@sillystring @rysiek wait, wouldn't the workers owning the means of production be against capitalist ideology?
like, the actual workers, not the state?

@grainloom @sillystring a worker-owned-and-run coop can still operate in a capitalist system.

Question is, how much capitalism in capitalism, so to speak. ;)

@grainloom @sillystring I think that's what's often missed in this whole debate. It's not an either-or.

We've tried full-blown "communism", and it didn't work. We've tried full-blown (neoliberal, almost libertarian) capitalism, and that didn't work. Perhaps we have to agree the world is a bit more complex, and we need something with elements of both.

@rysiek
What is commonly referred to as "communism" (as in "the system upheld by the USSR and its satellite states) was not communism *at all*, but state capitalism.

The USSR was a giant corporation:
-it had a CEO
-it had a board of directors that was both unquestionable and all powerful (it resided in the Kremlin)
-hierarchy was strictly enforced
-management was exclusively top-down
-disagreeing with the management was punished by any means available (including death by gulag)
-marketing was used extensively to present a smiling face and hide the true nature of the monster

There were of course tiny differences, but the core is the same

@grainloom @sillystring@infosec.exchange

@Antanicus @grainloom @sillystring hence you'll notice I used "communism" there in my toot.

However, there is a wider question on whether or not a full-blown communist system (whether we're talking Marxism, or anarcho-communism) is, in fact, practically possible without dropping into some kind of dystopia.

My personal feel is that it might not be. But I also might be wrong.

@rysiek we need to define what "dystopia" means in this context. Of course an an-com world where the nation-state no longer exists as a political construct will be percieved as a nightmare by statists, but would that be proper dystopia as in "a place where human life is made miserable to the point where non-existence is preferable"? Stateless societies have existed for millennia and some (like the Iroquois Confederation) reached considerable wealth and stability without ever creating a state as we know it. Recent examples include the Free Territory in Ukraine organised following Makhno's theories, anarchist Spain during the civil war and, lately, Rojava. Interestingly enough, all these examples share the same fate: they were destroyed by statists, not by famine, poverty of in-fighting...

@grainloom @sillystring@infosec.exchange

@Antanicus @grainloom @sillystring these are good examples, esp. Rojava. I need to read more about this.

That said, at least Rojava seems to have had certain tenets of a state. There was a governing body, courts, and units responsible for enforcing local bylaws. A constitution was in the works.

My point being, people will self organize, and eventually they will come up with certain familiar structures. Question is not if we call it a "state" or not, but how power is distributed and checked.

@rysiek that is a very common objection that relies on what I believe is a false assumption. Certain aspects of social life are constant across cultures and ages (food production, justice, care for the ill etc..). The statist trick lies in the false statement that you can't have administration without a state, which is obviously not the case. Historical and recent evidence proves that a federation (or any other way you want to call it) of self-administering communities can and will take much better care of people and land than a centralised government sitting in a capital far far away would ever be able to.

@grainloom @sillystring@infosec.exchange

@Antanicus @grainloom @sillystring I am not hung up on the word "state".

But you will have to explain to me what is the difference between a "self-administering community" and a "state".

Especially that we seem to agree that judiciary is involved. Are bylaws a thing there? What is the enforcement mechanism for bylaws?

@rysiek if you ask me, the difference lies in the way power, wealth and property are distributed. States all share a tendency to centralise power, to favor the accumulation of wealth and to strictly enforce the protection of property (be it corporate or state-owned). Those self-administered communities i mentioned in my previous toots, on the other hands, all share traits that are in stark opposition to the aforementioned:
- power is meant to stay in the hand of the workers
- wealth is distributed and accumulation is forcefully removed
- private property is replaced by common goods
in an attempt to break what Chomsky calls the "concentration of wealth and power", which leads to entrenched elites that, over time, become a self-serving ruling class

@grainloom @sillystring@infosec.exchange

@Antanicus @rysiek @grainloom @sillystring * Regarding corporate IP , only the interests of big companies / multinationals rights are enforced. For small entities / independant inventors, it's the exact opposit that is happening : States are favoring multinationals plundering / robbery of small entities / independant inventors IP. In an Antitrust complaint adressed to the European Commission again a cartel composed of Amazon and Postal Operators, I

@stman IP shouldn't exist in the first place

@rysiek @grainloom @sillystring@infosec.exchange

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@Antanicus @rysiek @grainloom @sillystring Yes, maybe, this is another ideological debate, but for now it is the only way (Only tool available) small entities / inventors (Including Free tecnologies developpers) can defend and protect their work against giant entities, and they broke those rules regarding IP, knowing that in the past these rules of the game were non discriminatory. Now they are, fully discriminatory, and the situation is worst.

@stman IP is discriminatory by design. It is a system devised by the wealthy (and upheld by the state) aimed at introducing scarsity where there can be none. IP is a scheme to protect private wealth by means of state violence

@rysiek @grainloom @sillystring@infosec.exchange

@Antanicus @rysiek @grainloom @sillystring Sure, it is now like this, but it was not designed in this goal at first intention : Patents were designed initialy to share scientific knowledge to the maximum extend workdwide. But the inner ligic of this system has been slowly attacked and degraded, reverted over time, leading to what you claim. At least regarding patents IP.

@stman
> Patents were designed initialy to share scientific knowledge to the maximum extend workdwide.

- I'm sorry, but the best way to spread scientific knolwedge is to *not* patent it (see: the polio vaccine). The very act of patenting something implies the will to profit off it

@rysiek @grainloom @sillystring@infosec.exchange

@Antanicus @rysiek @grainloom @sillystring I won't blame the way you think, I understand the underlying ideological motivations I agree with. But if you had studied IP, you'd know that the patent system was in the past serving the opposit objective thanks to its "Patent Worldwide Registry" that WAS the only way, in the past, to efficiently and non-discriminatorily broadcast the scientific knowledge worldwide when computers and internet did not exist.

@stman I'll look into that, it sounds like an interesting story of a good idea gone completely wrong :)

@rysiek @grainloom @sillystring@infosec.exchange

@Antanicus @rysiek @grainloom @sillystring If Power definitely corrupts, Time can also corrupt concepts, mecanisms and ideas too, in a very different subtile way. And capitalists master that kind of instrumentalization games.

@Antanicus @rysiek @grainloom @sillystring Still for historical record, Einstein himself was working at a patent office when young, when he started his scientific carreer, he was directly connected to this "international scientific knowledge hub" that was really by that time the international patent system. He has been feeding himself with knowledge from the latest scientific discoveries and innovations thanks to this. He may not have reached his level of excellency without this.

@Antanicus @rysiek @grainloom @sillystring It was clearly a sharing tool. And the priviledge forvpatents owners to receive some money for licences for a limited time was both a compensation mecanism for R&D done, it was the retribution of a work, and an incitation to continue researching and sharing knowledge, and a way to finance scientific research. But these initial logics and goals have been clearly broken, corrupted & abused by capitalist logics

@Antanicus @rysiek @grainloom @sillystring But now a day, it became what you described. But sincerely it was not "designed" in first intention to be what you described. And this is the historical truth.

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