact with the physical world. Should a great revolution happen tomorrow and in the matter of a few hours (realizing this is impossible) everything is declared social property, but nothing has changed—you and I aren't going to actually experience life that differently. The system may have improved, maybe we have workplace democracy, so on and so forth, but we're still going to take our food home to our tables and watch our TVs while shoveling our faces with our food.

Our children we have with our wives will then go to school.

Their orientation of the world will be different. They will know the workplace democracy and so on and so forth less as an addition or change in status but as their reality. The idea of a hammer not belonging to his father but to society as a whole will not seem as foreign, though the child will still be biased in favour of what his parents say and the way they interact with the world.

This will continue, and each generation will have new art, new experiences, and new ways to look at the world. This is obvious, we have this now in part because of the rapid technological change in the last ten centuries.

But the socialist revolution will be different in that this concept of property, already decaying in our own time, will have been eliminated. Yes, as mentioned, speech and action will serve to stifle the reality of this change for some time.

But just as humans learned to pairbond with their mates in society over a long time, no longer just looking to fuck the cavewoman that was currently being fucked, we will learn to see things in a new way that's difficult for us currently to understand. We can see the outlines, but our relationship to our own material reality is warped—just as a peasant from feudal France would have no conception of abolition of African slaves as his vary concept of reality would scarcely be able to conceptualize race slavery, let alone its negation.

[Technology]

There is still authority, but without private property it will have taken another form. This is necessary as we work within the physical world. But what creates and created takes on another form in the human experience.

I understand there has to be authority. What I've wanted to know all along is how far the sphere of this authority pushes into the administration of means of production, from the large and fixed like factories, to the small and moveable like spades.

Or if spades are too "possession-like", take the currently primitive but developing paradigm of desktop manufacturing, mostly in the form of 3D printers.

There certainly has to be authority in a large factory, whether it is the authority of the manager in capitalism, or the authority of the socially elected manager in socialism. This authority to control and exclude is property. In capitalism, the highest owner has that authority and delegates it to management at his discretion, whereas and in socialism the property is collective because the authority of control is at the discretion of democracy incorporating the workers as a whole electing management.

This definitely holds for large scale production as your essay outlines, but there's simply no need for such socialized authority over the control of small means of production, so when you say "abolish private property", if the philosophy is to avoid being arbitrary it must necessarily exclude means of production that do not have communal livelihoods hinging upon them. There's no need to manage how I control a 3D printer, including my trade, or acquisition of one, like there may well be for a factory.

Unfortunately, I know from history that communists like Lenin thought that small scale production would engender new bourgeoisie, and this lead to the drive for collectivization of agriculture and largely destroyed the institute of individual and family homesteads. Do you agree with him?

The idea of a hammer not belonging to his father but to society as a whole will not seem as foreign

Making an idea familiar requires that we can understand how it plays out. Operationally, how can a hammer be owned by society as a whole? Physically speaking, how will socialization work?

If I can't even conceive of workable schemes for this I can't accept it and it will remain foreign.

[The Immortal Goon]

Unfortunately, I know from history that communists like Lenin thought that small scale production would engender new bourgeoisie, and this lead to the drive for collectivization of agriculture and largely destroyed the institute of individual and family homesteads. Do you agree with him?

I do agree with Lenin in the circumstances that he was in. Do remember it was a system with strong feudal elements that were bypassing capitalism; and like Lenin I don't think that the Soviet Union was socialist. He also was forced to recognize some of the reality of the situation in the creation of the NEP and with it the Nepman and acceptance of Kulaks. But that's reality, and I think it's best to accept it.

Ideally though

If I can't even conceive of workable schemes for this I can't accept it and it will remain foreign.

It doesn't mean that anyone can come into your house and get the hammer without permission. I tend to think of it more like the medallion of St. Neumann I used to have around my neck: My grandfather had it blessed by the pope. My mom had it for ages, I had it, and now someone else had it. Even in my possession it was not mine in the same sense that my hammer in my tool box is mine. I have a different conception of it that goes beyond myself and the principle of my ownership of that piece into a personal commodity. To compare it to the above, such things we still tend to think about in a feudal conception of property. It is not my medal, it belongs to the family. It is not my land, it is the land my family has always and will always farm; it is not my place in society, it is that of my family; and on and on.

It's a different perception of a material object, even if the material object is functionally "mine."

