I recommend "Deus Ex 2000" sci fi game". In lots of ways, our world now feels like it is sorta starting to resemble it. Which is a little frightening to be honest. But basically, in that game it discusses the issue of power imbalance of too much centralized control through government, including the control of corporations and the regime model is based on benefitting the Plutocrats.
Plutocrats means Society run by the rich. The sad reality is... you will never get rid of rich people. Like... ever. If it had worked? Then people would have figured it out long time ago. In USSR you had millionaires "Though they were heavily surveyed by the state" also (Including the state). And in CCP China you have Billionaires, Tencent for example. (Which is also heavily moderated by the CCP regime). Though i compare EU and CCP to be similar in their goals of Stong Centralized Power Structure. However, China has a more, Censorship Protectionism model, to protect their traditions and culture from suicidal empathy, thats the only difference. Whereas EU takes ESG money from China.
I played the original Deus Ex games when they first came out. It was a good series, but I remember the theme being more about conspiracy and corporatocracy than government overreach... may be time to revisit JC Denton.
I think the closest to a solution. Is vote for a party who is pro Decentralization. In Norway i vote for Centre Party for that reason
I think the answer lies somewhere in the balance of maximal freedom and self-determination, tempered by the maximizing of public good and minimizing harm. We need to agree on the values we wish to pursue, and then work backwards towards the policy directions that will get us there. I think decentralization (as I understand the term) is attractive because it limits the scope of a policy to avoid widespread unanticipated fallout, but it also fractures society into small fiefdoms and their idiosyncrasies will generally prey on the individual moving between them. An example of this can be seen in the US, where state laws can vary wildly, and ignorance of the law is not a generally accepted excuse. One could say that in America, the law doesn't really protect the rights of the individual so much as the interests of what Marx called the bourgeoisie, who do not wish for strong centralized policies, as decentralized policies can be generally easier and cheaper to influence (some jurisdictions are harder to corrupt, but maybe their neighbors will let you build that strip mine, fracking operation, or data center, without holding you accountable for things... just look at
what's going on in Fayette County, Georgia)
Private property is something like a house, a business, farmland, etc. Personal property is stuff like your shoes, clothes, etc. at least, thats what i can come up with through what the adults in my life have told me and through process of elimination. What I mean by "Read in between the lines" is that you really have to pay attention to what all the words in The Communist Manifesto actually say and mean and understand what will actually happen. I'm not suggesting that there are ulterior motives, just that, not everything is as it seems, that you have to pay attention to truly understand what would happen.
I appreciate you taking an honest stab at it. Yours is a good guess, but it's missing a key distinction. The common understanding of "private" is usually anything that isn't owned by a public or governmental agency; after all, we call our homes and curtilage "private" property, as the term is commonly invoked in "no trespassing" signs, right?
But actually in this context, the big distinction is whether the property is used to generate revenue for its owners (which could be individuals or corporations), and property that is meant for individual use or consumption is "personal." So, in addition to obvious things like your personal effects and belongings, the house you live in is personal--not private--property, as is your car and just about any consumables you purchase for yourself or others without any profit motive.
While your primary residence is personal property, that second investment property is not. Things like rental properties, office equipment, wholesale goods, raw materials, and other gear, vehicles, and machinery used for business, and the buildings and land in and on which businesses operate are all examples of
private property, as their primary purpose is to generate revenue for the private owners of that capital. This is what they mean when they say that in capitalism, the capitalists control the means of production; they hold ownership over the private property that generates revenue for themselves; the workers are paid for their labor at the lowest rate possible to ensure maximum margin of profit. The pressure of capitalism is always to concentrate wealth into fewer hands, at the expense of the larger populace (proletariat, aka working classes)
The line blurs slightly as people start using their personal property to make money for themselves, like renting out a room in your house, or using your lawn mower to earn money around the neighborhood. When I was young I was one of the first kids in school to get a CD burner, and I used it to make mix-tape CDs for my friends for a few bucks. This is why small businesses are allowed to deduct portions of their personal property as business expenses, like their home offices, personal vehicles, and utilities, so long as they are used for business purposes.
In fact, while he died before the invention of the automobile, Marx prophesied the advent of Uber and AirBnB.
He anticipated that the dynamics of capitalism would lead to the conversion of personal property into private property, as the bourgeoisie would seek to control and monetize all aspects of life. He argued that this transformation would result in the exploitation of the working class and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Sound familiar at all? Like I said, his criticisms of capitalism were absolutely spot-on.
This highlights one of the biggest (and most obnoxious) misconceptions I see when discussing macroeconomics: when talking about the elimination of "private" property, ill-informed or bad-faith interlocutors will quip that it would mean that we'd have to give the undeserving the shirts off our backs, or let the homeless move in with us, or have our personal property and wealth redistributed (Très injuste!). Americans have been deliberately miseducated, because it is in the best interest of the exploiting class that has captured our governmental, commercial, and media apparatus.
en.wikipedia.org
. Its no shock that most Communist leaders has had background in wealthy families, i doubt that is a coincidence.
