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Communism
Can it work but only in theory?

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Communism

animemoon
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Posted 10/21/09 - 11:09 PM:	#21
What do you mean when you say, that in theory, if we put aside greed, that "Communism could work." Work meaning everyone can be happy and content with such a life? Or, do you mean "work" as in a system that can can be held in place for a long while? You said the problem with communism was greed. Since greed is wanting more of something, you would have to do away with all wants and desires all together... but happiness has alot to do with those two things... we cannot possibly all like the same thing. Some love nature, some love traveling, some love cars or shoes or being with family. And those who enjoy those things, will always have similar wants, if you love nature, you want to be around nature, and if you enjoy traveling, you want to travel. When we find happiness in the different interests and things we enjoy in life, and when it causes us to want those things, and if wanting is greed, then greed is necessary. Happiness is also a major need in life, one can be kept alive with food water and shelter, but without anything to be happy about, how does one find the motivation to go on living? And if we were to remove individual interests so everyone liked the same thing and lived the same way, and wanted nothing. Then we fail to progress...and I feel without progression we are all doomed... Technically, any government system with enough force, power and might can be "Made to work". But for it to actually work in a way that would make us happy, I'd think would require more than what is possible. In order for everything to be "equally distributed" among us all, to suit all of our needs, it would require us all to conform to some sort of normal standard. And how would we define that standard? When people are different in so many ways, and all have different ideas of what they want in life, and all have different ideas of what happiness is. While you might have one family who is simply happy with their city home, enjoying modern conveniences, you might have another family who has a love of nature and enjoys their mountain cabin, and living off the land and doesn't care for anything fancy, just simply what is already there... another person may find happiness is just seeing the world, uncontent just to stay in one place. If everything is "Equally distributed" these people will have to conform to some standard, and give up their ideas of happiness. There is more to what people need in life than just food, water, and shelter. Without happiness what has one to live for? And how can we come to a middle ground and define a typical "Happy" one-size-fits-all lifestyle? Finding a home in the mountains nowadays comes a high price, I'd think the reason is, we have billions of people around, and there are probably some thousands if not millions of people who would love to have a mountain home, but we are limited in resources, there isn't enough mountain to go around so everyone might have a share... so without the option of being able to "Work hard enough to obtain what they desire" They simply have to do without... For other things like traveling, seeing the world, etc. it again comes at a price... unless everyone is able to be rich enough to do so, than those people will again have to give up their dreams and do without... Everyone has to conform and when you have people conform and give up their ideals and wishes, then everyone becomes unhappy.... The only way around, would be to skip the middle ground and make sure that everyone equally gets enough so that whatever it is they desire in life, they will be able to get it, and I don't see there ever being enough money or resources. To me, this is where capitalism offers a solution, to me its the only way to give everyone at least a "Chance" at happiness... those who want something so much that their happiness depends on it, will work just that much harder to be able to obtain it, others might want something but be able to find their own middle ground and be able to settle, even those who aren't able to obtain what they wanted in life, at least had a "chance" at doing so, and were able to at least have hope.