In a socialist system something as basic as a hammer in a toolbox will be seen through a different conception, even if it's functionally used by one person.

This seems like a smaller deal than it is. I mentioned above the conception of the means of production in the land, which did not belong to a private individual under feudalism as it does today. People would have thought even a king insane had he insisted the land was his and he was not speaking as a product of the family of whose responsibility it was to run the realm. That idea, that land was not the property of the individual, influenced virtually everything in feudalism. The casts, the kind of jobs one could have, the way gender was ordered, the structure of the church, everything came down to their ideas that took a thousand years to build up and fight to maintain.

Cities began to be built and the merchants that owned their property personally, that traded in hard goods and thought of their property just a little bit differently, over generations and generations made people think of their property differently. Now the abstraction of liberal rights to have and be maintained by the individual, tied to the conception of private property, was extended to politics and changed the medieval institutions that survived (it is not my family or community's work and conception of God that matters, it is my own private relationship to God), and destroyed anything that couldn't make that leap in violent revolution.

[Someone5]

I apologize for bringing this thread back so far, but there was a line of discussion that wasn't quite answered that I felt should be brought back.

Individualism is simply the desired base. Atoms form molecules. The more the material conditions advance in such a way to enable individuals to survive on their own ground with less and less toil, the more any collective systems that exist in addition shed their exploitative nature. I, unlike a Marxist, believe that capitalism is contextually exploitative, not inherently exploitative, so any higher level of capitalist like compensation could possibly be in operation.

If I am understanding you correctly, you believe capitalism to be exploitative only because present conditions require it to be tied to the wage employment model, right? That it would not be exploitative if no one were involved in the process of making the things a capitalist sells.

How do you reach that conclusion, because it does not obviously follow for me. Capitalism--the private ownership of the means of production--seems to me to necessarily require exploitation to occur. What is the point in owning the means of production if you do not profit from that ownership? How does that even work as a system? From my understanding, capitalism "works" because it forces people to engage in labor they would otherwise avoid, at the behest of the people who own the means of production that everyone else requires to survive. How would complete industrial automation change that? People would still require a relationship with the means of production to survive, and if they were still privately owned, how would they convince the owners to part with the products of the means of production? Under a wage employment model, they are under-compensated for their labor, but still paid enough to make ends meet. How would they do that in a society where human labor is irrelevant and the means of production are privately owned?

To put this more succinctly, say that such a society does exist. How does a newborn ever make a life for themselves when they grow up? They have no robots to do their work for them, no land they can work for themselves (in order to buy a robot). The means of producing more robots are held privately, meaning that they'll have to convince someone to part with a robot--but how do they do that if the people being served by the fully automated means of production have all of their needs taken care of for them? In a world where no one needs anything, how do you convince anyone to part with the things you need to survive, if you don't have them?

But let's suppose that society passes a law granting everyone some robots and land and whatnot--what about disasters? Let's say that the coastal half of a state gets wrecked by a hurricane. Does that just remain a de-industrialized wasteland for years until the residents can somehow scrape together enough mercy from the rest of the country to get some more robots?

From a practical standpoint, how does capitalism work for the people who don't own the capital if there is no wage employment model? Straight up welfare for everyone? I can't see the capitalists going for that. A capitalism that would accept such a solution is a capitalism very far divorced from what we have historically seen.

The idealistic far future outcome would be that each person would own self-maintaining means of production, such as robots. This can be fastest brought about, ironically, through collective institutions like states and interested private organizations. Certainly there are incentives pointing the other way for many institutions, so this is the struggle laid out. Automated production on a large scale is an easier to achieve goal than decentralized agriculture, means of production, and private machine labor, so the achieved individualist base of my desired society is something that would likely grow out of efforts to automate large scale production. This is desirable in its own right, as a sufficiently automated society would require less coerced human labor trending to none but choice over what is produced by advanced AI, this would mean that people could survive on the abundant resource base of the Earth without requiring the necessary labor of millions, and appropriation that the agreed compensation of their labor, as when taxes need to be collected. You can see how in this way a society could remove the need for monied control.

That seems inherently contradictory. How do you have private ownership of the means of production if the owners of the means of production have no control over it? What's the point of that? Are you using some odd definition of ownership or capitalism other than private ownership--control--over the means of production?

This absolutism stands to be justified.

