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I recently learned something about selective breeding of chickens:

If you repeatedly select for the individual chicken that lays the most eggs, generation after generation, then egg production goes _down_. This is because the chook that lays the most eggs is the dominant chook, and selecting for dominance results in a flock of chickens that are hyper-aggressive and waste a lot of energy fighting.

Conversely, if you selectively breed chickens at the level of the flock, selecting for flocks that have overall better egg production, then you select for _cooperative_ flocks of chickens and this is the best way to optimise overall egg production*.

I think that humans have been selected-for at the group level more than the individual level, and this is why it's so critical to preserve tolerance and teamwork at the societal level. Groups of humans that can't cooperate are out-competed by groups that can.

* I'm not advocating for chicken factory farming 🙂

@wall0159

TLDR; #Socialism is superior to the axe-mule-bag-of-beans-ME economy model.

@n_dimension I'd argue for "Social Democracy" (eg. 1950s USA) instead of "Socialism" (eg. 1950s USSR).
I think two important things are:
1. redistributionist economics that provide a robust welfare state while not disincentivising private effort, and
2. individual liberty, including movement, ideas, assembly, and money (as long as the needs of point 1 are met)

@wall0159 @n_dimension

Social Democracy still maintains capitalist exploitation through the extraction of surplus value from the workers' labor due to private ownership of the means of production still existing. Collective ownership of the means of production (i.e., Socialism) is the only thing that will eliminate this exploitation.

@Radical_EgoCom, the problem with Socialism is that it requires that the Party administer the means of production, their authority comes to be based on violence, and you get a ruling elite in a different way. I think it's possible to create a movement similar to DFR's, that redistributes the wealth throughout society. I think that could be called Social Democracy @n_dimension

@wall0159 @n_dimension

Those aren't "problems" with socialism. Those are just key aspects (and misrepresentations) of socialism. 1. The Party administers the means of production. The state, led by the Party, would indeed administer redistribution of the means of production. That's just how state socialism works. No problem so far. 2. Their authority becomes based on violence. Yes, violence will be required in managing this kind of state. Violence of some kind is... 1/4

@wall0159 @n_dimension

...required to manage every kind of state. It's impossibility to have a state that isn't based on violence since a state is a tool for one class to impose their will onto another (in this case, it would be the proletarian class, the majority of society, imposing their will onto the bourgeois class). So far, these have just been, not problems, but basic aspects of a socialist state. 3. This would create a ruling class in a different way. This is possible, for... 2/4

@wall0159 @n_dimension

...the state to be high jacked by reactionaries or revisionists who don't believe in socialism, the revolution, or workers' power and become a new ruling class, but it is not a guarantee. If all goes to plan, the state would be managed by the people through representative democracy through the Party that will directly manage and run the state. As for your last point about Social Democracy, I already explained this in my last comment, but... 3/4

☭ 𝗖 𝗔 𝗧 ☭

@wall0159 @n_dimension

...Social Democracy still maintains the exploitation inherent in capitalism. Socialism (collective ownership of the means of production) is the only thing that will eliminate this exploitation. 4/4