Why socialism won't fix our problems

I'm thinking more about the greens and their proposals here, and while admirable on a pure ideological level, I really have trouble seeing socialism as being the path to a better world in and of itself. Their other proposals would help, but as long as we have the horrible work culture we have in America, socialism will just amount to tyranny by majority. This isn't to say it wouldn't be helpful in its own ways, maybe, but it's not that useful on its own and socialism's value among the far left is very overrated.

Definitions

By "socialism", I'm referring not to the Soviet style of socialism, but the green style I discussed yesterday. The concept of decentralized worker coops and municipal governments running the means of production in a democratic way

The problem with capitalism that socialism is supposed to solve

Capitalism is hierarchical and dictatorial according to socialists. You work for a boss, the boss tells you what to do for large portions of your life, dictates your wages, and has a clear upper hand in the power relationship. You're either a boss, or a worker. An oppressor, or the oppressed. Bourgeoisie, or proletariat.

Socialism is supposed to remove that difference. When the means of production is democratically owned, the class distinctions disappear. You're both a worker and a boss. You can vote on your wages, your hours, major business decisions, etc. Everyone has a voice. This supposedly resolves the exploitative nature of the relationships that exist within capitalism, and replaces it with a more fair approach to the problem.

What the greens are trying to do is make a decentralized, democratic framework for our economy in which enterprises are responsible to their local communities and to their workers. This will ensure people have a voice in the system, rather than simply being told what to do.

The problems it doesn't solve

Don't get me wrong, this version of socialism is attractive and noble, and heck, it could even be a piece of the puzzle in helping combat neoliberalism and wealth becoming so concentrated it cannot be adequately governed, but socialism, in and of itself, isn't going to solve the problems with exploitation.

In America, we have a huge cultural problem with work. Call it a form of "crab mentality." We have a culture of misery, masochism, and self denial based on the protestant work ethic. Many Americans don't have what it takes to fix our economic problems even if things were decided democratically, because we seem to enjoy being miserable. We make martyrs out of ourselves. We complain about how tired we are and how miserable we are, and how little free time we have, and we tend to encourage this behavior in others. People who are tired and miserable and burned out tend to associate with others in similar situations and even engage in these little pissing contests of who has it worse, which I call the "misery olympics."

People who don't engage in these little social games are generally looked down on with contempt by others who do. It's like, "how DARE you be happy with your life? Can't you see how miserable I am? It's not fair, you're so happy and my life sucks so bad, you should be miserable like me!" It's actually a huge reason why the working class in America keeps voting against its greater interests. They are miserable with work, they see people not working, so they scream about how they need to get jobs and try to make welfare harder to get and stuff. They complain about how hard they work and only make $13 an hour, so who do those fast food workers think they are demanding $15? They criticize the childless and the childfree for not having kids while complaining about how they were up to 4 AM cleaning up baby puke every night. They look down on the idea that people sleep in on a Saturday morning when they had to get up at 6 AM. They go on about how responsible they are for working 60+ hours a week when the other guy only has 50. As long as a significant portion of the working class thinks this way, it doesn't matter if we are socialistic in an economic democracy kind of way, the majority will just vote to spread the misery around.

In America, being tired and miserable is a sign of being an adult. It is a cultural expectation among the people to be always going going going and to be doing doing doing, and to be stretching oneself so thin from responsibilities that they are constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Anyone who doesn't do this is considered childish or "lazy." And lazy is one of the worst things to be called in American society. It implies that you have no societal value, that you're a waste of space and should just screw off and die already. We literally derive our societal value from work. One of the first things people ask in small talk is "so what do you do for a living?" We define ourselves by what we do, and by proxy, how miserable we make ourselves doing it.

I want to make a few cases in point for how socialism would work in America, since we do have limited examples. First of all, I won't cite it since it might give away more than I'm willing to about my location, but there's a small grocery store chain in my area that is advertised as "worker owned." I don't know the logistics of this, whether any decision making is democratic or whether it's just "owned" in the sense that some employees have a stock option, but I looked up what this grocery store pays. The average wage is $8.55 an hour. For such a "socialist" enterprise, it's surprising that it doesn't compete with Costco which pays like $12-15 an hour, or even another local grocery store in my area that pays $11.50. What?! Capitalist industries are paying more than socialist ones?! But I thought socialism would end worker exploitation?!

