Debating Unlearning Economics on Socialism and Worker Democracy 

Also, sorry for dominating twitch chat the whole time, LOL. Did a lot of explaining to soc dems about worker democracy.

I had a lot of fun with it! And no worries about dominating the chat haha

Which is fine. Until your local Socialist union are literally waving the hammer and sickle, and literally wearing Che shirts. You can't claim "USSR wasn't real socialism" while waving a red flag.

That is one of the lefts biggest problems in my view. "We" can't stop bickering about small details, that in the bigger picture should be dealt with later.

Even Karl Marx hadn't tried to provide an "universal" answer for this dillema.

I think I’m getting better

Agreed! He's a great conversationalist.

Thank you so much!

Thumbnail vs video contrast is comic

I didn’t hear no bell

Truuuuue

I had a fun time!

It was fun!

I refute that. They were hostile takeovers by militant groups and the reason they turned out dictatorial was because they established themselves as dictators.

I mean, the first thing Stalin did was send all the leaders of unions to gulags… if Jeff Bezos could do that right now… he would

They were socialist in ideal, but they were not democratic in the slightest sense. And not because they socialist, but because of the structural power of the ruling class that was disproportionate to the working class historically.

@@MM-vs2et socialism is just democracy brought to the economy. So any economic system that isn’t democratic isn’t socialist. They may call themselves socialists… like the Nazis did, doesn’t make it true

@@MM-vs2et yeah, we can say the USA have it much much worst than that nowadays, corporate bribes for abstaining/pushing politics are legal, it's called lobby, sooooooo democratic in the whole sense. You can choose neoliberalism painted red or blue yet never to change politics democratically and benefit the working class. USA is democratic in ideal but not in practice, just ask the rest of the fucking world about it.

Yeah, it would be far more interesting to plot co-op percentage as a function of transnational capital component of the business. Like go from companies that are 100% transnational capital to 0% transnational capital. Like if you removed all companies that have 50% or greater of transnational capital, I imagine the percentage of co-ops would go up a lot; and this would be a far better representation of how the regions policies are effecting the market it connects with.

THIS!

Turnover can be good though. No turnover might mean creation of new ideas and the movement through the hierarchy stagnates. Think of vacancy with housing. Having 0 vacancy is not good, but have a vacancy of 1 is just as awful.

@@alecstewart2612 The question was not whether it was good or not, whatever that might mean, but that it shows a lower employee satisfaction with working there. So while you may or may not have a point,, it is not relevant to the point I have made.

@@MassDefibrillator Are you talking about companies ran by workers or systems of government like Yugoslavia? Worker democracies is kind of unspecific

Isn't that just inherent to the system? That it's much more of a hassle to switch jobs so it happens less.

Holy shit my friend, you're spitting

@@jessicalindo7977 I just like writting thoughts down.

EU does keep pushing us in Norway to privatizing things. This may not be something everyone here disagrees should be done, but when the EU pushes and gives us pre-made models for privatization of national services it certainly helps any internal political forces that are already pushing for that to get their will.

@@sayaks12 sure, but that's not the same as laws against nationalized industries, nor is it a sign of a dealbreaker in potential EU-Norway acession talks.

@@EusebiusAT Norway being semi-in the EU is changing the politics of Norway to be more aligned with the EU's neoliberal policies. If Norwegian politicians and parties managed to avoid this influence somehow, then yes joining the EU fully could be good. But the fact of the matter is that the EU has a lot of soft power here. The EU doesn't outright ban nationalized industries because it doesn't have to, it can use soft power to enforce its will. Norway has a veto-right on any policies the EU wishes to enact in Norway, and we've used it exactly once (to avoid privatizing postal services, something which was later done anyway). I'm not saying that without the EU this wouldn't have happened, but the EU does keep ratcheting us in the direction of privatizing industry. It's easy to privatize and hard to nationalize. One example is the Fourth Railway Package, Norway could have said no to it in advance (we have the veto) but we didn't. And now that it's implemented we cannot now withdraw from it. The fourth railway package mandates competition in the railway sector. Of course if Norway joined we could possibly use our influence in the european parliament to try to undo it there. but fact of the matter is that the policy is in place and it mandates some degree of privatization of railways in the EU. I believe any exceptions Norway would be given in any talks like this would have a similar form. They would allow Norway to preserve existing institutions, provide a path to privatize the institutions in the future when Norway wanted, but no path to nationalizing privatized industries. I'm also very skeptical that it's possible to reform the EU to make it lose these tendencies towards privatization and neoliberalism.

