andrewrgross

I think we're so far from that world that this is more a question of abstract philosophy than political theory. But for what it's worth, I think these are the three most common answers to that question:

1. We reach a state of automated post-scarcity in which we don't need people to work;
2. People work for the sake of personal satisfaction or community recognition or some other non-monetary reward;
3. Goods and services are exchanged in a Gift Economy: people still get rewarded commiserate to their labor, but the exchange isn't mediated through currency.

Personally, I don't think it's something that we need to figure out this decades or next.

First, regarding recommoning the means of production: it's not a single discrete thing, but rather a collection of economic and political policies and approaches.

Look into is Solidarity Economies: this is a term that bundles together worker cooperatives, housing coops, public banks, credit unions, and all the other structures that allow groups of people to cut investors out of the critical institutions on which we rely.

As for the other part: progressive taxation is not authoritarian and does not require authoritarianism.

I think the problem I'm seeing is that you seem to be equating any use of force with authoritarianism.

You can have a revolution, restore the means of production to the commons, and then just not have a single-party state. You can deliberately distribute power among the working class. Use of force doesn't require unchecked state power.

This is such a weird question.

How does this billionaire exist in this hypothetical communist society? And how do you expect them to buy up a business?

It's these weird pointless thought exercises people keep throwing at me that drive me to make these posts.

If you really want to know what my desired society looks like, it's this solarpunk game my friends and I play: Fully Automated! Solarpunk RPG World Guide

Go read that, find all the stuff you don't like in it, then write Substack article about it and don't send me a link.

Agreed.

I feel like tossing out a thinkers' weaker work is an act of charity.

I wouldn't want anyone to hold up my dumbest takes after I'm dead. So when I say that I think that article is dumb and we should just pretend that Engels didn't write it... I'm saying that as a compliment to Engels.

I can imagine that. I just read it and thought, 'Geez... this is like a mid-tier reddit comment. It's such flimsy strawman nonsense. Not his best work.'

I feel like anarchism is coming back into vogue. I'm not an anarchist myself, but despite scoffing at the concept years ago, I'm finding a lot more value in it as a school of thought than I once did.

Yeah.

One of my biggest peeves with philosophy is that unlike the sciences, I don't think there is much of a structure to build on and supersede notable figures.

To make a comparison, no one in biology cites Charles Darwin as a contemporary source of truth. He made contributions, and then others did, and then Watson, and Franklin, and Crick, and Sanger, and so on. But no one cites fifty or a hundred year old theories as the basis of an argument.

To be clear: they're not moving the goalposts, they're correcting a point of misunderstanding.

Moving the goalposts is when someone attempts to redefine a claim after the original claim was proven wrong. If you reread it, @ChicoSuave@lemmy.world's point from the beginning was a critique of modern-day Soviet apologists, not of the citizens, artists, activists, and workers of the Soviet Union.

And don't accuse me of attacking Tankies. I'm just saying that they don't own Communism.

(No one owns Communism: it belongs to all of us, comrade)