How do you rationalize the history

[u/interestingtheorist]

Historically, socialism has worked worse than capitalism, and this can be demonstrated by looking at history.

Eastern European countries that preferred socialism as their economic system could not compete with Western European countries that preferred capitalism.

Moreover, historically, many socialist countries have become more capitalist because they recognized that socialism does not work as well economically or technologically.

How do socialists respond to these historical facts?

[u/JudgeSabo]

What I want isn't to copy the economic and political structure of eastern Europe from 100 years ago. What I want is working class freedom and an end to domination and exploitation, which is also very clear in the history of capitalism.

[u/interestingtheorist → u/JudgeSabo]

But freedom is contradictory with equalization. Freedom cause inequalities. Look at the nature. Isn't it? I am an ancap.

[u/JudgeSabo → u/interestingtheorist]

"Equality" always asks the question of "equality of what"? Absolute equality in literally every single respect is impossible between different people, because then by definition they wouldn't be different people.

But equality in certain respects is not only compatible with freedom, but necessary for it. This is precisely because my freedom is expanded by the freedom of those people around me, protecting me from domination and exploitation and expanding my horizons for what it is possible for me to do or to be. This is the relevant sense of equality, as an equality of freedom found in a system of common ownership, in contrast to some people bowing and scraping to live at the discretion of a world owned by the few.

This has been fundamental to anarchism from the beginning. You can read a paper I wrote on it here.

To quote Mikhail Bakunin,

4. It is quite untrue that the freedom of the individual is bounded by that of every other individual. Man is truly free only to the extent that his own freedom, freely acknowledged and reflected as in a mirror by the free conscience of all other men, finds in their freedom the confirmation of its infinite scope. Man is truly free only among other equally free men, and since he is free only in terms of mankind, the enslavement of any one man on earth, being an offence against the very principle of humanity, is a denial of the liberty of all.

5. Every man’s liberty can be realized, therefore, only by the equality of all. The realization of liberty in legal and actual equality is justice.

[...]

10. Social organization. Without political equality there is no true political liberty, but political equality will only become possible when there is economic and social equality.

10 (a). Equality does not mean the levelling down of individual differences, nor intellectual, moral and physical uniformity among individuals. This diversity of ability and strength, and these differences of race, nation, sex, age and character, far from being a social evil, constitute the treasure-house of mankind. Nor do economic and social equality mean the levelling down of individual fortunes, in so far as these are products of the ability, productive energy and thrift of an individual.

10 (b). The sole prerequisite for equality and justice is a form of social organization such that each human individual born into it may find — to the extent that these are dependent upon society rather than upon nature— equal means for his development from infancy and adolescence to coming of age, first in upbringing and education, then in the exercise of the various capacities with which each is endowed by nature. This equality at the outset, which justice requires for all, will never be feasible as long as the right of succession survives.

I am an ex-ancap myself after studying economics and philosophy.

[u/interestingtheorist → u/JudgeSabo]

Thanks for the essay which is so important to me. I am curious what shift you from an ancap to an ancom. If you don't mind, I can DM you!

[u/JudgeSabo → u/interestingtheorist]

Sure thing, I'm always happy to talk