>>2170259>automate everythingI don't know if you've identified this loose end in your model yet, but the question is: automate which production? (and in what time scale?)
The bourgeoisie is very small, they can only use a fraction of the total product of our society, which has developed with the market of 7 billion in mind. Some things, like food, will be able to be massively downsized. Some things, like technology, or really any commodity or service that has a lot of dead labor represented in it, will be increased (or mostly, the amount of labor concentrated in each thing will increase, while the amount only has to increase with relation to the bourgeois who purchase it). This process is a total restructuring of the means of production and society. And it is already underway, not because the proletariat is superfluous and the bourgeoisie are engaging in economic planned for aristocratic socialism, but because the share for the workers is decreasing, while the share for the owners increases. So this is the proper thing to doom about. Less and less will be produced for you, and more and more of society's total labor power will go towards more and more useless and lavish goods and services.
With that in mind, isn't it also the bourgeoisie's pastime to order people around, make people rub their feet, and suck their dicks? In a realistic blackpill end-stage-capitalism scenario, we won't be superfluous, we'll just all be oriented towards providing for the whims of those who have everything, while we get the bare minimum in slavelike conditions. There's no reason for them to automate everything anyways. Actually, if we don't deviate from the capitalist model, eventually it's too expensive. The surplus value they receive is not enough to both invest in new, higher-productivity or advanced fixed capital, and also maintain their level of revenues (without which, what is the point? they'll only do this if the alternative is to be out-competed). And if they are forced to take a cut in order to keep a share of the market and thus some revenues, next their surplus value is insufficient for investing and also maintaining their variable capital input. From here on out, their surplus value falls not only relatively, but absolutely. They have less left over from production if they invest than if they don't. So, they don't. Instead they can try to increase profits not by investing, but by increasing the exploitation of the workers. And we're back at us all becoming slaves :^)
So at least be blackpilled in the right direction. Be blackpilled over our decreasing share of total social labor with me
>the only way this can be avoided imo is through a political movement that is distributed throughout. imo the problem with a more centralized approach to achieving communism is that it doesn't really preserve any bargaining chips. i especially dont like approaches that are class collaborationist in some way because that always opens you up to corruption as well. if you dont have any real basis materially for worker control, then you are just hoping whoever is in charge has the right ideology which imo seems really idealist to me sorryI think you mean centralist as in some self-proclaimed vanguard leading a coup in order to take over the existing state, something like that? I'd like to know what you're thinking. Anyways here's my thoughts
The kind of centralism that communists talk about is about the structure of decision making, and specifically adherence to decisions. The alternative that is being argued against is an anarchist model where isolated groups do whatever they feel might work, and anyone who disagrees can just go and do it their way. This model does have it's advantages: it's good at gaining a knowledge of tactics through practical experimentation; but it's not good when push comes to shove and what we really need is to take the outcomes of everyone's research and use that to understand what tactics to use when. It's also not good for growth. A typical mistake of noobs of any area of study/practice is to think they know everything. Everyone else is wrong because not enough results have been produced, and the newbie has all the answers. In a non-centralist model, they are encouraged to go do their own thing and see how it works. What this means is rehashing the same mistakes over and over again with no continuity and limited education. The centralist model says "please don't go - stay and just do what everyone else has decided, and take the time to understand why we're doing it this way. And if we're wrong, then we can have all found out together and we can change course then, with the full power of all of us working on it together." This model is the only one capable of producing results, especially in times of repression when noobs desperately need to be brought into the practical knowledge that an organization can provide so they don't get arrested. Continuity is important, a complete accounting of tactics is important for utilizing the right tactic for the right time and place rather than getting fixated on a single tactic that worked once, and there's only power in numbers so retention and the virtue of patience and faith in internal democracy is key. But all of this takes place within an organization that exists all over, and which attempts to reach as many people as possible. This is decentralized as much as it is centralized. So this is the cause of my confusion over your binary.
>moneyYes on the one hand, but no on the other. No, because if our tactics require money to be successful, and we mimic the tactics of the bourgeoisie, they will always have more money than us and we will never free ourselves. What we have as a class is our relationship to production of the stuff that sustains (or takes) lives, and our superior numbers. Any strategy has to rely mainly on those. There's obviously room for money, but even look at how you frame the use of money: we need it for propaganda, outreach, and soft power - marketing. We can't out-market them, and we can't reach anyone first when they control education. We need a strategy that fits our position. We can't copy our enemy's notes, we need to focus on ourselves and what our forces look like and where our gains are made. It's not a tit-for-tat with the bourgeoisie, it's us trying to accumulate forces while most of them just try to suck us dry and secondarily do whatever they can to keep us in line, like blanketing of the public consciousness with their propaganda or instilling fear of disobedience through policing and surveillance. Our methods are the opposite: we have to act in secrecy
because of their surveillance. We have to counter narratives (e.g. with fact) rather than shape or instill them
because they use this method. This is a fundamental aspect of any conflict. If they go high, we go low. They advance, we retreat, they retreat, we advance.