Reddit reviews Socialism . . . Seriously: A Brief Guide to Human Liberation

Hey! It's great that you're already learning about this stuff in your own time. Socialism takes a little bit of time to fully unwind, so keep that in mind as you read through some stuff. I got my little brother Socialism ...Seriously and I'd strongly recommend that one for a quick easy read that gives a great rundown of all the questions you ask.

My quick version:

You aren't going to get to socialism with a set of positions, reforms, or modifications to the existing order of things. Socialism flips the way we think of government upside down.

There's this thing called "Social Democracy" that people sometimes call Socialism which attempts to reform capitalism by passing reforms to "save it" from screwing over the working class. This is basically like "Bernie Sanders Socialism". Sometimes people call this "socialism", but it actually isn't.

The problem with Social Democracy is essentially that capitalism itself is flawed, and by leaving the capitalist economic system in place we're still left with the disease. This animation gives a pretty quick explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz3eOb6Yl1s&spfreload=10

It doesn’t exactly dig deep into theory, but I found Danny Katch’s Socialism ... Seriously really accessible and readable if a bit goofy at times.

Also, if you want to recommend some YouTube videos to him, check out Beau of the Fifth Column.

I didn't mean in any way to imply that there is a conspiratorial cabal of economic elites carefully planning every destructive step. What I'm trying to say is Capital has been 'objectified'. We are dealing with emotional, irrational apes who have wholly become subservient to the service of expanding Capital. Other than several layers of sophistication they're no different in their ritualistic commitment than Orthodox Muslims.

Climate change is backed by large amounts of evidence, yet we go on our way in service of expanding capital through fossil fuel industry. It is irrational. Saudi Arabia is the single largest source of hateful salafist propaganda (that every Muslim terrorist is exposed to) yet Western Elites keep supporting and enabling them. This is irrational behavior, not carefully calculated evil master plan. There are 100s of examples of such irrationality. Even if Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Ali claim some sort of Western superior 'rationality' and 'reason'.

Danny Katch put it in a humorous way here and in this book:

>Many people have a hard time understanding why even oil executives would continue to pursue their mad project given that they and their children also reside on planet Earth. But this is based on the assumption that they have a choice — that they are not mere servants of capital itself. In Capital, Karl Marx quoted an early trade union leader on the system’s mad drive for profit:

>“Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 percent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 percent certain will produce eagerness; 50 percent, positive audacity; 100 percent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 percent, and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.”

>Capitalist society is run not by capitalists but by capital, which is like an all-powerful malevolent force in a sci-fi movie, preying on the greed and vanity of certain humans to make them do its bidding.

>You might think of Sauron in Lord of the Rings. I prefer “the Great Evil” in the fantastically silly Fifth Element. You can tell someone has been taken over by the Great Evil because a dark brown ooze starts to run down his forehead. Over the top? Maybe, but tell me you can’t picture the ooze coming out of TransCanada CEO Russ Girling as he nervously lobbies for his pipeline to be approved so that his company’s massive tar sands investment doesn’t go belly up.

Being the animals we are, we have chosen to objectify and adapt to, with no sign of slowing down, the mechanism of Capital growth. And since it works pretty good for Economic Elites their animal adaptation feature makes them fear the necessary radical re-distributive change that we both advocate.

>Secondly, the masses have more power than you think in this situation. They are controlled by manipulation, not force. And as I said, there is really no way to ignore complete unemployment. You can't propaganda it anyway. The bourgeoisie are honestly in quite a bit of danger in this scenario, remember they are more of less integrated among everyone else. In order for the dystopian scenario to exist, the elites would have to all agree to work together to somehow control the masses for several decades while their automated crap comes online.

Unfortunately I think force plays a major part. Maybe not for global 5 to 10% but definitely for the rest of humanity. For example, the people in this story were forced to accept capitalist law. This is far from an isolated example. This is how capital has pervaded every corner of this planet.

As far as working together, that really isn't a problem for they become united in service of growing capital as Panama Papers have shown recently. In fact, like Stephen Hawking said, rudimentary AI (computers) has been around for a few decades now and all it's done, along with increase productivity, is increase inequality. Why would this trend stop?

The elites wouldn't have to implement anything. Just neglect the masses. And if the masses try to revolt, suppress them with superior AI armies. This, of course, is if radical re-distributive change isn't aggressively pursued and accomplished.

Socialism...Seriously by Danny Katch

This seems like the book you are looking for. It's a pretty short handbook for explaining the general critiques of capitalism, and explaining what socialism is. A great introduction, I recommend it a lot.