Odin
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Posted 10/22/09 - 01:04 PM:	#22
Mike H wrote: Odin: What if you were disabled or sick and unable to support yourself (or pay for medical care for surgery/medicine), and your family/friends were unable to completely support you? Are you saying all disabled/sick people should kill themselves? If I were in that situation (which people get into by wasting their money collecting logos and eating junk food), then I would have to rely on the benevolence of other individuals to help me. I would have no right to appropriate the labor of others to my benefit. Slavery is slavery, no matter the condition or the situation of the slave or the master. What if people could be selfless, but our culture promotes greed to such a degree that it cancels out our natural tendency to empathize with other human beings? If that's the case, communism would not just "naturally happen." We'd have to make it happen by changing the system that by its nature causes people to be greedy and selfish (since that's the behavior that capitalism rewards). Actually you are wrong. Communism itself removes the responsibility from the individual to be generous and selfless. The only way you can be generous is if you have something to give. In communism your individuality, and thus everything you can give to another person, is diminished in favor of a 'collective consciousness.' A collective conscience that can somehow be the opposite of the sum of its parts. Culture cannot 'cancel out' natural tendencies, not really, and real capitalism does no promote any specific virtue. It simply says that inherently you are responsible for your own survival and the ONLY claim of inequality being advocated comes from those who say that some people are entitled to the wealth of others. Your error is that society is composed of individuals. Just as society is a reflection of our values, we are a reflection of society's values. The causation runs both ways, in other words. If you really want to change our values, for example making us less selfish, you have to simultaneously change the system and the individuals. It won't do to just try to change the individuals and hope that the system will somehow change. Do you know about game theory by any chance? The situation is similar to the prisoner's dilemma in game theory. People will be selfless if they expect other people to be selfless. But they'll be selfish if they expect other people to be selfish. Right now we are stuck on that particular Nash equilibrium - but it may be possible to move to the other one if we change the institutions people operate in. I hold no values in common with this society nor am I a part of it. YOUR error is to assume that society has any values at all. Either the individuals in society hold their own values, or values are imposed upon members of society by individuals. There is no mystical social consciousness that communists always refer to like a god, it is just a collection of individuals designed to help them function better. It has no role in determining values or anything like that. Invariably in socialist governments and many capitalist governments, however, the ruling party or person uses propaganda to impose their own values on everyone. Somehow, you don't think capitalism is "forced" on you. But it is. And you think you're working for yourself, but in general, people do not. Because wages in capitalism do not correspond to social productivity, effort, or fairness, in general people work to support someone higher up in the chain. This is why CEO pay has increased from around 25 times the average worker's pay in 1970 to over 100 times today (with one CEO making 3000x). Its why real wages for the bottom 80% of workers have stagnated in the same period. All that increased productivity in the past 40 years went to benefit the upper class. The whole purpose of work is to benefit society - in fact, it is the foundation of society. There's no such thing as a society where you have the option to not work. The only question is, do you want your work to disproportionally benefit the wealthy, or benefit everyone equally? Or if not equally, at least according to some measure of economic justice? "In general people work to support someone higher up in the chain." Yes, by their own free choice. Personally I despise corporations, pop stars, and anyone who makes money by manipulating the impressionable. But I despise the impressionable even more. I couldn't care less if someone decides to sign a contract to work for a company for a terrible wage, or wants to spend all their money buying shirts with logos and gyrating around at pop concerts developing personality cults around the very wealthy who supposedly rob them, but I have no sympathy for such stupidity. It's a choice I will never make. The only concern I have, which is a real one and needs to be eliminated, is whether I have the choice to be able to survive on my own merit. There are many laws in the United States that prevent that and they have to be eliminated. No land or resource ownership, in other words. The whole purpose of work is to provide for myself and for my family. If I could do that without working I would. And a free market in theory actually aims at a goal of no one working. Complete automation of every job is entirely possible down the line. Ultimately, its good for employers to get rid of as many jobs as possible, and its good for workers because they no longer have to work. It won't be as if the supply of everything is produced for nothing. What one will have to contribute to society in order to earn an affluent lifestyle will eventually be very minimal.

