• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Efficiency and low-cost comes with baggage too

    Automation under capitalism: Tons of unemployment and poverty while a few insiders get lots of treats

    Automation under socialism: Shorter work weeks, more vacation, and the standard of living for everyone goes up

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      9 hours ago

      Did the shorter work weeks and more vacation after automation materialize in socialist states?

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day_movement

            The eight-hour day movement (also known as the 40-hour week movement or the short-time movement) was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses of working time.

            Just for starters.

            The modern concept of “Retirement” is also tied to socialist policy and politics. One of the first major reforms states implement after a socialist election or Marxist revolution is the implementation of retirement age. And those countries with the strongest socialist histories tend to have the lowest retirement ages and most generous pensions. Fully socialist states like Vietnam and China and South Africa have retirement in the 55-62 range. More socialist-leaning European/East Asian states like France, Denmark, Korea, and Japan have a retirement age in the 63-67 range. And fully captured capitalist systems like Uganda or Bangladesh or the undocumented worker pools of the Americas have no retirement for private workers whatsoever, working people to death.

            • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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              4 hours ago

              That movement is not at all specific to socialist states. If you read a bit further it even says how it originated in industrial revolution Britain and happened all over the world.

              I’m not asking about socialist or social democratic or labour movement policies in capitalist countries, I’m asking about automation shortening the work day in socialist countries

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                3 hours ago

                If you read a bit further it even says how it originated in industrial revolution Britain and happened all over the world.

                Industrial Britian had an enormous activist labor movement. A slew of left wing thinkers and agitators emerged from the British academic scene, including Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Ghandi.

                I’m not asking about socialist or social democratic or labour movement policies in capitalist countries

                How are you defining “Capitalist Country” if you ignore all the socialist policies a country has implemented?

                Hell, how do you define Socialist Country, if you exclude every one that’s undergone Capitalist accumulation?

                8-hour work week is a socialist policy, espoused by socialist parties and implemented in governments with socialist majorities. Same with pensions and other public retirement funds.

                The more socialists you have setting policy, the shorter your work week and the earlier your retirement.

                • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                  2 hours ago

                  Industrial Britian had an enormous activist labor movement. A slew of left wing thinkers and agitators emerged from the British academic scene, including Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Ghandi.

                  Yeah because of how mega capitalist it was

                  How are you defining “Capitalist Country” if you ignore all the socialist policies a country has implemented?

                  Worker ownership of means of production, usually. Let’s say Eastern Block, China, you get the picture.

                  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                    1 hour ago

                    Yeah because of how mega capitalist it was

                    Capital accumulation is a predicate for the surpluses needed to build a socialist economy.

                    Worker ownership of means of production, usually.

                    Public pensions and union shops lay claim to the surplus profits of capital. The UK’s union membership peaked in the 1970s, as did its wages/pensions. After Thatcher, that share declined rapidly, as did the supply of council housing, the access to public health care and education, and the various other amenities common to socialist economies.

                    Let’s say Eastern Block, China, you get the picture.

                    The maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry

                    • Michael Parenti

                    Don’t get much more “worker ownership of means of production” than that.