You’re of course free to explore this direction! We’re a grassroots movement. TZM NL also networks with like-minded organizations, just to poke each other’s brains. If it works, more people might join your direction.
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I also think the transition will occur the way you described it. Pockets of communities getting off-grid here and there, small and slow spreading of the train of thought. Which was how capitalism started to consolidate, it took about 5 centuries to work out, and did it actually work out? Of course the planet can’t stand another century of capitalism…
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And since you don’t have a form of collectivism to ease change and capitalism remains the dominant system, we pressure the government to change. Ideology and the socio-economic system can influence how science, and technology will use, and what obstacles will be there. In a social democracy like Europe, it’s easier to do progressive change than in a stanch capitalist country like the US.
The train of thought is already slowly spread within the younger generation, a lot of which uses some branch of socialism instead of direct RBE (which can be good, since change occurs anyways). Distrust in capitalism is rising. A lot of people have realized that it’s not the science and technology that are reducing our quality of life, it’s capitalism, and multiple solutions, which all aim to reform or dismantle capitalism, have been proposed.
Getting off-grid and forming communities is one step to achieve change, but it’s also important to organize the movement(s) to also change the government.
But we agree, that in some way or another, capitalism is undoubtedly bad for our planet, and if we continue to use it, by 2100, our society could collapse due to an ecological crisis.
We must end the use of fossil fuels by 2030-2050 and reach “net zero by 2050 or earlier” and not “net zero by 2050 (which justifies late action because you reach net zero exactly at 2050, and cannot do so earlier)”.
We must also change our ideological frameworks and social values fundamentally to be in line with the goals of improving quality of life and the health of the environment, and dismantle the capitalist system, based on outdated and harmful values. I will not deny that some forms of socialism have improved values, like eco-socialism, or the humanist socialism I have.
Humanist socialism (as defined in the 16th reply) might compatible with the TZM vision, but not the more anarchist apolitical views of some members, which in part deny the importance of the framework in which science and technology is implement.
There is (i think) a prevalent false equivalence between all isms and infinite growth. And I understand considering the legacy of red scare propaganda. Despite that it’s wrong, it’s easier to use this equivalence than if you explain how Resource Based Economy can be embedded to a certain systems and how the branches of those systems work.
Explaining nuances it’s difficult and potentially unsafe due to misinterpretation from groups with the same vision but conflicting ways to do it. Simplifying the narrative is easy to do, despite that we risk oversimplify a lot of dynamic concepts, and conflate fundamentally different ideologies with infinite growth.
So, the problem with why we oppose all isms despite that those isms are complex, always adapting when failing, might work next time, and are using different names, is that we conflate all of those different systems under the single banner of neoliberalism and infinite growth.
Maybe I am not referring to any mainstream system branch. We are talking about a benchmark that I call humanist socialism, but it might not be socialism according to TZM. When you search on the internet for humanist socialism, you don’t find any results, because it’s probably just a benchmark I created for myself that I call it as some form of socialism.
It may add upon existing systems like democratic socialism, but it’s changed so significantly that the purpose of this system moves away from profits, infinite growth, and securing of labor (traditional socialism and capitalism), and becomes conductive to science and technology improving human well-being.
You can run a community with RBE principles and is not socialist by traditional means and call your community a humanist socialist system.
So, we don’t even know what we are talking about, after doing a thorough revision of our previous replies.
For these reasons, the Letter shall be invalidated.
Note that the act of making communities and going off grid, can be, according to some members, another divisive topic, but certainly useful.
Making communities is a secondary priority, the first one is the system we make. The purpose of our system is to be implemented at large.
I meant that as in the old Buckminster Fuller’s quote: “To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
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And “humanist socialism” (as defined in Reply 15), which is not socialism traditionally, and can more familiarly be called “RBE-like” might be one of the models than can make capitalism obsolete:
- “The means of production are primarily owned collectively or automated.” The addition of or automated makes automation a valid option, which traditional socialism does not.
- “The ultimate aim is to enhance human well-being through the application of science, technology, regulation, social reform, among others.” The application of science, technology makes it different from the more non-technical means of change.
- “The protection of the environment is an integral component of human welfare.” By placing emphasis on human welfare and making the protection of the environment an integral component of human welfare, we can justify the interdiction of infinite growth and other unsustainable practices.
- “Human Rights: International law and basic human rights must be respected at all costs.” It interdicts war crimes and the bad treatment of humans.
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How do you achieve that? Ask the ruling class nicely? Hope for a political party advocating for RBE-like model to win elections?
No. We place pressure on the government and prototype, just like we usually do. None of the political parties I see respect these principles exactly, and the ruling class will be staunchly opposed to any fundamental change.
I’m very pessimistic and cynic about reforming the system. I do hope that can be done but I really don’t believe “pressure on the government” can get us there. You have to realize that government or the State is owned by the ruling class. The bourgeoisie will sabotage any attempt to take their privilege. I don’t see it happen otherwise than with a popular uprising or revolution.
Then, how to do the revolution without using violence? I believe in a reformist revolution, where you can reform the state until a revolution occurs. But the problem is that as an outsider, you cannot do a reform by yourself.
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See, that’s the thing. All the big social changes through out History were achieved with violence, because the oppressors always won’t ever want to let go their ruling status.
Just look at the fu<§ing neo-liberal UE. Do you see any openness for any other economic model from those fu__ers? They even control domestic national budgets of peripheral countries with dependent economies. Do you think you can pressure those fu__ers?
Yes, just like MLK, but you can risk a lot of threats, such as police doing war crimes. And you need to make sure that liberals, which are similar to conservatives but are better at optics and hiding their true beliefs don’t manipulate public opinion, which at first will be against change.
