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Is the Future Socialist?


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Old Yesterday, 14:35
Tassium
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Just looking at the rise of Artificial Intelligence to replace people in many "middle-class" job areas.

Companies will no doubt do this as the technology becomes available, just as they did with "working class" jobs.

Which political mantra will resonate with the public?
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Old Yesterday, 15:28
Tassium
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I'm no history buff, but it seems that The Labour Party became increasingly irrelevant because there were not enough "exploited masses" to vote for them.

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics seems likely to change all that.
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Old Yesterday, 15:48
paulschapman
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Just looking at the rise of Artificial Intelligence to replace people in many "middle-class" job areas.

Companies will no doubt do this as the technology becomes available, just as they did with "working class" jobs.

Which political mantra will resonate with the public?
No. Science is a long way from a generalised AI - specific tasks maybe replaced.

The movement if anything is away from centralisation, to more bottom up decentralised system.

Indeed take energy generation - I suspect what we will see is micro-generation becoming a large part of people's energy consumption with the excess sold to the grid.
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Old Yesterday, 19:01
GreatGodPan
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I'm no history buff, but it seems that The Labour Party became increasingly irrelevant because there were not enough "exploited masses" to vote for them.

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics seems likely to change all that.
A large number of those who don't regard themselves as exploited are. They seem to think it is only the blue collar, manual workers who can be so.

The typical exploited worker today probably works in an office of some description.
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Old Yesterday, 19:10
MartinP
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A large number of those who don't regard themselves as exploited are. They seem to think it is only the blue collar, manual workers who can be so.

The typical exploited worker today probably works in an office of some description.
Am I exploited?
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Old Yesterday, 19:12
John146
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Do you as a worker own the means of production? if not your exploited
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Old Yesterday, 19:15
GreatGodPan
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Couldn't tell you - I don't know what position you hold.

Many in banking are, of course.
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Old Yesterday, 19:20
GreatGodPan
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Do you as a worker own the means of production? if not your exploited
Good point - although it is slightly more complicated than that.

Most self-employed people earn very little for instance, and suffer the same travails as employees on a low wage.
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Old Yesterday, 19:36
johnny_boi_UK
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Ideally it likely would be some sort of utopian society, who knows what will happen in reality
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Old Yesterday, 19:56
MartinP
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Couldn't tell you - I don't know what position you hold.

Many in banking are, of course.
What by you mean by position? I am not the CEO, but a reasonably well-paid employee.

What are the "means of production" in a Bank?

Am I exploited?
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Old Yesterday, 20:09
Mark_Jones9
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Ideally it likely would be some sort of utopian society, who knows what will happen in reality
Hopefully nothing like Sir Thomas More's original vision of Utopia.
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Old Yesterday, 20:11
GreatGodPan
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What by you mean by position? I am not the CEO, but a reasonably well-paid employee.

What are the "means of production" in a Bank?

Am I exploited?
I would have thought that is a simple question - all people have positions in a company.

Exploitation is not just dependent on lack of ownership of the MoP (their boss may not own them either), but a person on £50k could be seen as being exploited if their company makes £10m a year out of them in my view.
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Old Yesterday, 20:20
Mark_Jones9
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I would have thought that is a simple question - all people have positions in a company.

Exploitation is not just dependent on lack of ownership of the MoP (their boss may not own them either), but a person on £50k could be seen as being exploited if their company makes £10m a year out of them in my view.
Is not all waged labour employed to make a profit exploitation?
The employee a resource exploited by the capitalist to make profit.
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Old Yesterday, 20:21
MartinP
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I would have thought that is a simple question - all people have positions in a company.
But why does it make any difference if I am a head of a department, deputy head, manager or staff member? Which positions in a company are "exploited"?

Exploitation is not just dependent on lack of ownership of the MoP (their boss may not own them either), but a person on £50k could be seen as being exploited if their company makes £10m a year out of them in my view.
How about it they are on £50k but the company made a loss? Is the employee exploiting the company?

Many people in a company are just in a cost centre rather than a profit centre so it's not possible to assign revenue from let's say a finance function so how will that work?
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Old Yesterday, 20:24
MartinP
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Is not all waged labour employed to make a profit exploitation?
The employee a resource exploited by the capitalist to make profit.
Yes but GGP knows this makes even less sense if we are talking about Bankers on a few million pounds a year.
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Old Yesterday, 22:15
jasmin_witkins
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Socialism is failed experiment, just look at state of health care in Easterern Europe. Freedom of movement has ment the qualified doctors are leaving and not being replaced. All
thanks to socialists in the EU.
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Old Yesterday, 22:51
Brigon
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Socialism is inevitable and has to happen in the event of mass unemployment due to the development of robotics and AI.

