Post-Capitalism: Salvaging the Wreckage with Socialism

RedAmerican1945, accessed 3/8/2018

Capitalism cannot be saved. The whole social structure that is produced by the capitalist system of ownership is fragile, and set to fail on its own. One person or group of people who are not actually the producers of the goods and services in the economy cannot sustainably maintain the system that gives them their unearned wealth over the long-term (which becomes the short-term in due time). Resentment builds, and people turn on the system. The Capitalists begin to expend more and more of their resources and social capital on repression and political exclusion. This can be observed in the cycles of history, and we can learn from them in the present to improve our future (Turchin). The dynamics are somewhat predictable based on human behavior, social contexts, and economic/environmental conditions in the society. 

To be blunt, we will either democratize the wealth, and define ownership as only resting with the producers of the goods and services themselves (versus the government), or we will slide backwards to a period of serfdom and slavery unseen since the Middle Ages in Western European societies. Either the democratically elected public sector will assert itself to carry out these, and other, necessary legal and enforcement actions on behalf of the public, or the State itself will be eroded through the negligence and extraction of the environment and the society. With it will go the health and well-being of the larger social group that it had once helped.

We will need to redefine management structures. I propose we let the workers decide how they are managed, and let the markets take care of those businesses who don't manage themselves effectively. We'll also need to define liability in these markets. I'm in favor of liability resting with the individual worker in the organization, with greater responsibility going to those who have the most formal influence in the company. Flexibility in sentencing could be allowed if the problems from others in the company are severe enough to warrant more punitive actions. I'm also in favor of these individuals receiving marginally, but significantly, increased pay relative to other employees for carrying those responsibilities and positions of influence. But, in general, I'm only in favor of the government mandating a maximum percentage of the payroll that can be allocated to a single employee/owner, and/or letting the workers democratically choose how to set and allocate the payroll. In addition, the mechanisms for investment and raising capital will also have to be reworked. I'd be ok with allowing capital to come from a variety of sources, including crowd-sourcing investments in exchange for potential dividends from the companies, public sector direct investments in people, strategic industries, and research, with effectively regulated formal capital companies such as private banks and credit unions (which would also be owned by their employees).

Apart from that, markets would be allowed to function as they currently work. There would be significantly better regulations and oversight against polluting behavior, inhumane and unsafe working conditions, and unsafe products, defined contextually; see the works of Ostrom for ideas on how to tackle these problems). Public investment would also be made in physical/psychological health for all, dignified and quality care for the elderly, developmentally-appropriate education to raise healthy, and well-socialized human adults with an emphasis on many outlets for learning. Defense would be nationalized, and infrastructure would be maintained and upgraded by the former defense contractor workforce. A certain amount of industrial capacity for production would be maintained, with a core group of workers responsible to train other people in case defense production is needed to resume. Local, county, state, and federal law enforcement would be held accountable for their actions. Religious institutions would be taxed on their revenues minus their demonstrated and substantiated charity work in communities. Taxation could be made adaptable to flex with economic times and conditions to produce the necessary revenue to support the enterprise of human society, while not creating undue harm and damage to private individuals or organizations that the government is bound to serve. I'd even be in favor of considering how to rework the federal system of government through the Constitutional process to redefine the federal layer of government, and how it relates to the country and its regions as a whole. 

The list of thoughts could go on. The most exciting thing, is that with current computational and analytical technologies, we can begin to analyze and understand first, how to understand society, and second, how to work with them to produce more generally desired outcomes in the society. We can begin to understand how policy affects the society through computer simulations, games with human players, and a host of other techniques that have been developed, and are being developed in the social sciences. We can, potentially, settle general political debates of any era with honest and honorably treated evidence at the expense of those ideas which don't actually demonstrate effectiveness or usefulness when implemented. The pattern is there, and we can learn it after several thousand (if not millions) of years of recorded, and prerecorded history. We may have forgotten this knowledge from long ago. Maybe it's almost time for us to remember again?