It's not someone asking for communism, just for the return of a more healthy capitalism where everyone has a chance to invest, as opposed to some sort of feudalism where private ownership of strategic companies becomes more common, monopoly is the goal of every owner, and competition is seen as a harmful.
This capitalism of yesterday was also a key part of protecting us from people being enrolled in totalitarian world views: people used to say "when trade doesn't cross borders, armies will". Now, with that monopoly/concentrated economy mindset, the thinking in the US has shifted to "we must cross borders to secure our interests".
Calling it communism is the kind of fucked up newspeak supporting less capitalism rather than more.
I understand the risk of falling on the deaf ears, but where from comes the idea that communism is the opposite (or less of) capitalism and not an unattainable global maximum of it instead?
Planned economy as practiced by all vertically integrated monopolies may be the opposite of free market and the biggest attempt at communism was just that, but it's not the core idea of it.
> I understand the risk of falling on the deaf ears
Always good to cast yourself as unheard in your first sentence.
> where from comes the idea that communism is the opposite (or less of) capitalism
No one said they're opposite, but no one reasonably claims they're compatible. Communists, quite simply, want means of production to be collectively owned. There's a lot of debate among communists about what collective means, but no one reasonably claims that collective means "private ownership".
>There's a lot of debate among communists about what collective means, but no one reasonably claims that collective means "private ownership".
I dunno about the communists, but to me everybody owning shares of the company they work for sounds like collective ownership of the means of production. We could maybe argue about the threshold around which it becomes or stops being literal communism, because I don't this important KPI of ours in the article.
> I understand the risk of falling on the deaf ears, but where from comes the idea that communism is the opposite (or less of) capitalism and not an unattainable global maximum of it instead?
From literally every piece of communist theory/philosophy ever (okay, well, “opposite” is too strong, “radical response against and rejection of the basic premsies of", though...)
I mean, communism can be envisioned as sort of the maximum endpoint of a direction of change away from feudalism where capitalism is the first step, but...
I mean I get it, the Cold War was between capitalism and communism if you ask US and we were sure which side won until the last November, but.
The core idea is just what the article is advertising -- the person to see most benefit of their work is the one doing the work. Having enough shares of the company you are working for and high enough taxes to pay for nuking american fascists if needed is a) good approximation of it b) isn't just the opposite of what most of the supposedly capitalistic countries are doing, but is also a very good approximation of what they are supposedly doing.
Incidentally, you might find Sheen's "Communism and the Conscience of the West"[0] eye opening.
Wojtyła had similar things to say, which surprises people, because during the Cold War, he was seen as staunchly anti-communist - which he was - and the triumphant general responsible for toppling it, but his critiques and warnings concerning liberalism/capitalism were conveniently ignored or overlooked.
This doesn't sound like communism to me. Rather it sounds like an attempt to proselytize capitalism. The stated purpose of the book is to "to create an elevated vision for capitalism in which everyone gets richer from capital". The author goes on to state that they are researching things like equity incentive structures and profit sharing models.
Capitalism is all about aligning incentives. Those of us who have experienced startups know just how important it is to have your employees aligned with the interests of the company in the form of equity grants. I've always personally wondered why this isn't more common outside of Silicon Valley. I respect the goal of researching these topics more deeply.
>Those of us who have experienced startups know just how important it is to have your employees aligned with the interests of the company in the form of equity grants.
I actually experienced two successful startups (one YC funded even), stayed few years past acquisition in both, seen those rsu and such, and also seen communism with my eyes a little bit. I had some close relatives who paid party fees to soviet communist party for about half a century too, true believers if you can say so. Heard the stories, recognize the pitch.
It does sound very much familiar to me. Maybe RSU grants work a little better compared to having a trade union or a literal commune, more transactional maybe, more appropriate for inherently bourgeoise knowledge work as opposed to working on a steel mill, but I have a deep suspicion it's all the same both in intent and sometimes in the end results too.
I don't want to be the one, but did you actually read the article? Author is talking about "vision for the future of capitalism", "create an elevated vision for capitalism", and "project about creating more owners", so if anything it's like neo-capitalism or something, nowhere near communism if you have proper understanding of the concept.
You can make another step forward to reduce overheard and put all the shares of those owners into a holding company, vote for the managing person of it and you will pretty much get soviet union. The rest of the soviet union you will have to grow in process of such transformations to deal with marginal ill effects of it.
If you're somehow under the belief that the Soviet Union was an implementation of communism, I'm sad to inform you it wasn't. The Soviet Union was run by the state, not the workers, there was a strict class structure in place, instead of a classless society and it was controlled in a top-down authoritarian manner, not by empowering the workers.
Having a manager as you describe is quite explicitly the opposite than what communism argues for.
You're kind of the person who went off-topic here. Parent's point was that what's suggested in the article is communism, then you start involving the Soviet Union for some reason, although it has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
I believe those things are all connected to both the discussion and the article at hand. Denying existence of a connection between the idea of collective ownership posed in the article with practical examples of attempt at collective ownership and problems that come with it, I think is ideologically motivated.
Understanding pathological cases is especially important and having ideological bias against communism could be as dangerous as the opposite.
Been listening to All-In podcast and they've been talking like this - its really amusing to see them (and this author) get excited by what are essentially taxes with a different narrative (i.e. US sovereign wealth fund, give cash to US citizens to invest in S&P, NASDAQ, crypto to give them skin in the game).
The infrastructure for this is already there, it just needs to be rebranded and given a new narrative to make it acceptable for both the billionaire class. Instead of calling it taxes and social security, redistributive policies should be rebranded as patriotic profit sharing with the US government.