Guaranteed basic income, low working hours, and more time spent on leisure and hobbies, are the only alternative the public will support when the capitalist alternative would force mass unemployment, starvation and homelessness across the populace.

If half the population is unemployed the only way to support the populace is to raise taxes on businesses, or take businesses into public ownership and reduce the prices to the level the lower earning population can afford to pay.

Cost of production would be low enough to provide goods and services at those low prices due to the lower levels of staffing required to provide them, and businesses not in public ownership could afford to pay those extra taxes, and still make suitable profits.
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Old Today, 03:20
scowie
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Socialism is failed experiment, just look at state of health care in Easterern Europe. Freedom of movement has ment the qualified doctors are leaving and not being replaced. All
thanks to socialists in the EU.
All thanks to right wing governments like ours who decided that, instead of expensively training our own doctors we should just pilfer them from abroad where they've been trained more cheaply. Despite pilfering many we have found that there aren't enough of them willing to make the move over here and hence we have a healthcare crisis right now.

Oh, and the only reason that socialism has failed is the economic warfare that the dominant capitalists have waged against it.
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Unread Today, 09:30
paulschapman
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I would have thought that is a simple question - all people have positions in a company.

Exploitation is not just dependent on lack of ownership of the MoP (their boss may not own them either), but a person on £50k could be seen as being exploited if their company makes £10m a year out of them in my view.
According to Marx's theory, surplus value is equal to the new value created by workers in excess of their own labor-cost, which is appropriated by the capitalist as profit when products are sold - ergo these workers are 'exploited', and hence the problem you seem to have with 'profit' in the belief that this excess profit is rightly that of the workers.

Clearly exploitation happens - the cockleshell pickers who were made to work for a pittance in dangerous conditions and no thought to there safety - they are exploited. But for many people they are not - employment is a tacit agreement between the worker and the employer. We have rules which will alleviate some of the excesses of capitalism, and workers have the right to withdraw labour should that agreement fall down.

But as for socialism being the future - poppycock! There is not a single attempt at socialism which has created an equal society, nor one which has avoided shortages and poverty. These are the very things promised of it and none have delivered.

The only way you can make life better for people is from the bottom up - where individuals are free to create and sell goods with only enough control to ensure that too much power is not centred on a few. 150 years ago this was not the case as much of the finance was held by a few - now most people (at least in the Liberal West) have access to sufficient capital, that they are not always reliant upon a few.

Even in areas of extreme poverty - giving people the freedom to control their lives creates more opportunities than the controlling centralisation typical of attempts at socialism. That is what has happened with things like Funding Circle and it has made a material difference to people's lives for the better - they may not be as wealthy as the poorest in the West, but these people are better off.

The future may be uncertain and change the fastest it has ever been, we are going to see change - I can see fundamental changes in the tax and benefit system since the assumptions underpinning it are no longer true but Marxist/Leninist socialism is not the answer - it was a possible answer to the problems of 19th Century England, not of the 21st century.
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Unread Today, 10:08
GreatGodPan
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But why does it make any difference if I am a head of a department, deputy head, manager or staff member? Which positions in a company are "exploited"?



How about it they are on £50k but the company made a loss? Is the employee exploiting the company?

Many people in a company are just in a cost centre rather than a profit centre so it's not possible to assign revenue from let's say a finance function so how will that work?
The worker adds surplus value to the goods/ or the service they are supplying, out of which the employer makes his profit. If a manufacturer of convector heaters markets his goods solely in the tropics, and the the maker of ice making facilities targets the arctic communities how is it the fault of the workers that the company is likely not to make a profit?

The worker is a paid servant after all - they can only do what they are told.

The worker in an area of a company not designed to directly produce a profit will still have their salary assessed - a call centre operative wouldn't be paid £100k, but would probably be hired on the basis that many employers utilise : being paid the least sum that guarantees the recruiting of the required standard of staff.
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Unread Today, 10:09
GreatGodPan
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Socialism is failed experiment, just look at state of health care in Easterern Europe. Freedom of movement has ment the qualified doctors are leaving and not being replaced. All
thanks to socialists in the EU.
What?
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Unread Today, 10:23
MartinP
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The worker adds surplus value to the goods/ or the service they are supplying, out of which the employer makes his profit. If a manufacturer of convector heaters markets his goods solely in the tropics, and the the maker of ice making facilities targets the arctic communities how is it the fault of the workers that the company is likely not to make a profit?

The worker is a paid servant after all - they can only do what they are told.

The worker in an area of a company not designed to directly produce a profit will still have their salary assessed - a call centre operative wouldn't be paid £100k, but would probably be hired on the basis that many employers utilise : being paid the least sum that guarantees the recruiting of the required standard of staff.
Can you please answer my main question:

But why does it make any difference if I am a head of a department, deputy head, manager or staff member? Which positions in a company are "exploited"?

And what are the 'means of production' to own in Banking?
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