Private property, by definition, requires oppressing everyone else. Literally, property that is private necessarily requires that others be excluded from controlling it. When you claim something to be private, you are prohibiting others from controlling it. That's a very wide sort of oppression.

[Technology]

If I am understanding you correctly, you believe capitalism to be exploitative only because present conditions require it to be tied to the wage employment model, right? That it would not be exploitative if no one were involved in the process of making the things a capitalist sells.

I believe exploitation to revolve around the kinds of disenfranchisement that actually matter to me. It doesn't matter to me if someone is richer than me or is engaging in wage labor. What I think is exploitative is if wage labor is the only option in a system, because people are disenfranchised from alternate means, or there is too much struggle involved in utilizing them. Obviously this isn't enough for a Marxist point of view, in which capitalism is inherently evil, but I simply require that raw survival is not a struggle and therefore contest pure capitalism from a transcending point of view more than a morally antagonistic point of few. When survival is no struggle that must be paid for, even if there is inequality - difference to some degree is good because it gives people targets to aim at and society can avoid stagnation - it is of the entirely trivial "I can't buy a new car on this income without saving up" kind of struggle, not a "I can't afford to feed my kids" one.

Automation and decentralized production could mostly transcend monetary concerns in the end, of course.

What is the point in owning the means of production if you do not profit from that ownership?

Because you captain it yourself and control what you produce for your own needs and are less dependent on other systems like government or corporations to do most of your production for you. Capitalism goes a step further in disenfranchising the masses from the means of production, so that it can limit choices and make people dependent on that production mode in a life or death (well, extreme destitution) struggle.

From my understanding, capitalism "works" because it forces people to engage in labor they would otherwise avoid, at the behest of the people who own the means of production that everyone else requires to survive. How would complete industrial automation change that? People would still require a relationship with the means of production to survive, and if they were still privately owned, how would they convince the owners to part with the products of the means of production?

Automation is merely a transitory element of my philosophy and not the main focus, but I can answer that by saying that the essentials of survival would be met with new automated facilities created by government. The ultimate focus thereafter is on the idea of distributism; "private property spread as widely as possible", only outside of the medieval setting the philosophy was first proposed under and within a technological paradigm that fulfills it more effectively. This is a "techno-distributism". Miniaturization of the means of production, desktop manufacturing, and hydroponic and aeroponic indoor farming may provide for personal needs with the granting of custody in land to all, with private ownership of the capital from or upon that land.

Automation of utilities is what will come first. The government can accelerate this process and build new lots for each community with more and more automated agricultural facilities, while private organizations may help.

To put this more succinctly, say that such a society does exist. How does a newborn ever make a life for themselves when they grow up? They have no robots to do their work for them, no land they can work for themselves (in order to buy a robot). The means of producing more robots are held privately, meaning that they'll have to convince someone to part with a robot--but how do they do that if the people being served by the fully automated means of production have all of their needs taken care of for them? In a world where no one needs anything, how do you convince anyone to part with the things you need to survive, if you don't have them?

Automated vertical farming facilities would be community owned new facilities. It's not about only having private property. It's about rendering public property less coercive through automation, and making the means of survival more compacted so that they may provide an independent private base. If you have a system in which humans direct the process but do not toil in struggling labor, because machines are doing all of the labor (including fixing other machines), then you have a system that can largely transcend money. Money is really there to bid for production and persuade people to labor, but you don't need to persuade machines with compensation; you simply set them to task with enough energy and resources to work with and systems good enough to navigate their way through what you want them to do.

Basically, welfare from the government is rendered freer from the tax mechanism, and it is used to supply people's needs, which are on the base of the system more and more possible for individual control for personal needs. This is collective property for that which is general, in addition to any higher capitalism that may remain (likely little), with individualist distributed private property as the base for that which is specific to the individual, and to provide choice by limiting dependance on government and corporations. The government will be there if needed, but much less so.

But let's suppose that society passes a law granting everyone some robots and land and whatnot--what about disasters? Let's say that the coastal half of a state gets wrecked by a hurricane. Does that just remain a de-industrialized wasteland for years until the residents can somehow scrape together enough mercy from the rest of the country to get some more robots?

