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   CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:32 JST CedarTea

   in reply to

   • NeonSnake

   @neonsnake Of course it's really not up to me. It's up to whatever the community decides will work for them. I'm just extremely suspicious of exchanging labour for material goods because it makes people's access contingent, and I consider that a very slippery slope to just reproducing capitalist relations.

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:34 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake Yeah I get what you're saying, I just have a very different conception of post-state post-capitalist economies where the question doesn't really make sense.

     Like if everyone is being provided for, what does extra even look like? If we're not rationing beer, how do you give someone "above" the standard?

     My conception is more in the realm of "you cook, I'll clean" divisions of labour. If someone's cleaning the bathroom, I'm not gonna bug them about taking out the trash.

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:35 JST NeonSnake

     in reply to

     @CedarTea You can literally just give them an extra beer or something - like, if someone's done a unpleasant job and you give them something that's maybe "above" what is standard, that's still payment.

     Doesn't have to be dollars or pounds, just a recognition that they've gone over and above in that particular time frame, and should be acknowledged.

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:38 JST NeonSnake

     in reply to

     @CedarTea That's cool - lots of people do.

     I'm *personally* agnostic on whether "wages/currency/some form of measurable exchange" will exist in a stateless society.

     (I don't think it matters, and I would hope it didn't)

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:38 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake Yeah, I'm personally pretty confidently against it in the long run, but it's not a hill I'd die on in 2024. Not a red line for being in movement.

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:41 JST NeonSnake

     in reply to

     @CedarTea or - "who will do *my* unpleasant jobs for me if I don't threaten them with starvation?"

     I dunno, mate, maybe just pay people a decent amount for doing unpleasant jobs and this problem goes away lmao

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:41 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake If I'm gonna imagine a stateless society, it's gonna be a wageless one too

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:44 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake
     The unstated second half of that sentence is "Who will do the unpleasant jobs... if we don't threaten people with starvation?"

   • Embed this notice
     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:54:45 JST NeonSnake

     There are many, many criticisms of a stateless society that irritate me to a greater or lesser degree, but right now, the "oh, but who will do the unpleasant jobs??" really just tells me that you've never had to unblock a sink/toilet/shower/whatever.

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Monday, 05-Feb-2024 23:57:45 JST CedarTea

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer @neonsnake

     Damn, those are some fancy trousers

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 00:21:12 JST CedarTea

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer @neonsnake

     If I can provide a bit of a friendly rebuttal, I'd ask what the role of exchange is in a society that doesn't police access to material goods? Why would I trade for apples when I'm allowed to simply have them?

     (Except in the case of some acute scarcity, but I'd argue markets are often a terrible mechanism to handle that when you really interrogate what's happening)

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 00:38:43 JST NeonSnake

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @CedarTea

     ROFL agreed

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 00:49:10 JST NeonSnake

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @CedarTea

     I think there's two different things going on

     (this is a hugely personal view)

     1) what does society look like in a *genuinely* post-state world

     and honestly, I don't know. My sense is that it will be a mix of post-scarcity (apples) and scarcity (eg: nice clothes and/or technology)

     As it so happens, by utter coincidence, I (genuinely) have an apple tree. You're more than welcome to my surplus.

     On the other hand, I'd quite like to still be able to buy eye-glasses so that I can, y'know, see. And a mobility scooter, so that I can, y'know, get into town. Which may well involve scarce materials, and may well involve a sort of trade - what that trade looks like, I can't tell you because it's outside of our realms of imagination currently.

     2) The other thing is that I don't believe that we will enter a "stateless society" in my lifetime.

     What that means is that the person who does the unpleasant jobs (lets use the obvious one - garbage collection) will *still need to pay taxes in currency issued by their state*. This is very separate to the above point, I fully admit that.

     Even if they are able to be self-sufficient in literally every other way (including having all other "stuff" provided to them under a mutual aid/communist system), they still need to have an income.

     In which case, pay them more.

     ------------

     I like to imagine a world beyond the state, but it's not my focus - mine is "what can we do next week?"

     And next week, we're still going to need "money", no two ways about it.

     (Other people are far better, and far more qualified, than I am at the "what happens after")

   • Embed this notice
     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 03:44:45 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer @neonsnake

     but markets are just not what I typically advocate for as a rationing mechanism.

     I do think your bringing up housing location is an interesting one though. The intersection of intangible, non-fungible, and innately scarce is a tricky combo. I'm not convinced markets are the best way to ration that, but I'm not so sure that there's any way to handle it which isn't contentious so... maybe?

