One of modern Marxist-Humanism's biggest talking points is that the left needs to seriously begin working out what the alternative to capitalism might look like. The recent Kollontai debate reveals how correct this talking point is.

People often miss that Marx's critique of blueprints was, frankly, very literal. The Utopian socialists drafted out ludicrously detailed specifics for how the future society would be organized. I'll take Fourier as my example.

For one example, he argued that after-meal cleaning duties ought to be handled by "youngsters aged nine to sixteen, composed of one-third girls, two-thirds boys," and laid out plans for how people ought to seat themselves at dinner itself. It's absurd.

When Marx argued against blueprints, he was arguing against the idea that intellectuals could dream up solutions to problems that reality had not even yet posed. He was not arguing that Marxists should not take seriously what a future society might look like in broad strokes.

In a post-Soviet world, this is not a question that we can ignore. When revolution transforms into its opposite, regardless of why this may have been the case, we must begin to work out how such transformations can be safeguarded against in the future.

This IS a question that has been posed to us by reality, and it is one that we will have to answer. The answer required must also be more detailed than simply "commodity production will be abolished."

The central question that must be answered now goes deeper than this. Commodity production is the result of the dual character of capitalist labor, and so serious thought needs to be given to the character of labor under socialism.

I won't pretend I have the answer to this question, but it worries me how little thought it is given. The Kollontai debate reveals how far the left is from being able to provide a coherent answer, at least not an answer we can agree on.

I don't care about Kollontai, but the question of how labor will be organized and how production will be planned under socialism is something that needs to be discussed seriously, not implied through Twitter spats.

Relevant reading: https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/doug-lain-interview-with-andrew-kliman-on-his-alternatives-of-capitalism-what-happens-after-the-revolution.html

I'm not happy with everything I've said in this thread, so if something seems questionable to you DM me and I'll make myself sound less stupid.