Item — HN Reader

You know, what's funny is that we'll never be sure if that's the case[0]. What guarantee is there that the median socialist voter wouldn't vote for more work for everyone because they want fancier tvs, or more dazzling musical spectacles, or fancier video games, bigger homes, etc? What if society doesn't democratically vote for idleness and quality of life / tranquility?

[0] I mean unless there's a real and successful socialist revolution.

3 comments

Well there are worker co-ops. Lots of farming is as co-operatives. Sunkist is a cooperative, for instance. https://growers.sunkist.com/

It's a cooperative for owners, not workers. A lot of cooperatives in the US exist for owners.

What if the workers actually controlled the factory and not a commissar sent by central planning? There are lots of different ways to do this.

For central planning, one proposal I saw offered that the workers could be organized into sectoral unions that participate as a sector in government. This weight and common interest allows them to counter the weight of voters that ask for too much. It's also large enough of an agglomeration that the workers still represent society as a whole to a great degree.

Well, we have one big agglomeration in the US for policing workers. That hasn't led to positive results for society.

I'm not sure what you're talking about? The police?

The police.

Fancier TVs are not going to make their ~miserable~ (edit: too heavy word) lifes more meaningful. That's what capitalism has made you believe in order to keep you in its chains voluntarily.

Sitting 8+ hours at desk plus few more in a car only to get home and continue sitting in front of a fancy TV. And you call this advanced society or civilisation?