Lmao, the internet has ruined me

Might be worth a stream!

@@Econoboi yea for sure, I saw multiple different reasons, but I heard shit about gas companies wanting more money, the war, middle east decreased production, etc would be cool to see what you say.

Most socialists didn't read Marx. Like people who say communism has nothing to do with socialism. Like bruh. Literally the whole point of his theory.

international trade and workshops/manufactories aren't capitalism this is like saying that right now socialism and capitalism coexist in some countries because they have worker coops and unions

​@@richardvlasek2445Bruh that is literally valid. Also you're pulling "no true Scotsman" again. There are socialist economies in the world. They are 20-person farming communes. But they exist.

Agreed! People have funny ideas about the UK. Even if Corbyn had ran on a policy of withdrawing from NATO Labour MPs would never have voted on it anyway, the UK doesn't have a President!

@@jascu4251 Yup exactly

They do, up to a certain point, but that point is almost certainly higher than the current minimum wage in the United States. This is due to labor market concentration and job search costs.

@@anthonytom-duyquang3558 Then why did an increase in minimum wage, in Seattle, cause a decrease in The earnings of workers?

@@kallerokanen8979 An increase to $15 there would cause the minimum wage to become 64.8% of the median wage, which wouldn't be too far from the maximum 60%, which wouldn't cause too much unemployment. But you're free to give me the study that led you to that conclusion.

@@anthonytom-duyquang3558 im just gonna copy The Wikipedia paragraph here, they put it far better than i do: The University of Washington published a study called "Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence from Seattle" which focuses on evaluating the effects of the 2015 increase of the minimum wage to $11 per hour and the additional increase to $13 in 2016 on citywide employment and the number of hours worked.[7] This paper examines the impacts the minimum wage increases had on all low wage employees across different industries and worker demographics in the state of Washington. This paper uses data from Washington's Employment Security Department, which collects quarterly payroll records for all employees paid wages in the state of Washington. Employers are obligated to report the number of hours worked by their employees. This data allowed the University of Washington to calculate average hourly wages and to identify the jobs and industries that have been affected by the increases to the minimum wage.[7] The University of Washington came to the conclusion that the increase of the minimum wage from $11 to $13 reduced the numbers of hours worked by employees in low paying jobs by 9% while simultaneously increasing the hourly wages of these jobs by 3%. It was calculated that the minimum wage ordinance reduced low wage workers' earning by $125 on average in 2016. The study concluded that increasing the minimum wage has reduced the employment opportunities for low income workers.[7] As far as i know, this is The only study from Seattle that looks at all low income workers, not just specific sectors.

@@kallerokanen8979 The same team that did that study actually made another one titled "Minimum wage increases and individual employment trajectories." It showed a slowdown in new hiring for low-wage jobs, the 8% reduction in turnover rates, and a $10 raise in earnings each week on average. So the evidence in Seattle, at least by that team of researchers is actually more mixed. Either way, I believe an increase of minimum wages to 60% of the median wages in each state would be ideal.

Vaush and Hassan are cowards, Econoboi also knows this lol.

good god

Lmfao, at least three of those are terrible people to get economic advice from

i mean most of the questions asked were ideological in nature

What do you mean by that? May you give me an example?

The Economy is inherently ideological.

@@avinashreji60 That's reductive.... The economy follows, empirically, from a fundamental motivation of using resources (materials, labor and technology) to aquire more resources via trade, further driven by insentives, and finally moderated by governmental & private regulations. If you want to say it is ideological because it is capitalism, or not socialist, it misses the complexities and the data-driven decisions that realize the current economy.

@@nilsen93 what materials to use, how labor is displaced or aided with technology, how other countries trade, incentives are all ideological. You’re making it seem like today’s economy is simply just pure “laws of nature” when that is sweeping under the rug the centuries of tremendous struggle between groups in society

My impression is that he supports the ideas of georgism, socialist policies as well. I heavily doubt he supports a social democracy that contains the main critique of social democracy. 1. The degredation of social programs with private capital gaining influence and more power over time 2. the exploitation of the global south

I’m really sorry you didn’t have your opinions regurgitated back at you

No need to apologize. Ultimately I disagree with some of the sentiments espoused in this video and my comment reflected that. @@whosthatguy8396

Typical "Centrist". Read some Latin American history. Particularly US involvement

Look up the Paris commune, Spanish CNT, the Zapatistas, Vietnam, Chile under Allende. There's also dozens of instances where a socialist was democratically elected only to have western forces either directly invade or sabotage that nations entire democracy to install their own puppet dictator. Such sweeping blanket statements are either uneducated remarks or trying to score some sort of gotcha, which comes across as disingenuous and won't lead to healthy earnest discussion. It can also be argued that most liberal democracies we have now are a sham. Where democratic agency of the people is often limited to choosing between a red neoliberal or a blue neoliberal and capitalists will always have more bargaining power and greater means to directly influence the government outside of democratic process.

