Pixelfed is the fedi equivalent, maybe make an account there and mastodon.

So socialism is only stable if the people, and especially those in power are happy.

That's true of any society, for the most part. Socialist countries do end up doing this much better than peer countries though. Also, in socialism, the working class is in power. Administrative positions exist, but they aren't unaccountable or anything.

Isn’t that the same concentration of power?

Not at all. Collectivization of production and distribution into one democratically run system does naturally follow from the groundwork paved by late stage capitalism, yes, but this collectivization also brings with it democratization of power.

Only in global communism. The charged workers don’t have to be the same as the producing workers.

I don't see how this relates to communism, moreover the working class as a whole is the class that produces and consumes. The company towns only worked somewhat because the commodities they produced were sold outside, making everything a company town wouldn't work.

I know. It could be futile to wait for the collapse.

Still don't see your point.

There can be circulation. People earn wages and buy commodities. It’s like socialism, just people get less because the capitalist get’s more than everybody else.

Not at all. Buying goods with money earned isn't the same as circulation of capital. Capital transmogrifies from money to productive commodities to produced commodities back into money in a grand expanding circuit, but without such a system you no longer have capitalism, and prices collapse. This "mega-capitalist" would be overthrown instantly and socialism or barbarism would take its place.

If all resources are available there is no need to sell abroad, or to buy fron there.

There is for profit. You're trying to create a weird utopian mega-capitalism that would, the instant it existed, collapse into socialism or barbarism.

Why is that inevitable?

A single person can't actually own the entire economy. They would be ousted instantly. This is the same kind of utopian thinking that powers anarcho-capitalists.

Why rely on it instead of building a ‘we’ on its own?

We don't, we rely on organizing. Capitalism's decay speeds up that process.

Top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is self actualization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%E2%80%99s_hierarchy_of_needs

Per wikipedia the link you gave: Although widely used and researched, the hierarchy of needs has been criticized for its lack of conclusive supporting evidence and its validity remains contested. There is no innate human desire for power, just improving our lives. Power doesn't foster a thirst for power.

How should they settle wages?

In a socialist economy, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. Wages are more strongly controlled via the administration, but until we get to a point where we can distribute according to need, we will distribute according to work, including variance for skill, danger, and intensity. See how socialist countries already settle wages.

UBI in a democracy could be possible.

Democracy and capitalism are incompatible. Any social reforms gained by the working classes in the context of an economy dominated by capitalists will inevitably be limited in factor to how the capitalists wish. Democracy is only compatible with socialism and communism, for the most part.

That’s a definition thing. They still have to trade and network.

They don't even need to do that, they pay people to do this. No value is created via ownership.

Which means the worker could be paid their full value while the profit comes from the buyer.

Workers are the buyers, except for luxury goods which are targeting capitalists, as well as industrial equipment, etc. Workers cannot be paid the full value of their labor and still have the capitalists profit. Your argument is that you can pay people more and charge more, but this is self-defeating again. Value isn't created by ownership, nor by charging monopoly prices.

If it does, the owners can still remain in power and continue the processes without external valorization.

This doesn't follow from capitalism being contradictory and unsustainable in the long run.

Give some people a nice distinctive hat and there is one.

Administration is not a distinct class, you're trying to conjure an economy with no circulation of capital yet where everyone will accept the ruler. This is just anarcho-capitalism with extra steps, in that it would collapse immediately.

Why is the context important if one owns everything?

Because capitalists over company towns essentially had semi-slave labor while selling their commodities abroad, to better paid workers and other capitalists, as well as purchasing goods from outside of the company town. Company towns weren't selling purely to their own workers.

Do the owners care if their control is not called capitalism anymore? Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to collapse.

It has to collapse if it is to remain capitalism, because the idea of a system where a single mega-capitalist owns everything in a closed system is one that has no opportunity for profit or gain, and so would immediately collapse into a socialist revolution.

Unless it is reset by war. Capitalists know how to keep workers occupied. There will never be so much pressure that the workers organize. To change things, workers must want it without suffering.

Workers have already successfully established socialism for billions of people, and as capitalism decays the suffering comes with it. Imperialism is collapsing and the rate of profit is falling.

Wouldn't surprise me

Yep, I agree! Thought it was a new article.

