Weren't the kibbutz in early Israel essentially socialist (or even possibly communist)? It doesn't seem hard to come up with functioning examples at a small scale (families, groups of families, etc.) with high group-cohesiveness and shared identity. It seems to break down at the nation-state scale, except perhaps during wartime or other emergency. It's interesting to think about whether socialism works in a society with extreme abundance ("post-scarcity"), at least for certain kinds of assets -- I could see cheaply-made material goods being essentially distributed in a socialist way while services performed by humans and "status" goods were highly capitalist.
Socialism/capitalism primarily deals with the question of how to distribute scarce resources - which, by definition, is irrelevant in a post-scarcity society.
No, neither deals with scarce resources. Capitalism deals with investment and return on investment (via profit) as the directing agent of production. Socialism deals with distribution of "goods and services" according to some socially defined value system. The various socialisms may vary on how this value system is aimed or directed, but it is usually "republican" (for the people) in outer character so that popular support is maintained; even if it is benevolently dictatored for executive expediency.
Second, he says "scarce resources," you say 'no, it doesn't deal with that," but then say that it deals with "distribution of 'goods and services.'"
Isn't that the same thing, from a practical standpoint?
Even if they aren't scarce in the sense that the society has enough to go around, their scarcity relative to the average citizen still depends on the efficiency of that distribution process.
Maybe the system or theory of socialism technically 'doesn't concern itself with scarce resources', but I don't see why it makes his point less valid.
> but I don't see why it makes his point less valid.
>>Socialism/capitalism primarily deals with the question of how to distribute scarce resources - which, by definition, is irrelevant in a post-scarcity society.
If (by his point) you mean his assertion that socialism and capitalism are irrelevant in a "post-scarcity society", do not forget he is asserting that there is no scarcity. Either goods and services are abundant and meeting "market" aggregate needs (post-scarcity), or they are not.
Socialism assumes that the problems of production (and presumably service delivery) have been solved, so it is quite happy in a "post-scarcity" world, since it only has to distribute according to need, or to everyone, or something like that. Socialism is only concerned with distribution and doesn't care whether the resources (goods/services, or what-not) are scarce or not. It assumes distribution is irrelevant to production or availability of anything.
Practically speaking, capitalism doesn't categorically solve scarcity or distribution , and only gets involved if there is a measurable expectation of return to be made in a market.
Socialism and capitalism are both mechanisms for distributing scarce resources (they are two extreme options for the control over the means of production and, therefore, control of the distribution of outputs produced.) While you could employ either mechanism in the absence of scarcity, that's not really what they are designed for—each is a answer to the question "given limited useful production possibilities, how do we decide what is produced and how the output is distributed"
Capitalism isn't really concerned with production per se any more than socialism is. Socialism assumes the problem of production has been solved (presumably by capitalism) whereas capitalism is the legal framework of risk/return on investment designed to allow the owner of capital to maximize profit (or grow capital).
Meeting market demand with products or services is one of the means that capital uses, but is not the purpose of capitalism.
> Socialism assumes the problem of production has been solved
Insofar as that is true of socialist theory (its an element of Marxist historical perspective), it is not a general "problem of production", but the specific factors inhibiting realization of production possibilities presented by the structure of feudal property structures that socialism views capitalism (or, perhaps more specifically, the change to the structure of property rights which enabled capitalism) as having removed.
> whereas capitalism is the legal framework of risk/return on investment designed to allow the owner of capital to maximize profit (or grow capital).
Enabling capital owners to maximize profit is a very specific preference in how production and distribution in the presence of scarce resources should be prioritized. Yes, its what capitalism is about, to be sure, but it is simply not true to say that this somehow supports the point that capitalism is not about production.
Post-scarcity doesn't mean that there are "enough" goods, it means they are so plenty that they are free - therefore there is not need for policies to ensure their fair and/or efficient distribution.
I agree. Socialism assumes production has been "solved".
Perhaps the original poster meant that the "conflict" between (currently-emerging) socialism and (obstructionist) capitalism will not be necessary in the future, since socialist pre-conditions will have been met. Marx touted the same thing; I'm not disagreeing with that.
I'm going to assume (for argument sake) that this "post-scarcity" world is one were labor is unnecessary for the continued production of existing products at existing output scales (ignoring for a moment changing demographics and perhaps the "need" for R&D to solve new problems).
That still leaves land, resource and capital in the production equation. Land: because production (including food production) has to occur somewhere, resource: because the raw materials are not uniformly located in the same locales as the production or the consumption domains (and indeed most are not infinitely collectible even where they are currently located), and capital: to manage the risk and rewards on the uncertainty of the success of any venture to change the status quo (which will alter itself anyway due to resource exhaustion and geolocated "demand/need" changes).
So...what I am saying is that the "problem" of production isn't solvable, any more than entropy (resource exhaustion) can be reversed. There is always natural variability in location and resource (spatially and temporally), that are managed through the risks and rewards of capital investment; risks quantified as loss, rewards quantified as profit.