@@MrOzzification okay, not every single socialist nation is a dictatorship. But the vast majority throughout history are. And some of the socialist nations that were overthrown by CIA were actually already one party dictatorships as well. Some were so early that it's hard to know if they would have gone in that direction or not. So I won't speculate. There is a startling trend within socialism that seems to predispose it towards authoritarianism. And pretending this isn't the case is deeply disingenuous imo. And is something socialists need to contend with and give actual answers to. As for the dictatorships that were sponsored by the US, they were also deeply evil and wrong. But they don't refute the idea that the vast majority of socialist states turn into authoritarian regimes. So it's a bit of a whataboutism and deflection. As for the last point about democracy. I think the broader issue is that psychopaths in power want absolute power and any government structure can be corrupted. Just some more easily than others. A military junta that has exclusive control of the government is ripe for abuse. A one party socialist nation is quite similar in that the power of the government often falls into a few people or even just one person's hands. Democracy, or republics, can obviously be abused and corrupted. But due to the cycle of voting, the way regular people can interact within government, the splitting of government branches (senate, house, legislature etc), it's much more difficult for these kinds of governments to reach dictator levels of abuse. It's not that it can't happen, but it's much harder. This is why people fight to preserve such states and deeply scrutinize the governments actions, in an effort to weed out corruption. I'm not ignorant, though I do appreciate I was being overly general. But this nitpicky, whataboutism is also massively disingenuous imo and doesn't refute the idea that a good 80%, if not more, of the time socialist states turn into brutal dictatorships. They wreak untold havoc on the people they rule over, not just with their authoritarian ways but with massive economic instability leaving many to starve and doe in poverty while the party live in luxury. They often come into power promising the world, and are "loved by the people" but it usually only takes a year or two before the people are destitute and decimated by inflation and other logistical, economic and policy crisis. Why is it, when anyone mentions these things that socialists can not take an honest look at their ideology? I'm not saying socialism or Marxism is inherently evil. I think the intentions are good. I think some ideas have value. Yet the huge flaws are out there for all to see, yet almost every socialist is in massive denial about it. Why? If these questions remain unanswered then socialism will never change and the cycle will continue and the ideology will be shunned and demonized forever. So, think carefully

@@basedcentrist3056 I'm not a socialist but in every case where a country has gone socialist (under pretty much any definition) are there any which were previously functioning stable democracies? Not saying that stable democracies would be immune from becoming autocracies, but as far as I know pretty much any country that went socialist was either a) already pretty autocratic, or b) invaded

@@basedcentrist3056 I love how this dude hits you up with specific examples and all you can do is concern troll and use a billion Weasel words

You should watch SDL and Mouthy Infidel. They're also economically literate.

Average Econ 101 understander over here

How could anyone have radical views on economy >>>:

Left-leaning economists exist. From what others have already mentioned there's also Richard Wolff as well as Ha-Joong Chang, author of "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" But yeah, this comment reads as disingenuous

@@MrOzzification ?? There's a difference between being left-leaning and a socialist. As for the few prominent ones, Wolff is like the worst example, as he's so misinformed on so many economic aspects you start to wonder if it's intentional, whether it's him being clueless as to how the stock market works, or how he constantly mischaracterizes the few co-ops he praises, despite being corrected numerous times. Even UE knew better than that. Not too familiar with Chang but I was under the impression that he was a left leaning liberal, not a socialist. The 1 or 2 things I've heard about him is that he advocates for social democracy, rather than some socialist utopia. Can't really talk about Mouthy since he blocks everyone on twitter even if they never interacted with him (presumably for liking people challenging him). About 99% of the things I see from SDL is him debunking common leftie talking points and making fun of tankies, so I'm not sure what he's left with and after his sexual harassment allegations, he's not really active outside twitter.