Venezuelan tankers are now escorted by the Venezuelan navy, so siezure would likely have meant open war instead of normal crimes against humaniity.

I included links to valid sites, as well as to entirely western sources. It sounds like, more than anything, you're upset with the facts at hand and how they are presented. A key example from yourself:

01/07/2021 The Verkhonva Rada adopted the law “On the indigenous peoples of Ukraine”, Russians were not included in the indigenous peoples

IT’S PROPAGANDA, BECAUSE: Russians are not classified as an indigenous people because they have an existing nation-state (the russian federation). This means that they are considered a national minority, the same as hungarians or romanians, and not an indigenous people. This is standard international practice.

Russians are the ones native to the Donbass region, which was added to Ukraine only a century ago. The fact that the Russian Federation exists does not mean that ethnic Russians aren't indigenous to the Donbass region, and as such deserve special protections, and certainly not the ethnic cleansing they are subject to.

Same with phrasing Ukraine's language laws as a ban. It isn't a lie, you're just more upset with those that take issue with Kiev cracking down on Russian speakers and are getting caught up in the phrasing. Ukraine is cracking down on Russians, and Russians were obviously upset. You're doing the same thing people who try to claim there's no systemic racism in the US because the laws don't explicitly target people of color.

As for the person you're defending, they admitted to being a Euronationalist:

A racist:

A dehumanizer of slavic people:

And defended their homophobia by saying I need to learn more about my own pansexuality:

You're defending an anti-communist, Euronationalist, homphobic racist. In other words, the archetypical fascist, who is in this case trying their best to minimize the crimes against humanity of a far-right neo-Nazi regime that is ethnically cleansing their territory of Russians.

I encourage everyone to be vigilant against propaganda, and to avoid falling into the gish gallop trap that is commonly used. Take a short amount of quality time to pick one lie or one distortion of the truth apart, then call the poster/commenter out on it to ensure it isn’t left unchallenged, then move on with your life.

I just did this for you, thanks for the advice!

There are blurred lines when it comes to the edges of class, but capitalists as a class are those that essentially make their profits by purchasing labor and raw materials, and selling the products of that labor and raw material in a market.

Power is not a mental need nor a physical one, it's a tool. Capitalism selects for those that can best get the most profits, ergo power is useful in achieving those ends. It isn't about making "good" decisions, but profitable ones.

Why do people want to rise in hierarchies? Not for money alone.

This is a cop-out answer. People don't have a natural desire to "rise in hierarchies." If that's the best way to improve your material conditions then people will desire to rise, not for an obsession over power or domination.

How to settle among different classes of workers?

If you mean between the peasantry and proletariat, the answer is to industrialize agriculture and fold everyone into the proletariat gradually (alongside collectivizing production and distribution to erase class). If you mean between, say, plumbers and engineers, those are the same class.

Only without UBI. If workers can walk away, they can ask for the value of their work and capitalists could only get the value of their own work.

Utter fantasy. UBI is just a form of social welfare, but with capitalists in charge of the state UBI will only exist in a manner that benefits capitalists. The state isn't above class struggle, but within it. Further, capitalists do not labor. The day to day management of companies is done by workers, capitalists contribute nothing but the fact that they legally own the tools.

No, capitalism is all about preventing competition. It’s liberal markets that need competition. With competition there are no profits above production costs. The profit of capitalists does not only come from underpaying workers but also from overpaying buyers.

Profit comes from underpaying workers. Profit is made by selling commodities for their value, which is made up of raw materials, tool usage, etc called "constant capital," and for wages, called "variable capital." Constant capital is crystallized prior labor, the profit comes from paying a worker for only a small portion of their labor time, regulated around cost of reproduction of labor (ie, minimum customary living standards). Monopoly prices raise the rate of profit, which is why companies try to seek monopoly, but they also need competition in order to keep circulation of commodities flowing for their own valorization of invested capital.

Capitalism kills itself, it's a contradictory system.

Commodities would still be bought by workers if there is only one capitalist. Earth would be one big mining town.

Think of it this way: If a single capitalist owned everything, then cost of goods collapses. There is no circulation anymore, only planned production and distribution, and absolutely no organized class for protecting said single capitalist. Capitalism would cease to function. Company towns only "worked" because they existed in the context of a grander market that the capitalists could get all that they wanted from.