The US government's job would still be to pool resources to provide educated employees for companies to hire, well functioning transportation systems for companies to use, rule of law for companies to benefit from and pensions systems/basic healthcare for company employees/retirees.
In exchange for access to this US infrastructure, US and foreign corporations operating in the US would contribute to the US Freedom Dividend which will be shared across Americans to provide a baseline standard of living and allow them to invest to have skin in the game.
To get companies and wealthy individuals to willing participate in redistributive policies it seems we just need to avoid messaging it as punitive and/or as retribution for being successful (i.e. the Elizabeth Warren/AOC approach). We need to reframe it in language they speak - patriotism and profit sharing - and reframe them as the heroes for funding all the infrastructure and not the enemies.
I think there would be mind shift among the populace if they actually had more of a clear map as well from S&P500 companies winning and their own pocketbooks benefitting.
The chunk of the economy you own should be proportionate to the amount you contributed to growing the economy. In modern, functioning economies, this is more or less the case.
The idea that inequality will lead to lopsided political power hasn't yet been proven. If the 100 richest Americans decided who was president, it would be someone like Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg -- not Donald Trump.
People who focus so much on inequality should rethink their priorities. Actually, living in a highly unequal economy is fine as long as:
>People who focus so much on inequality should rethink their priorities. Actually, living in a highly unequal economy is fine as long as.
I don't think anybody cares much about the inequality itself (if anything, most people to care actually benefit from it), but apparent positive feedback loop that converts more wealth into more political power into more wealth, which seems to undermine first caveat you mentioned and also apparent erosion of the second at the same time.
"If the 100 richest Americans decided who was president, it would be someone like Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg -- not Donald Trump."
That's an interesting question. I haven't seen a poll of the richest US citizens. Which is odd, considering our general obsession with wealth. I suspect that, between Harris and Trump, the 100 richest would go for Trump.
You've not interacted the kool-aid drinkers. C.Yarvin is doing some sith lord 'mind to pudding' on these folk. Reason is out the window when 'rationality' walks in the door.
It's a testable theory. I personally would love to see a poll that breaks down support by wealth. But of course, that's not enough. The presidential winner isn't the person who gets the most votes, it's the person who gets the majority of the majority of states. So we'd need a breakdown on wealth & residency to get an accurate view. This is important, because the top 10% in Alabama probably wouldn't be in the top 10% in New Jersey.
No idea who they'd support. But if I was a gambling man I'd put my money on Trump in that poll as well.
Capital (as in "money", not the means of production) is, boiled down, a means of social compulsion. I can compel a person to make me a sandwich with $10, and should they refuse very many times, they will be put into a position of jeopardy, with less access to food, shelter, medical services, hygiene, etc. In our culture, capital is like a whip to a horse and buggy.
Putting more capital into more people's pockets is like putting more whips into more people's hands. It does not address the root cause of the problem.
Many obligations are dominated in local currency, as such, we must acquire local currency to discharge those obligations.
To a certain extent, being able to rent a flat that someone else has built is a carrot -- a luxury -- but to a certain extent, anti-vagrancy laws mean that there are whips -- consequences -- that I may incur but not having a flat. Social norms are constructed, but they are still real.
Can civilization work without social compulsion? I think our fear that it can’t, or our belief that the only way to compel people is the threat of punishment, is what keeps these dynamics alive.
I reject the phrasing of the OP. It's not compulsion. As a human being, I need food, shelter, etc. to live. To acquire these things, I must labor. Where's the compulsion in that? This is a category mistake.
Compulsion is in the amount of labor you need to perform, because you have to provide for food, shelter, etc for yourself and also make sure the rich have the riches, military has fancy toys and billionaries can play in colonization of mars.
Plus "If we don’t do something about it we could lose democracy. We already are. "
I assume she is referring to the attempts to remove Donald Trump from various State ballots in 2024, making it harder for people who would have wanted to vote for him to do so. Not quite as far as happened in Romania of course.
>If we don’t do something about it we could lose democracy.
I love how people are still pretending like this didn't happen already. If you think there are going to be elections in 2028, you are gravely mistaken.
But as an aside, the issue isn't necessarily the wealth inequality, its the fact that the average person in US enjoys a relatively good life. This is why most of US didn't show up to vote in 2024. This creates a catch 22 situation, because people enjoy this level of life, and are going to elect leaders that will let them continue to live this way, not realizing that this is not sustainable. Which automatically makes them reject any leaders that are attempting to fix the problems that are slowly created, because those solutions means either less freedoms or less money in the short term (even if it means more money or more freedoms in the long term).
I dunno what the solution to this is really, and nobody does. You can argue that strong authoritarian control by the right coalition could fix this, but then the question becomes "how do make enough people believe that they don't deserve the freedoms that they had in order to put trust in that coalition"
Oh, you will have election a-okay, it's not that modern dictatorships don't care to do the dance. The problem is the deep suspicion of who will win them forming 4 years in advance.
>I love how people are still pretending like this didn't happen already. If you think there are going to be elections in 2028, you are gravely mistaken.
My guess- US coordinates with China on the timing of Taiwan's takeover. Trump then argues he can't very well step down in the middle of a war.
I mean, if I knew you in person, Id probably take 70:30 odds on a bet that there wouldn't be a fair election in 2028. Online its pretty pointless, as I can fake any evidence of me betting one way or another, and so can you.
Even then, if I win, the money is going to be pointless as US dollar will tank hard.
> Even then, if I win, the money is going to be pointless as US dollar will tank hard.
You could always short the dollar, I guess?
I suspect Trump's policies will tank the dollar and thereby cause a swing against the Republicans larger than the most likely novice attempts by anyone in the US attempting to interfere with the election.
I don't think "being a dictatorship" will, by itself, put off investors. Only actual economic harm will do that.
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