Except that prostitution is a form of women’s oppression, and socialists are committed to eliminating the economic conditions that bring women to the point of choosing to sell their bodies. Y’know, by giving them decent jobs.
And how do you know that some women don’t think that “selling their bodies” ( technically, it’s more renting ) is a decent job in their eyes ? It’s only oppression if they are forced into it; and, in fact, forbidding prostitution is form of oppression.
Whoever said anything about forbidding prostitution?! There’s a world of difference between criminalizing women for being prostitutes and making the profession a lot safer, coupled with serious opportunities for getting out of it if and when they decide it’s time.
Just out of curiosity, as regards prostitution, which you are apparently allowing as a choice of profession, what will you do if the demand for prostitutes outpaces the supply? How do you decide who gets to enjoy the services of one and how often and so on, if there isn’t enough for everybody? In a nutshell, what will be your response to the potential scarcity of this particular good?
I mean, this is the same question as you’ve gotten over and over; you could substitute “cars” for “prostitutes” and it wouldn’t change much. But perhaps in this context, various aspects of the issue become more apparent. Or perhaps not.
I’ve opened a new thread to discuss the post-scarcity society, because it feels like a bit of a hijack.
And you really can’t see the flaws in that?
- Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Me and my mates produce widgets. And how much we get paid is based on “the average amount of labor time actually needed to produce a given commodity”. IOW the longer it takes us to produce each widget the * more* we get paid for each widget? So if my crew are producing Microsoft Widgets and we make 10, 000 widgets per hour then my crew gets paid .01 “value points”/widget and if the crew producing Linux Widgets can produce 10 widgets an hour then the Linux crew gets paid 100 “value points” per widget? IOW the less efficient the product is the greater the value?
And you really don’t see any flaws in this scheme? Not least of which is that the difference between a “value point” and a “dollar” has just become entirely semantic.
- How are you going to “determine the average amount of labor time actually needed to produce a given commodity”? You can’t have people employed to work such things out because such people won’t be producing anything. They will only be servicing the economic system. And you have already said that such things are the reason why capitalism is underproductive. And even if you did have such people, how do you then “determine the average amount of labor time actually needed to produce” their commodity. Bit of a catch there Yossarian.
How? Seriously, just… how?
Since you have admitted you don;t have the solutions to these problems then how can you say that are not insoluble? They sure seem insoluble.
So can people have automatic weapons or can’t they? You seem to flip flop on this constantly. If people want automatic weapons can they have them? This isn’t down to filters. It’s down to you not clearly stating whether people can have things.
So can we please have a simple answer: if, after the revolution, someone wants a factory that produces machine guns, can they have one or will they be told they can’t have one?
Don’t talk about whether they will want one. Assuming they do want one are they allowed to have one?
In the highly unlikely event people aren’t getting laid enough on their own in a socialist society, it will be their task to address and solve the problem.
I see. Supposing the situation were, instead, that not enough people wanted to enter the banana farming business as would satisfy everyone’s desires for bananas. Would it in that case also be the people’s task to address and solve the problem on their own? And whether so or not, by what mechanism do you see this being addressed?
Saying you’re going to work towards putting a system in place when you have no mechanism to solve the most obvious social and economic problems it creates is a touch irresponsible isn’t it?
But let’s play the game anyway.
What options are available for them to solve this? Potentially, what solutions might they use? Because as you’ve described the system there seems to be no possible solution. Women can’t be coerced into becoming prostitutes. They can’t be rewarded more highly for working as a prostitute than any other job. So there is no mechanism for increasing supply.
And men can’t be drugged so as to not desire prostitutes. That would be clear coercion.
So a demand exists that is not currently being filled. And your entire system relies on a society with no scarcity for any commodity. You’ve said yourself that if any desirable yet unavailable commodities exist even in other countries the whole system will collapse. So how can it possibly operate when there are desirable commodities available but unobtainable in the same suburb?
I bellieve I’ve already said this, but speculation on what may or may not specifically happen in a future socialist society is beyond useless apart from laying out a few general ideas, like the mechanism of discussion, resolution, and action in order to address and solve this banana crisis. Same way anything else gets done.
But don’t you think that, when one of your fundamental postulates is that people will want for nothing, declaring the problem of people wanting something to be “future work” is so lazy as to make the whole discussion pointless? You’ve already acknowledged that a certain amount of oppression will be necessary in the interim as we re-educate the malcontents to be happy socialist citizens, but if you can’t even articulate what the end point is, how we will know when we get there, and how we will have solved the fundamental problems when we do, isn’t all you really have a proposal that we enslave people in the hope that eventually, everything will be great?
You claim to abolish scarcity, but whenever someone asks you how, you just say, “this problem will be solved.” Can’t you see why people aren’t satisfied with this answer? It’s all very well saying you don’t have all the answers, but it seems that you don’t even have the first one; the one on which all else rests.
Er, ok… This would seem to me to be the most basic issue to have thought out; for example, I can tell you what happens in a suitably market-based society such as we generally already live in. The issue would be addressed by allowing people to negotiate various offers between themselves; “I’ll give you such and such whatever if you agree to give me so and so many bananas”. The problem of deciding who becomes a banana farmer is then settled by accepting that these will be those people who have banana farming as their desired profession after taking into account all the incentives and costs put in play by such offers. The problem of deciding who gets to have bananas is then settled by accepting that these will be those people who are willing to offer some banana farmer enough that the farmer is willing in turn to reciprocate with bananas.