If somebody owns everything they can command everything. Why would they need profits?

Because that is the driving basis for capitalism and material gain under it. That's why I'm saying that this hypothetical is impossible and would collapse immediately, just like anarcho-capitalism. It fundamentally misunderstands how capitalism works.

No. The left seems to look at workers and sees lack of organization. But the workers don’t see workers, they see apprentices, skilled workers, bosses, management. They see women and men, they see nations and races. There is no joined identity. There is hardly anybody who wants to be organized as a worker.

This is a very western viewpoint, and one that is increasingly incorrect. As capitalism decays, class awareness is rising alongside class struggle.

The only one to have "failed" is the USSR. Cuba, the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, and Laos are all still here today, and all are still socialist. China and Vietnam are absolutely Marxist-Leninist still, not sure what you mean by saying they aren't.

As for Reagan/Thatcher style neoliberalism, that isn't something brand new but a further evolution of existing capitalism and liberalism. There's no such thing as a static, unchanging system, nor one disconnected from its roots.

Power isn't a supernatural corrupting force, power is a tool, not a need itself. There is no tendency for those in power to try to get more.

Socialism works to eradicate class distinctions. Workers wanting more for their labor is fine, but in capitalism it's the capitalists that hold all of the leverage and thus pay workers as little as possible. Capitalists are parasites.

Capitalists do not "bring the company," they own the paper that legally entails them to it. The workers are the ones that run the company, capitalists are entirely unnecessary from an economic standpoint.

If there was a single capitalist owning everything, then there wouldn't be. Capitalism demands competition and circulation of commodities, capitalists depend on that for profit. If it all dies, then capitalism would cease to function and break down, and the ensuing fallout would result in either socialism or barbarism.

As I alluded to above, the tendency for the rate of profit to fall in a finite world results in gradual breakdown of capitalism. Imperialism causes it to stick around for longer, but also prompts revolution in the global south. Taxation cannot stop the fundamental problems with sustaining an economy where rates of profit lower over time and competition dies.

As for collectivization, it just sounds like you're asking why we aren't yet organized. Some countries already have organized and successfully established socialism, the rest of us still need to organize.

Sure, I've explored a bunch of other ways. I wound up agreeing that communism is the correct path, guided by Marxism-Leninism, which has various forms in real life such as the former USSR, Cuba, PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, and Laos.

Capitalism has been in power a lot linger than 30-40 years.

People in power don't tend to "grab more power." "Power" is not a metaphysical power that corrupts people, what actually happens is that systems like capitalism reward those that get profit by any means necessary.

Capitalism would not be acceptable even with a progressive tax. The basic fact is that capitalists want to pay as little as possible while workers want to be paid as much as possible, and that all profit a capitalist could make comes from value workers created.

Not only this, but capitalism trends towards imperialism and collapse, it's unsustainable. Over time, there is a tendency for the rate of profit to fall due to a rise in the ratio of capital to labor as representing the value of a commodity. This is combatted by expansion to raise absolute profits, and by monopoly to raise rates of profit. What this creates is a systemic push towards underdeveloping the global sourh, placing compradors in power, and super-exploiting foreign workers for super profits.

The US Empire is at the helm, but western Europe and strategic allies also benefit and participate in this system. No amount of progressive taxation can fix this, what we need is for humanity to become the master of capital. We need to work towards collectivization of all production and distribution, and orient this towards satisfying the needs of everyone.

I also have no idea what you're hinting at by saying "there's no we."

Gonna be honest, I don't consider the DNC to be opposition, more collusion. The US Empire has always been a genocidal plunderer, at a global scale too.

What do you mean "power accumulating?" This sounds like you're talking about magic or something. Capitalists use capital for their plunder, I don't see what you mean by linking that to socialism. As for the working class "we," are you asking why we aren't organized? That takes time and effort.

That works too!

Very cool and good.

Based, don't let the Empire bully you.

You erased imperialism, continuity, motion, and history, in favor of steering the conversation towards imperialist countries somehow being a better system for enjoying their plunder.

Replying here because we reached the max comment depth.

If you cut the Nordics off of their imperialism, they would not be able to have these same safety nets. The people doing the bulk of the labor for the Nordic safety nets do not get access to them. China does run its safety nets from its own labor. You're taking a selectively blind approach that apologizes for imperialism.