Show HN: Open Socialism – Hack on a democracy/capitalism alternative | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Open Socialism – Hack on a democracy/capitalism alternative

opensocialism.com

2 pointsBobTheCoder10 comments

Maybe spend a bit less time telling me why "democratic capitalism" is bad, and a bit more time telling me why your system is good.

You fail to tell me what actual mechanisms you're proposing to fix this, and until you've got that you've got nothing.

Is it just a call to action? Asking people in tech to think about the problems?

Because the people who were inclined to think about this already are, whether it's Charles Stross talking about interfacing centrally planned economies with capitalism in his novels, or the pirate party working on fluid democracy.

I'm also not convinced your socialist/communist political theory is up-to-snuff. No one is arguing that the capture-value/create-value disparity isn't a big problem, but claiming that it's all because of human-selfishness instead of more nuanced coordination problems is concerning.

Read meditations on moloch, and less communism 102. Don't make an ideological tract, try to build something.

Thanks for the feedback.

The essence of open socialism is to have a cooperative system without free enterprise. I think most people would accept that without resources expended due to competition and controlled wealth inequality, a cooperative system is more productive since everyone is working primarily on the good of society, not for their own personal gain. A large proportion of the surplus created can be reinvested into the good of society and not go to a small percentage of wealthy people where it often does more harm than good. I think on paper this type of system is much better for the majority and for long term progress.

The traditional (valid) criticism of such systems (eg. communism) is that the 'state' has too much power in these and those in control will become corrupt. Open socialism is quite focused on this key flaw and primarily addresses it by having society run much like an open source project, with all deliberation and operation done entirely in the open. Add to this the consensus seeking model to making corrupting decisions more difficult.

I posted it here hoping that people would give feedback or help if they are interested.

Cheers

I feel like you're talking through me.

When I said "Created value vs captured value", I was essentially saying

>cooperative system is more productive since everyone is working primarily on the good of society, not for their own personal gain

I'm not misunderstanding what the problem is with capitalism, or what socialism hopes to achieve. So please to read my feedback with that in mind, and don't just keep trying to explain socialism/communism to me.

I'm on-board, capitalism is bad.

You seemed unclear about open socialism and my motivations for posting so I tried to clarify. Anyway, let's keep chatting on github if you are keen.

Hi,

I created Open Socialism as a compelling alternative to democratic capitalism.

Democratic capitalism had some good years and achieved a lot, but it has started to be highly inequitable and exploitative. With modern technology and science (including agile and open source practices) we can create much more equitable and productive systems.

I created a tl;dr page for software industry people - https://opensocialism.com/tldr-for-software-people

I have written a moderate amount but it is more a starting point to be iterated upon. Any feedback or help is greatly appreciated.

https://github.com/open-socialism/open-socialism.github.io

Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Thanks

Have you read a good part of the canonical literature against socialism/communism? Because you make a lot of points that have been discussed in the past, and you don't address the criticisms.

Hi,

The classic issues that I am aware of are:

- Those in power have too much power and cannot be deposed democratically. As such they will assuredly become corrupt.

- 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need' means that people aren't incentivized to strive and will be lazy and won't invent and innovate.

This page https://opensocialism.com/open-socialism covers these two points.

Are there other classical issues I am missing? Is there any literature you would recommend for this?

Thanks

These are criticisms people say on the streets, and they vague, empty and lack explanation. Although I also find your answers vague and empty, it's nice that you tried to answer them.

Anyway, I think it is safe to ignore that discussion, because it is way too common and biased.

My humble suggestion is that you should start on the purely economic side of the high-level discussion. This[1] is something that raised a lot of discussion (pro and against the socialist side) between top economists of the previous century and that has lasted many years. I think you should start there.

[1]: https://mises.org/library/socialism-economic-and-sociologica...

Thanks. I did some research on that book. The 'economic calculation problem' seems to be the main point. I disagree that market forces are the only way to price goods and services. Why can't goods be priced that factor in the aspect of supply and demand, but also factor in the cost of offering those goods and services, both the immediate cost and the cost to the environment? It doesn't seem like an impossible problem, just that it takes deliberate effort by the state.

Note that in open socialism goods and services (including food, clothing etc.) are priced.

I generally agree that around 100 years ago when 'Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis' was written socialism was difficult to impossible. Now with modern technology I think that it is possible and has less problems than capitalism.

Is there some key flaw in socialism that you think prevents it from being viable?

The idea of the State coming up with a method to calculate prices taking account of supply, demand and cost, was a topic of intense debates that followed the publication of that book.

See, for example, Oskar Lange and Henry Douglas Dickinson proposals, and Friedrich Hayek's rebuttals.

What I am begging you is to stop thinking you have all the right answers before getting to know what other people have already said on the topic.

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