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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: What is socialism?
Message-ID: <195@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Feb-85 13:35:37 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.195
Posted: Tue Feb 19 13:35:37 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Feb-85 15:48:38 EST
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>> In the context of capitalism vs socialism, this means overthrowing
>> a system (capitalism) where exploitation is based on property and status
>> differentials in order to establish a system where exploitation is based
>> only on status differentials (socialism).

>You mean to say that if there is only one criterion that a person must
>meet to become a member of the ruling class, instead of two, that the
>country is better off? This sounds pretty silly to me.

>Wayne

When what I said is transformed this way, it sounds silly to me too.
I don't think the above is a valid transformation, however.

The question isn't how people become members of the ruling class.
The question is whether those who aren't in the ruling class are better or
worse off.

As socialist arguments go, exploitation based on property exists on top of
exploitation based on status, so that elimination of one means some
reduction of the total.

On the other hand, the two kinds of exploitation don't have
to be mutually reinforcing; they could be mutually compensatory, one
balancing the other.  [I used the metaphor of "axes" of exploitation
to make fun of the idea that two dimensions of exploitation have to be
worse than one.]

So ... To the degree that exploitation on the basis of property and
exploitation on the basis of status reinforce each other, those who
aren't in the ruling class should be better off under socialism than
under capitalism.  On the other hand, to the degree that exploitation
... balance each other and reduce the chance for depredations by either
half of the ruling class, then those who aren't in the ruling class should
be better off under capitalism than socialism.

For a given political economy, it's certainly possible that capitalism could
be better for the working class than socialism.  Having said that, I don't
I think most capitalist countries have two ruling classes.  Maybe some social
democratic states in Europe do; I doubt that too.  Certainly there aren't
two ruling classes here in the U.S..

Tony