Mike H
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 10/22/09 - 08:35 PM:	#23
Odin wrote: If I were in that situation (which people get into by wasting their money collecting logos and eating junk food), then I would have to rely on the benevolence of other individuals to help me. I would have no right to appropriate the labor of others to my benefit. Slavery is slavery, no matter the condition or the situation of the slave or the master. Say, for example, that there is a poor African who comes down with malaria. He needs a $2 drug to cure himself of this, and otherwise he will die. Somewhere in America, someone puts $2 into a vending machine to obtain a large bag of Doritos chips. But suppose that the US government taxed that person $2 to in order to pay for the $2 medicine, curing the African of the disease. In your view, this would be equivalent to slavery, correct? That poor American, deprived of the liberty to clog his arteries! Aren't you saying that a bag of Doritos is more important than a person's life? Also, you're assuming that people necessarily deserve the money they happen to have. Who's to say that the American deserves that $2 instead of the African? Did he work any harder for it? Or did he just get lucky by being born in an area where wages in general are high, so he can afford to waste $2 on Doritos? The distribution of wealth in capitalism is morally arbitrary. Therefore it is incorrect to equate people's income with their labor. Equal amounts of labor (however you choose to measure that) can result in wildly different incomes. So by taking some money from a relatively rich person you are not "enslaving" them by appropriating their labor. Most of their income is not due to the quality or quantity of their labor, but instead to the vicissitudes of the market. If everyone's income correlated with merit, then you might have an argument. Actually you are wrong. Communism itself removes the responsibility from the individual to be generous and selfless. The only way you can be generous is if you have something to give. In communism your individuality, and thus everything you can give to another person, is diminished in favor of a 'collective consciousness.' A collective conscience that can somehow be the opposite of the sum of its parts. Culture cannot 'cancel out' natural tendencies, not really, and real capitalism does no promote any specific virtue. It simply says that inherently you are responsible for your own survival and the ONLY claim of inequality being advocated comes from those who say that some people are entitled to the wealth of others. But with capitalism only the relatively well-off can even afford to be generous. Everyone else is too busy trying to scrape together a living. The needy have to rely on the compassion and selflessness of the wealthy - who probably got where they are because they are exactly the opposite of compassionate and selfless. Also, there's the problem of exploitation. How does the rich person know whether you are genuinely needy or just faking it for money? Are you someone who gives money to beggars without the slightest suspicion that they're aren't going to use that money productively? The reality is that people cannot be relied upon to #1 be selfless and #2 be honest. The combination of those human failures means that the truly needy, without a government support structure, are likely to be kicked to the curb. For evidence, one needs only to look at industrialized countries before progressive reforms in the early 20th century. You could say that I lean more towards socialism than communism - mainly because of my skepticism about human nature. Communism is far more idealistic - it means there would be no government, remember? No one "forces" anyone to do anything - they just labor for other people's benefit out of the goodness of their hearts. It does seem to me that communism and pure capitalism would be essentially the same in effect, assuming all people were selfless. If the means of production are used for the common good, it shouldn't matter much who owns them, right? Why would the capitalist insist on having the means of production all to himself if he were selfless? What difference would it make to him? In other words, if people really were selfless, it seems to me like you should have no objection to communism. Whereas my objection to both communism and your "compassionate capitalism" is that they are incompatible with human nature. I hold no values in common with this society nor am I a part of it. YOUR error is to assume that society has any values at all. Either the individuals in society hold their own values, or values are imposed upon members of society by individuals. There is no mystical social consciousness that communists always refer to like a god, it is just a collection of individuals designed to help them function better. It has no role in determining values or anything like that. Invariably in socialist governments and many capitalist governments, however, the ruling party or person uses propaganda to impose their own values on everyone. I use "society" as shorthand for "all other individuals." No socialist or communist thinks there is a mythical thing called "society" which is separate from the individuals who comprise it. That is just a straw man. What I was trying to say before is that individual values are historical and interdependent. They do not arise out of nothing like Athena from the mind of Zeus. Individual values are shaped by the values of other individuals - like those of their peers, parents, educators, media idols, etc. In other words, by society. And values do not just arise from other individuals either - they arise from class and economic relations. People tend to adjust their values to justify their privilege. For example, American slaveowners would tend to find ways to justify slavery - like by convincing themselves that blacks were inferior for example. Similarly, those who are well-off in capitalism