Ahh… but you see MGibson, you can make trades. So I can imagine a strip club wherein the patrons are putting toasters, socks, bars of chocolate, blankets, etc. in the stripper’s g-strings.
“Shake it baby! I’ve got a spatula for you!”
BTW, you stole my thunder Marc! I was just about to suggest we call social credit “money”. Damn you!
Grim
Strippers in Bob strip for the good of Bob, and if they make a few toasters on the side, no harm no foul. 
It’s worth more because it takes more effort and skill, and because it is crucial to the functioning of Bob. Robots are replacing janitors, remember. It’s determined by anyone in Bob who is old enought to vote.
You’ve missed the point entirely. When you toil for Bob you are toiling for yourself. The social credit, the authorization for state purchases (although unlike money in that it never get’s subtracted and isn’t used to purchase private property) is an indicator of how much you have given to Bob, which is directly purportional to how much Bob owes back to you.
Personal and communal goals are intertwined. That’s what Bryan doesn’t seem to get either.
What if I have a personal goal that is NOT intertwined with communal goals? In other words, what if I want to do something that Bob doesn’t like? (For instance, to produce art that insults Bob… would I be unable to get materials?)
I’d STILL like to know what happens to people who don’t want to operaate within the Bob lifestyle!
I don’t mean to shout, but this is the third version of this question, and so far as I can se it has gone unanswered.
Another social credit question: If I don’t like the decisions of upper echelon social credit holders, can I campaign to reduce their social credit, and how would I prevent dirty tricks on their part to prevent or obstruct my campaign?
If you want to make art that a majority of Bob doesn’t like it’s no problem, you can use your social cred for whatever you want. But if no one in Bob’s art council thinks you’re doing a worthy project you get no further cred for the work. However Bob dearly upholds civil liberties and I think even intentionally shocking work would find some support for its free speech message.
People who don’t want to live the Bob lifestyle are free to immigrate to capitalist nations or lobby to the community for changes they feel necessary. Also, The upper echelon got there not because they only bettered themselves, but because they worked hard to improve Bob with quantifiable results. However, if corruption did take root at the top and a news organization or lobby group exposed them, their cred lines would immediately start stagnating, meaning they won’t be at the top much longer.
I have the same basic objections as hammerbach does; namely, shouldn’t it be up to the individual to determine his own goals, and not the community? You’re operating on the assumption that a million men can always make a better decision than one man. When it comes to making my decisions about what education to pursue, what jobs to try for and how many children to have (is THAT controlled in Bob? Surely the community has a compelling interest at stake) I’m not going to allow anyone other than myself to make the final call. If society benefits because of my choice… good, but my primary goal will always be to make my limited time on Earth as pleasant as possible.
No matter how much you try to dress it up, you’re still advocating slavery and putting every individual at the service of the State. Among other reasons, I find this offensive from a strictly evolutionary point of view. Why did homo sapiens bother developing individual intelligence just to toss it away? Let the ants work all day for the good of their colony; I’d rather watch DVDs in the privacy of my own home.
Here, I think, is the crux of the matter. Is there a direct link between equitable distribution of resources and an immediate lowering of the standard of living? The answer, based on the data I’ve pulled off the Net, seems to indicate not.
The database I worked from is found here, and the map I refer to at the end of this post can be found here.
Having looked at the total world output for several food categories and distilled the results here (my apologies if this doesn’t work correctly - I’m hoping it will), the data shows that over the eleven years from 1992 to 2002, world food output increased alongside the world’s population to continue to provide each one of the world’s citizens with 4 pounds of food per day. I’m not sure whether this is actually enough; a quick calculation using the “food pyramid” as a measuring stick indicated that the average person needed 4.5 pounds of food a day to meet basic nutritional requirements, which seems awfully high to me.
So let’s assume, as a worst-case scenario, that this figure in fact isn’t enough - that though nobody will starve on four pounds of food a day, neither are they going to be the picture of well-fed health. This begs the question, however, of whether or not world food production is in fact operating at maximum capacity.
This map at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization site I linked to earlier, shows that world food production levels vary widely. For instance, it shows that the whole of the Americas (both continents) have almost half again as much cropped area (here I believe they mean area with crops planted) as Europe, yet they lag behind Europe in yield per hectare. China has twice as much cropped area as Europe but roughly the same yield per hectare. Russia has five times as much cropped area as North Africa and yet only one-third the yield per hectare.
What does this mean? Well, either the world increases the amount of cropped area, or we find methods of organizing food production to increase the yield per hectare. The Dutch, for instance, are the third largest exporters of agro-food goods in the world with only 1.6% of its land devoted to agriculture (see here. It has a production value of US$4203 per hectare - one of the highest in Europe (see “Land potential yield” here). One of the main features of Dutch agriculture is its high rate of collectivization - some 60% (“Economical organization and cooperation” on the same page). One can only wonder how similar organization, of equal or greater magnitude, might affect the yield per hectare of US agriculture, or that of Russia, or even Southeast Asia.