     Appreciate the discussion btw

     (4/4)

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 03:44:47 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer @neonsnake

     peoples' willingness to do the work, then decisions need to start being made. Is task really worth everyone's time? If nobody is willing to put in the work for the output, do we even want to do this? If the answer is still yes, then there needs to be some level of equitable labour distribution decision (rotations, lotteries, etc.) that people would need to agree to under whatever that groups decision making process is. Again, this *can* be decided to be a market, (3/?)

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 03:44:50 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer @neonsnake

     distribution (rationing, etc.) as well as potentially some corrective action toward ameliorating that scarcity if the community decides. A market system is also a rationing system, and although it's not my favourite, I wouldn't necessarily count it out by default.

     In terms of labour, those community vehicles would determine their levels of labour need and have people start selecting roles for themselves. If there's a disconnect between certain labour needs and (2/?)

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 03:44:53 JST CedarTea

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer @neonsnake

     I don't generally make much distinction between goods being necessary or not, as I'm not personally the arbiter of that. I do tend to think we're post-scarcity on more than we might sometimes think. I also don't favour policing hours of work (I too dislike labour notes).

     I generally see some sort of community assembly (and associated sub-group, etc) as the vehicle for making those broad decisions on production. If a good is scarce, there are decisions made on (1/?)

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 03:58:00 JST NeonSnake

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @CedarTea

     This is where I think markets have utlility.

     I'm not talking about "capitalist" markets here where a portion of the profit gets siphoned off to a middle-man or a rentier, I'm talking about exchange or trade (which exists outside of capitalism, and "always" has, even when it hasn't been the dominant part of the economy).

     how much does Robert *really* want another axe? Enough to make a wheelchair (or to trade something to someone/some group who *can* make a wheelchair)? He might *say* he wants another axe, but until we see him trade something of value for it, we don't *definitely* know.

     And how many wheelchairs do we need? Really? Well, if someone who needs one is willing to trade something *they* value, then we get a steer.

     Markets are really good at revealing preferences that might otherwise be hidden.

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 03:59:44 JST NeonSnake

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @CedarTea

     And that's fine - I genuinely mean that. I absolutely don't mean that people shouldn't be imagining the future - it's just not *me* that will be doing it.

     We each have our own focuses, skill sets, and interests, and that isn't one of mine - except in a sort of abstract "I'm interested in it" sense, if that makes sense?

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 23:26:27 JST NeonSnake

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer

     @CedarTea

     I don't think you're wrong at all on the subject of scarcity - I 100% agree that there will be less scarcity than most people think.

     Other than the more obvious examples where product is held at high prices to increase profits, I dread to think of how many great ideas were killed at inception because they would be unprofitable (either in absolute or relative terms).

     I would *hope* that mobility aids (and others) would not be contingent on labour hours - but I'm currently unconvinced (the pandemic has shaken a lot of my previous more optimistic beliefs).

     I also think that there is likely to be a point at which "people" say "oh, that isn't necessary".

     Like, most people would agree that shelter, food, water are 100% necessary, and I hope that these wouldn't be contingent. I *hope* that most people would say the same about wheelchairs, eyeglasses, insulin (and many, many other examples!)

     I suspect that we would reach a point though, where people start to say things like "welllll, I'm not sure that an expensive food processor is *entirely* necessary" - which I accept, but being robbed of the ability to chop food for myself would take away my independence, and I would be prepared to trade *something* for the food processor.

     @hakan_geijer

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 23:26:27 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake

     Your food processor example is an interesting case for why I actually don't like markets as a rationing mechanism.

     Let's say they're scarce in this scenario. Person A wants one as an assistive device, as you describe. Person B wants one because they prefer it to chopping by hand. Let's also say that person B has a lot more stuff worth trading than Person A, and is therefore able to outbid them on the market. Why should this be okay?

     @hakan_geijer

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 06-Feb-2024 23:26:29 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake 100% agree on the higher wages for so long as that state/market system creates that requirement. If and when we're beyond that is when we have more flexibility to imagine new worlds.

     I tend to think there will be less scarcity than others do. I could be wrong. We should be making sure we can accommodate both possibilities and have the flexibility to change. I'm just not okay with making mobility and vision aids contingent on the amount of labour someone's put in.

     @hakan_geijer

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 00:01:36 JST NeonSnake

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @CedarTea yup

     Now, obviously we can't guarantee this, but think of the scene in Magnificent Seven, right?

     (Paraphrasing)

     The village offers a relatively small amount of money - "it's everything we have"

     And Yul Brunner's character says something like "I've been offered a lot before, but never everything"

   • Embed this notice
     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 00:28:33 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake
     All good, you don't owe us any urgency :)

     Agree that the best solution is just to solve the acute scarcity. Hope what I've been saying doesn't come across as "no markets for anything ever". I'm really just trying to communicate my suspicion of them as a tool for resolving distribution issues and why we shouldn't reach for them cavalierly. Ultimately, communities will make the decisions they make, and hopefully adjust if there are issues.