Another example. Some companies have been experimenting with unlimited vacation days lately. This sounds great, you can take as much vacation as you want! Only problem is crab mentality ruins it. Some people report that people who have worked at businesses longer resent new employees having the same vacation time as them, because they see it as a reward for working there so long. This is oddly reminiscent of why so many people oppose the minimum wage increase. Because, oh, they worked so hard and busted their butt and why should someone else just get the same treatment for free? Unlimited vacation also sounds like less of an entitlement than a limited number of days you are "owed" and people actually don't use it. This is once again because our "work ourselves to the bone" culture looks down on spending time away from work. They are afraid Linda from accounting will whine about how you took more days off than her and how you're not pulling your weight. They even wonder if they can afford to take so many days whether they're replaceable, and are in fear of losing their jobs if they take too many.

Socialism, in and of itself, does not fix the cultural problems with work in the United States, which I see as perhaps the biggest problem of American capitalism. Unless we are willing to stand up for ourselves, it doesn't matter who owns the means of production, the rich, or the workers, you will be oppressed and tyrannized no matter what. It's just a matter of tyranny by one, or by majority.

We need a new culture and bargaining power to enforce it

People in America hate the concept of "entitlement", but that's precisely what we need if we're going to ever have social justice in our economy. We need to be able to make demands, and then be able to enforce them. Call it a culture of entitlement. We need to be able to say, look, I worked 40 hours a week, or dare I say in a truly progressive culture, 30 hours a week, I put in my time, I'm going home. No overtime, no nothing. Just, I'm done. Bye. Or being able to say, look, I'm owed 5 weeks of vacation this year as per our national policy, I'm taking them. I'm owed them. I'm "entitled" to them.

Labor movements used to know what it meant to push for demands like that. They striked, they protested, they made demands, and they won. They got a weekend, they got a 40 hour work week. That didn't come out of nowhere, their "entitlement" made that happen.

We need regulations that enforce said demands, like Europe. Europe has a system in which people are owed so much vacation time, and they take them. many Europeans take a whole month off and go on "holiday". We're lucky to get 2 weeks and we're afraid to take our days as mentioned above because of the cultural pressure to work. See where our lack of "entitlement" gets us.

Above all, we need a basic income. While it would not only solve poverty, it would give people the ultimate insurance against power being used against them in the work place, because they can walk. They can say, "screw you guys, I'm going home", and be able to live at at least subsistence level. That's really the source of oppression in the work place. I don't care as much about who owns the means of production as much as I care about being coerced to work by "wage slavery."

I would rather have a capitalist system, with a less martyrific culture, better work life balance, unions, regulations, and the ability to say no, than socialism. I think that European style social democracy and their attitudes would work better than American style socialism given our current culture.

Socialism isn't necessarily bad if implemented the green way. It really depends on the details, but it's really pretty low on my list of ways to make our economy run better. It could solve the mobility of capital issue I've pointed out in previous posts by making money more anchored in the community and less able to move overseas to offshore tax havens and third world countries with sweat shops. But it's grossly overrated in solving our problems. A lot of socialists act like it's a silver bullet, and it's just not.

Conclusion

Green style socialism, while a noble ideal to remove exploitation in our culture, would not be anywhere near as effective as it sounds on the surface, it makes philosophical sense, but it ignores so much of the cultural aspects of the problem. As long as we have a work culture based on martyrdom and crab mentality, it doesn't matter who controls the means of production. Fellow workers can be just as cruel as bosses with their currently internalized values. We need to instead focus on shifting our culture to one of "entitlement" and pushing for means to enforce that concept of entitlement. We need unions, labor regulations, and basic income to say, this is how much we should be getting paid, this is how many hours we should work, this is how much vacation time I want, and if I don't get it I won't work here. It would be far better to have European style social democracy with European values than American socialism given our current American values. It would be better still to guarantee a basic income to ensure that people have the right and ability to say no at any time for any reason. Wage slavery is the real root cause of oppression in capitalism, and as long as that exists, the problems aren't really solved. They're just dressed up. Real power to fix our economy comes from the ability to say no, or at least making the relationship less exploitative via other means.