If you want for example, better conditions at the workplace, you can start a union and then move on to the bigger things. But despite that a lot of workers want the minimum wage to raise in the US, it doesn’t.
Here, Second Thought explains what can you do in a capitalist country if you want change.
As a note, please consider that when I use the names that are usually assigned to traditional systems like the non-technical marxist socialist systems, I may not refer to the full traditional system, but rather an aspect, like collectivism, or something different (like that humanist socialism I mentioned). And I do believe that people should own and automate the means of production, and distribute all resources to each according to their need.
As a reminder: The best system we have right now is social democracy, the nordic model, not state socialism. But I see it as insufficient and we need to gradually move away from it. We need to find a way to make equitable economic systems without exploitation, either internally (wages that are too low) or externally (neocolonialism).
As a note, I will state again that “Humanist Socialism” or “RBE-like” or “RBEism” is not traditionally socialist.
It only keeps a few principles like collective ownership of resources, but it adds automation and science, human rights, environmental protection and human-centric (instead of wealth-centric goals) and removes the requirement of a party, the need to secure value and profits off labor, and privatization (to distinguish it from China and other countries and systems)
Psychology Today explains why traditional forms of socialism have failed:
It’s because they tried to force equality without creating some form of equity or basic personal freedoms.
and you have 21st century variants that are more democratic, use modern technology, focus on ecological protection, human well-being, and so on.
Last i checked, socialism of the 21st century, despite it’s lofty goals of ecology, and lots of direct democracy and other great sounding ideas, was attempted by Venezuela, and ended up…yeah.
RBE used to be anebulous idea, now it can be part of socialism, so you can no longer cannot all forms of socialism outright.
We had a guy in the RBE scene that tried to mingle the 2.
Moneyless Society.
Now their page is just another dime-a-dozen marxist meme page, and you’d never realize it has, or had anything to do with RBE.
Trying to fuse the specific RBE community with the broad, more popular, century-old, much more developed hard left(be it communist, various flavours of socialist, anarchist, or whatever) won’t convince them to change their theory into makins sure socialism transitions into an RBE, it will just remove our differentiating factor, will convert our ideology into theirs, and will dilute TZM into being the millionth tiny generic marxist group, that has the same talking points, and does the exact same thing as all the others.
Now, you found the Breadtube rabbit hole.
That’s cool, and maybe you now find socialism is even better than RBE, but in that case, join something like Moneyless Society, or the countless western-style communist groups that exist.
Anything above the 43rd reply is invalid! These arguments no longer apply. If you have questions about humanist socialism, the system which I described earlier, ask this bot:
This bot does not perfectly represent any opinion, but it should give you an idea. It is opposed to traditional forms of socialism, just like I am, and so is the rest of the movement except for some marxists.
The definition of socialism we used was wrong, and we didn’t really know what we were talking about!
My views can be invalid every time I deem them as invalid or wrong. It depends on how much thought I allocate. My views are complex, and can be wrong.
We have already settled that socialism (which I call traditional socialism) as you know it, is “bad”, “insufficient”.
Warning: The following replies in the grid do not really represent my opinion. There are many replies, these are just some.
By the way, this robot does not outright represent TZM or all of its values completely, and so neither does it represent my or your opinion.
If you don’t like the bot, then leave it alone. Just assume it’s wrong (because yes, it can be wrong, it’s not perfect).
Traditional socialism is not better than an RBE. (or, we say socialism is not any better than an RBE)
We can close the thread if we do not want comments on invalid arguments anymore.
But, despite that the letter is actually invalid and the arguments made by both sides might be wrong we didn’t even know what we are talking about, we still don’t close the thread because “we need this topic on this forum”, despite that we were misinterpreting an RBE-like system just because I called it some form of socialism (which it isn’t, traditionally).
Now, the reason why I use “traditional” socialism is to avoid making a blanket denial of all the complex branches we inspired from + my own system which is not socialist by general consensus.
Humanist Socialism, that personal benchmark to RBE, is probably the only system which uses the term socialism but it isn’t, according to general consensus. (If we eliminate knee jerk denials based on labels instead of substance)
As per a lot of previous posts on the forum, we have already seen some principles of HS (or RBE-like, as we would like to call it) being applied at a certain level (vertical farms, local grids, welfare reforms, more ethical material sourcing…)
In that case, perhaps you could contact these HS thinkers or organisations, and tell them about RBE.
Perhaps that will make them join and enrich us.
They have the experience, and a more philosophical backing, while we have a more scientific methodology.
I am the only one who uses the name “Humanist Socialism”, and I don’t know anyone who embodies those principles exactly, so we can only support initiatives that give us hope, like Volt, despite that we may see them as insufficient or contradictory.
There are “socialist” channels that are very much common sense and partially in line with HS, like Our Changing Climate and Second Thought. While we may disagree with them, they offer analysis of complex events that are worth looking into.
And we have HS thinkers right here, in The Zeitgeist Movement, except that they don’t call themselves that label. There are a ton of labels for the same system.
AI has a list of thinkers which “influenced” Humanist Socialism:
Republic of Fluid Constitution - This fictional constitution I created represents the ideals of HS, specifically, Article 1.
I am the only one who uses the name “Humanist Socialism”
Well, in that case, hard to say anything about it.
You might make your own system, by merging RBE with these post-socialist tendencies, and try to bring them together.
And what about “political gridlock”, the 6th reason why it has low engagement. Like, you have “socialists” like me, a marxist minority, and the anti-political “left” majority, among many other groups, and although everyone seeks an RBE, the approaches in which it is achieved are different and conflicting.