It depends on the stage we're at. If robots cannot yet do all of the tasks of a human, including building more robots, then we'd use government to provide welfare here. If we're at the stage where machines can be directed to produce more, then it is actually trivial for them to be gifted more machines, since it costs virtually nothing to give them away as the value of money is sidelined. The only cost is the resources and energy required to create one more machine, rather than a monetary access cost. The resource cost will be reduced massively by the finding of more uses for common materials (carbon has already shown this: graphene and nanotubes are possible for batteries, transistors, and structure), which are extremely abundant in the Earth. The energy cost will be reduced massively when nuclear fusion is achieved. Although energy usage will increase, it's still instructive that fusion processes from seawater can provide energy for billions of years at current consumption levels after we can break even on them.

From a practical standpoint, how does capitalism work for the people who don't own the capital if there is no wage employment model? Straight up welfare for everyone? I can't see the capitalists going for that. A capitalism that would accept such a solution is a capitalism very far divorced from what we have historically seen.

Capitalism (in its current form at least) does not work if labor is replaced with capital. At first you get gains (as we've seen), but eventually the job losses that come with automation mean that too few people have the disposable income necessary to drive the consumption necessary to maintain profits. This automation is occurring anyway, but capitalists can't leap over the gap there easily. This is why the government (and any private parties that are interested) need to put money into automation and things like vertical farming so we can make the transition as peacefully as possible by setting up new community infrastructure of this type as technology matures. The capitalists will have to realize they are being sidelined, but their choices are to join in the new paradigm, or rule over stagnation by force, and the second option is entirely opposed by me.

That seems inherently contradictory. How do you have private ownership of the means of production if the owners of the means of production have no control over it? What's the point of that? Are you using some odd definition of ownership or capitalism other than private ownership--control--over the means of production?

You're confusing my stance on new community owned large scale automated facilities, with my stance on the further stage of decentralizing and miniaturizing means of production so that each person may have productive capacity in their abode (eventually in the form of robots). This does not override community ownership, but becomes some base of dependance outside a system requiring loyalty and honesty. The most efficient distribution for the individual is no distribution at all, as they own everything they need to survive comfortably in person, free from outside administration, even if there is still community backup in cases of accident.

Private property, by definition, requires oppressing everyone else. Literally, property that is private necessarily requires that others be excluded from controlling it. When you claim something to be private, you are prohibiting others from controlling it. That's a very wide sort of oppression.

Exclusion is not automatically oppression. Are you excluding people from their means of survival or are you excluding them from messing around with yours? That is always the question we have to ask in each case.

Even in communism, it has been admitted in this thread that the socialized ownership of small means of production is of a more spiritual, idealistic sort, than of a practical one. If the workman is not administered his hammer and can hang on to it, if there is no one who can administer who it shall go to for other people's uses but him, then what you have is private ownership. If on the other hand, there is some social deliberation (as would be practical in a co-operative), then the choice is not his and you have socialized property.

Exclusion isn't just a problem for private property, but for that which is collectivized, because not everybody can use everything at once, and if somebody isn't using something right now, they might not have finished with it. This requires administration.

[Leninist]

Can I just go and live in a hut and grow potatoes in a plot and we're all cool, or do I have to do anything?

The current authoritarian capitalist states prevent me from doing this, but under communism can I homestead a tiny little out of the way plot that's not harming anyone cause I'm just a guy not a massive factory? What if I want to better my living conditions a little and compensate some person for things I might need to get by? Is there some non-money based compensation that would be approved? Some kind of work in kind? You dig me a well, and I'll do something for you for the same amount of time it took you to dig my well, and if I renege, the community sneers and I don't get much help anymore. I could live with that.

What about the socialist mode transition? Marxist-Leninism was the big one before, and in practice they came up with shit like forced grain requisition to meet quotas. Some people nicked off into the wilderness, but they pretty much had to hide from the state.

After the capitalist powers are defeated, (or if the ancoms are right, worker consciousness topples them in a worldwide revolution), and the state withers away, I can pretty much do my own thing, and finally have the freedom to have land without rent upon which I can grow my own food and support myself and freely compensate so long as I do not exploit in wage labor though.

Right?

Under communism, ideally most people will want to work for society, want to cooperate and improve their standard of living. But, in my opinion, I don't doubt that if you really can't stand society, and the therapists and psychologists can't figure out what your problem is, than yeah do what you want. Frankly I like idea of people who simply go out and spend their lives thinking and doing nothing that productive (philosophers) should have a place in communist society. They'd have to write a book or teach a class every once in a while to prove they aren't just free riding, but whatever.