If you have not thought out or cannot explain how your proposed society would alternatively address even this issue yet, the most basic point of contention…
Let’s at least hear, then, what you are able to lay out already: “the mechanism of discussion, resolution, and action in order to [eventually, somehow,] address and solve this”.
Saying you’re going to work towards putting a system in place when you have no mechanism to solve the most obvious social and economic problems it creates is a touch irresponsible isn’t it?
But let’s play the game anyway.
What options are available for them to solve this? Potentially, what solutions might they use? Because as you’ve described the system there seems to be no possible solution. Women can’t be coerced into becoming prostitutes. They can’t be rewarded more highly for working as a prostitute than any other job. So there is no mechanism for increasing supply.
And men can’t be drugged so as to not desire prostitutes. That would be clear coercion.
So a demand exists that is not currently being filled. And your entire system relies on a society with no scarcity for any commodity. You’ve said yourself that if any desirable yet unavailable commodities exist even in other countries the whole system will collapse. So how can it possibly operate when there are desirable commodities available but unobtainable in the same suburb?
Right on. Though we might as well make the minor change of now accomodating this to bananas instead of prostitutes, in accord with the minor facelift we’ve gone through:
Saying you’re going to work towards putting a system in place when you have no mechanism to solve the most obvious social and economic problems it creates is a touch irresponsible isn’t it?
But let’s play the game anyway.
What options are available for them to solve this? Potentially, what solutions might they use? Because as you’ve described the system there seems to be no possible solution. People can’t be coerced into becoming banana farmers. They can’t be rewarded more highly for working as a banana farmer than any other job. So there is no mechanism for increasing supply.
And people can’t be drugged so as to not desire bananas. That would be clear coercion.
So a demand exists that is not currently being filled. And your entire system relies on a society with no scarcity for any commodity. You’ve said yourself that if any desirable yet unavailable commodities exist even in other countries the whole system will collapse. So how can it possibly operate when there are desirable commodities available but unobtainable in the same suburb?
Are you trying to coerce me into not desiring sex with bananas?
Well, that wasn’t originally my intention, but now that you bring it up, I guess I might a little, yeah… 
Yes, but that’s descriptive, not prescriptive. Even Adam Smith didn’t go that far.
Constructing a society is not like constructing a building; you can’t plan everything down to the last filigree before you lay the cornerstone. I believe the failed Oneida communities were mentioned upthread, and this is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Planning and constructing a global society is an impossible task for one person, one group, or even one party. It needs the involvement of society itself. I’m not arguing that conscious planning isn’t necessary, but that the conscious planning needed for socialism can’t occur before the revolutionary overthrow of capitalist society.
These are only general outlines, and I don’t feel I can stress enough in this debate that these changes won’t be imposed on the workers but brought about by them in a socialist society.
Economically, abolition of the wage system and introduction of direct exchange of goods for labor, not for other goods (aka the barter system). Politically, the expansion of democracy into all aspects of life, especially the workplace. Socially, as a result of the economic and political changes, lifestyles based on a sense solidarity and collective responsibility.
So for the banana production example, a possible scenario would be the acknowledgment of the problem by the folks working on the plantation, and a full and thorough discussion of potential solutions to the problem. Attracting more workers might be one idea, but there’s also investigating technology and more efficient methods that could result in production being maintained (or increased) without needing a larger workforce. There are also environmental impacts to consider, coordination with local or regional administration, a whole slew of other details that I, sitting here at my desk in Sweden prior to the dawn of socialism, can’t foresee, while the workers in this hypothetical banana plantation in a future socialist society are smack in the middle of the situation and have access to details and information I don’t. Who would be the better equipped to solve this problem, do you think?
Wrong there. The direct exchange of goods for labor can allow for an increased allotment of goods should it be decided that such a measure is necessary for certain jobs.
If you can exchange goods for labor, then you can exchange goods for goods too; you’ve just made labor the mediating currency. I mean, if Person A exchanges Good X for Person B’s labor at task L, and Person B in turn exchanges Good Y for Person A’s labor at task L, and then they decide “Actually, since we both now owe each other the same labor, we might as well call that part off”, then bam, they’ve exchanged goods for goods. Why bother feebly demanding the nominal intermediary to be actual labor rather than, say, pieces of paper representing labor?
Hell, in general, what’s so special about labor? What makes it different from any other goods/services/tradeable item?
Obviously.
Yet your entire system relies on the fact that there is nothing you can use to attract more workers. Everybody has everything they desire. That’s one of your axioms.
There is nothing attractive available that everyone doesn’t already have.
So what does “attract more workers” mean in a society where all workers already possess everything they find attractive?
But your entire system is based on the premise that it is the maximally efficient system.
So how can it be made more efficient? If such technology exists why isn’t it already being used? And if the opportunity for research to increase efficiency exists why hasn’t it already being pursued?
And if for some reason these avenues aren’t already being exploited, how do you propose to encourage people to exploit them now?
The system has to be maximally efficient and with unlimited desirable goods before it can even exist. Yet any problems can only be solved by making something more desirable and increasing efficiency of existing production systems.
Your ear seems to be giving you trouble again, Yossarian.
This is like gambling all your money on the stock exchange, and then when you go bust observing that a stockbroker would be better equipped to deal with the issue than you are.
It’s true enough, but wouldn’t it be better not gambling all your money on the stock exchange until you know how to solve the problems it will inevitably create?