this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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how do you think this lack of transparency can be fixed?
Having read Luhmann (systems theory) and being grown up in post-GDR East-Germany I'd say: Capitalist democracies (power) delegate most resource management to a different functional system (finance). Transparency is strongly regulated, can be fought for through a third separate functional system (law) and can be observed though a fourth functional system (mass media).
In GDR, all these delegated systems strongly depended on the centralized planning. So to make one possible conclusion: to fix that transparency issue to a certain degree, you could delegate resource plannig to a decentralized, self-managed system.
I understand, that some present decentralized, self-managed systems are Monopoly games, also considered capitalisms. But this doesn't hold true for all. Most are just very decentralized and just almost self-managed systems. Law fights monopolies. Lawmakers dampen extreme aggregation and extreme poverty.
Approaches to transparent Socialisms should not only include transparency as a starting condition but also the constant structural reproduction of it from within. From scratch, it is hard to come up with completely different functional systems (not power-finance-law-media) that harmonize better than what we have. (game theory) Luhmann said, we have to fix it step by step until we come to a better, different system. Marx also knew that wanted workers to become self-aware, solidary and tough enough to accomplish adjustments against the rich. You see, this democracy already looks totally socialist when compared to the 1920s.
Cheaper rents (though flats overflow) would solve a lot of Germany present day problems like
It has to be done using public investment (tending or subsidies). We don't have that yet. Workers should fight for THAT and NOT for lashing basic income receivers harder.
You're making a critical error in erasing the class character of the state. Modern Germany is closer to fascism than it is to socialism if we are to take a Marxist analysis. Laws in capitalism exist with the consent of the largest capitalists, and any independent org is allowed to the extent that it upholds the status quo. What workers should organize for is the overthrowal of the capitalist state and replacing it with a socialist one.
IDK why you bring up fascism and how to put Maxist analysis in context. I doubt state overthrowals ever had been beneficial for the working class, certainly not more than for the rich.
I brought up fascism because there's absolutely no basis to saying modern Germany is "more socialist" now. It's still a dictatorship of capital.
Secondly, working class revolution and establishing socialism has been greatly beneficial for the working classes in the USSR, PRC, DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and even partial overthrowals such as in the Bolivarian revolution and Nicaraguan revolution have been tremendously beneficial. Socialism works, and disparity within socialism, though real, neither comes close to capitalism nor is erasing disparity the goal of socialism, but creating a society focused on satisfying the needs of everyone.
Sorry, you mix up too much for me. What's a low disparity in an overall poor country worth anyway.
What did I mix up? Further, again, I agree, lowering disparity isn't the primary concern but instead directing the economy towards improving the lives of the working classes through a working class controlled and directed state and economy. Capitalist economies are directed towards profits above all else, and Germany in particular is an imperialist country that plunders the global south.
Lawmakers do not fight monopolies.
Lawmakers serve the merchant class,
and any laws protecting it will be circumvented.
The only exception is when
the lawyer class fears a socialist revolution
and decides to take a left turn
within the capitalist system,
going full social democracy,
in order to preserve the capitalist system,
as an alternative to taking the fascist route,
which the US did when FDR came to power,
which ended with Nixon's administration.
The German lawyer class right now serves the US merchant class. They have been since 1945 and 1990.
Laws protecting German workers stem from the FDR-Johnson era.
It is also on the brink of collapse as the German lawyer class decided to hand over everything to the US oligarchs.
Germany's present day problem is a total collapse of its merchant class from what's left of it.
It's bread and butter, the German car industry is about to go down soon.
There is no left turn coming to the rescue from the US this time around.
The US no longer fears a socialist revolution from the worker and academic classes imitating the USSR, while its raw power is fading instead of rising on the world stage and thus has decided to take the fascist route.