tend to find justifications their economic position - like by saying poor people are lazy or stupid. So what I was saying is that it may be exceedingly difficult to change people's values - to make them more selfless - without changing those class and economic relations. Now I see communism as unrealistic - I think that even if you change the class/economic relations, that's not enough to make people selfless. Those relations are not the sole source of people's selfishness - it is also biological and cultural. This is probably why experiments with "communism" have generally failed - they changed the economic relations, but that was not enough. Certain selfish people exploited the system to benefit themselves at others' expense. However, those economic/class relations still are one major source of selfishness. And that makes your idea of "compassionate capitalism" - which doesn't change those relations - even less realistic than communism, in my opinion. "In general people work to support someone higher up in the chain." Yes, by their own free choice. Personally I despise corporations, pop stars, and anyone who makes money by manipulating the impressionable. But I despise the impressionable even more. I couldn't care less if someone decides to sign a contract to work for a company for a terrible wage, or wants to spend all their money buying shirts with logos and gyrating around at pop concerts developing personality cults around the very wealthy who supposedly rob them, but I have no sympathy for such stupidity. It's a choice I will never make. The only concern I have, which is a real one and needs to be eliminated, is whether I have the choice to be able to survive on my own merit. There are many laws in the United States that prevent that and they have to be eliminated. No land or resource ownership, in other words. The whole purpose of work is to provide for myself and for my family. If I could do that without working I would. And a free market in theory actually aims at a goal of no one working. Complete automation of every job is entirely possible down the line. Ultimately, its good for employers to get rid of as many jobs as possible, and its good for workers because they no longer have to work. It won't be as if the supply of everything is produced for nothing. What one will have to contribute to society in order to earn an affluent lifestyle will eventually be very minimal. You really think people get low wages because they're too lazy to try to find a company offering a better wage? When I think of people being exploited by capitalism, I don't have in mind the people wearing the shirts with logos, but the people who sew those shirts for 5 cents an hour in Thailand and can barely afford to feed their family. In a certain sense, capitalists have disarmed the proletariat in western countries by placating them with distractions and nonstop entertainment, all made possible by cheap third world labor. Meanwhile, those who are truly exploited are never seen, so we can pretend like we live in some kind of paradise. I agree that automation is good, in principle. The question is, who benefits from it? Those with money - people who either have the technical skills to run the machines, or people who own them. Those with neither are left out. And actually the free market can prevent automation that saves labor, because labor is often so dirt cheap.

wuliheron
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Posted 10/22/09 - 10:47 PM:	#24
Sorry to interject, but most of these arguments sound to me like stereotypes and over simplifications. As someone who has lived on communes for many years I have heard all these arguments and many more. People who actually live communally or in communist countries have a very different perspective which might liven up this debate. There are many definitions of socialism, but the most widely accepted one is that the state owns at least the basic infrastructure of both the public and private sectors such as utilities, chemical and oil companies, etc. On the commune we often argued that a communist state provides the basics of food, clothing, healthcare, shelter, education, and security. Anyone who has actually read even the most basic communist literature knows that this is what "revolutionary" politics are about, the basic needs of the people being met. The problem with communism is the same problem, in my opinion, as the problem with capitalism or any other system (star trek, bytheway, is a meritocracy... not a communist state). The problem is that regulating or managing a country is always difficult. The list of abject failures of the old Soviet Union is too long to list here but, then, so is the list of abject failures in capitalist countries (the Irish Potato Famine comes to mind.) Thus today extreme capitalism and extreme communism are both nearly extinct because such extreme regulation or deregulation is just not workable. Instead you have a majority of the thriving demoncracies in the world today being moderately socialist and the rest being moderate welfare states. But, to claim that socialism is dead or proven to be a failed system flies in the face of the facts. Socialism is very much alive and well, just not as extreme as it used to be but, then, capitalism isn't as extreme as it used to be either. Today the US has bailed out the big banks and is now considering nationalized healthcare for a number of very good reasons. Among these are the fact that these banks and companies have failed to regulate themselves so that they do not cripple the economy. The banks crippled the economy, so the government had to take ownership temporarilly. The healthcare industry has been steadily working its way up to crippling the economy, so the government has been debating stepping in again. Not that different from the types of problems the old soviet union had, just from a different angle. Edited by wuliheron on 10/22/09 - 10:55 PM

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