     @hakan_geijer

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 00:28:34 JST NeonSnake

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @CedarTea (I'm doing a lot of different stuff at once today, so might be slow with replying - enjoying the discussion though!)

     There's also something about signalling that "food processors" are a desired resource, so we should make more of them.

     If they are all snapped up by rich types, that's a different matter, and things can be done to...discourage...such behaviour.

     (Also worth saying that I don't think markets are *perfect*, and that there are situations i dont think theyre appropriate)

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 00:53:01 JST NeonSnake

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @CedarTea

     I chose food processor for a few reasons, btw, just in case this helps inform the discussion.

     From a personal level, I genuinely would be far less capable of looking after myself, without mine (I have an amount of loss of function in my fingers, making chopping very difficult, but not impossible)

     SO: it wouldn't be impossible. So, it tips into the "nice to have, but not 100% necessary" - it's not *quite* on the same level as my eye-glasses, or a wheelchair, but it's *important to me*.

     Also - trivially obviously - they require manufacture. It's not like my apple tree where I have more apples than I can use, and therefore don't care if you want some. Someone, somewhere (someones plural, in fact) needs to make decisions to manufacture them, with all of the downstream supply chain issues that implies.

     And that choice to manufacture the food processor that I've fixated on might involve *not* making something else.

     (I'm okay with the assumption that it's not made from plastics that cannot be recycled, and so on, in a non-capitalist world, and would be more modular and robust, and more fixable and so on - I would make those assumptions myself)

   • Embed this notice
     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 01:25:37 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer
     For some communities, it may well be a market mechanism. Others may choose a market, but with another countervailing check on the market behaviour. I don't think there's a one size fits all solution, but it *is* important that we understand the solutions that are available to us, and where their strengths and limitations lie.

     I hope that doesn't seem like I'm dodging the question, because it's a totally valid one.

     @neonsnake

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 01:25:38 JST CedarTea

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer
     I promise I don't mean this as a cop out, but "it depends".

     There are all sorts of solutions ranging from "hey I've got a food processor I don't need" to "we need to build a food processor factory" and a million options in between. The solution is going to depend on a lot of factors like how scarce they are, how important the need is to the community, how readily they're substituted, etc. I can't imagine the solution is the same in Toronto as it would be in Old Crow.

     @neonsnake

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 01:37:40 JST NeonSnake

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer

     100%, that's what I meant earlier by:

     "If they are all snapped up by rich types, that's a different matter, and things can be done to...discourage...such behaviour."

     Markets that don't involve at least the possibility of Big Chris from number 18 having a quiet word in your shell-like are...suspect, and reliant on scaring off Big Chris (and his mates) by threat of police. At which point, we're talking about capitalist markets, not freed markets.

     @CedarTea

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 01:50:26 JST CedarTea

     in reply to

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake @hakan_geijer Agreed, but setting up a distribution system that's predicated on occasionally breaking into assholes' houses to liberate their possessions doesn't seem all that great to me. Would prefer to just see more appropriate distributions from the jump for the sake of a little social harmony.

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     CedarTea (cedartea@mstdn.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 01:55:12 JST CedarTea

     • Håkan Geijer
     • NeonSnake

     @hakan_geijer
     Sure, no doubt. There's also the option for people to set up systems of exchange and sharing which are not markets. The world's our oyster and there are things between giant central councils and free markets.

     @neonsnake

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 01:55:32 JST NeonSnake

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @CedarTea

     Picture the regular Friday night drinks crew at the pub.

     You're all good mates, and you don't *reaaaally* pay too much attention to whose round it is, and whether on any given Friday it's all worked out evenly.

     But it becomes noticeable after a while if someone isn't chipping in.

     Ideally - the opening statement is to make sure they're okay - are they having money troubles, etc? Can we help?

     But eventually - if they're genuinely just freeloading - they become a little uncomfortable, they know they're being talked about it. A few pointed remarks here and there.

     Little pushes to get them back on track, before more drastic measures (exclusion) are taken.

     That kind of thing.

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 00:02:31 JST NeonSnake

     • sidereal
     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @sidereal @CedarTea

     It's a free market exchange.

     Contentiously, perhaps, I would further say that if I pulled out a crisp €100 note and you accepted it for your wooden figure, we still haven't *necessarily* (strong emphasis on the necessarily) done a capitalism.

     It's plausible, and indeed likely, that we've performed a grey market transaction.