It’s pretty clear, therefore, that current food production, while more or less able to provide the entire world’s population with its daily food requirements, is nowhere near at maximum capacity. Collective efforts to increase yields per hectare and to better organize distribution across the globe can only result in the food shortage becoming a complete fiction. I daresay similar efforts in other areas of production would have the same results.
So - scarcity is thus shown not to be a fact of life, and the question of allocation under socialism - after meeting immediate needs - becomes how much to set aside for later in case of emergency and how much to put back into increasing technological efficiency and fueling further progress.
Sam - I’m not denying that there will be some compulsion present when socialism is being built, but generally it would be moral and ethical rather than physical - stressing the maxim “If you don’t work, you don’t eat”. Since labor is the key element in producing the general surplus (the only way we wouldn’t need organization is if this surplus were handed to us, Eden-like, from on high), work becomes a moral imperative. And again, if the workers as a whole make a social revolution, the only people compelling them to work are they themselves. Compulsion at gunpoint comes into play only if a party or organization makes a revolution instead of the working class.
Marx said - and I cannot stress this enough -
Anything else is courting disaster.
**
Why would the people vote to allow someone with a 4.0 to have more social credit then they do? I just don’t see it happening.
**
No, I’m toiling for Bob. I could toil for Bob until I sweated blood but I still live at the whim of Bob.
**
There’s got to be some limiting factor. Where do I get authorization to purchase a luxury like chocolates? Since my credit never gets subtracted how do I know when I’m reaching my limit for the month? Or can I order 1,000,000 chocolate bars each month?
My goals aren’t always the same as everyone elses.
I’m just going to cut my losses and bow out of the conversation now. It is just going to end with me getting a headache as we go 'round and 'round this fantasy world we’ve created. Farewell and I’ll see y’all in other threads.
Marc
No, Bob can’t determine what kind of education or job you choose for yourself. Bob can only make certain types of education and jobs more valuable than others. It’s no different under capitalism except the free market determines value, in Bob value is based on democracy and the pursuit of communal goals. In Bob your primary goal is also, “to make [your] limited time on Earth as pleasant as possible,” however the only way to do that is to pursue educational and work experiences that the community has deemed valuable.
In Eastern countries collectivism is of higher importance than individualism. Japanese workers give up some of their autonomy and subordinate personal interests to communal interests and harmony. But they do so voluntarily, it’s not slavery, it’s their culture. Interestingly, Japan does so within a global capitalistic system, which points to the flexibility of collectivism. America is quite the opposite end of the spectrum. Here individualism, independence, and autonomy are sacrosanct, that’s our culture. Bob is an effort to reconcile the differences of those cultures and mate the best parts of individualist and collectivist philosophies into a political and economic system.
Ho-Hum.
Buncha youngsters that don’t remember the horror that was unleashed the last time folks thought Communism was a good idea.
Sounds like a horror movie plot. Red Dawn Of The Dead.
Foo. 
This thread is full of dangerous rubbish uttered by people who just can’t learn from history.
I quit. You blokes are hopeless.
correction… It’s no different under capitalism where the free market determines value, except in Bob value is based on democracy and the pursuit of communal goals.
Bosda, what I’ve learned from history is that autocrats like Stalin and Mao are to chiefly blame for the failure of communism. I’ve also learned that capitalism pushes questions of ethicality under the carpet when they start affecting the profit margin, and that all the crap we swept out of sight is coming back to haunt us.
Repeat after me: Brain Drain. If you are going to set up a system where the best and brightest are forced to toil for the good of ‘society’, you had better lock the doors, or they’ll be trampling over each other to escape your worker’s paradise.
Or in other words, you don’t think the Berlin Wall was put up to keep people out, do you?
You are just hopelessly naive about your utopia. In practice, such utopies rapidly devolve into bland, joyless, oppressive states ruled by bureaucrats. The worst of them turn into brutal tyrannies. The best of them just stagnate and lose their wealth until the people revolt.
So you are laboring under the impression that Lenin was better? Or Pol Pot? Or Castro? Can you name a Communist leader you like? How about Hugo Chavez in Venezuela? He’s just getting started, and already dissidents and oppositionists are starting to vanish or be found in alleys with bullets in their head.
Somehow I doubt you honestly believe that was what I was saying. But nontheless, allow me to clarify.
My point was that your philosophy of “each shall give according to his ability, each shall receive according to his needs” is mere poetry, which falls apart on closer inspection. The example I gave is merely a demonstration of what your philosophy can be used to justify.
Bluntly, people “need” food, water and shelter to survive. Beyond that they “need” nothing. Anything they receive beyond that on grounds of need is given to them quite arbitarily at the behest of the government/worker’s committee/whatever you choose to call it.
Now I agree slavery was indeed a great evil perpetrated by capitalists, and a demonstration of the need for laws to protect individual liberties. I’m sure we are both thankful slavery is now a shameful legacy, rather than a present day reality.
Where I suspect we differ is that I don’t think doing the same thing again is justified just because the slavers are members of the government, waving red flags and copies of “Capital”, and claim to be doing it for “the good of all”.
As for the remark about capitalists not being bothered by blood - rest assured dehumanising those you have a grudge against is another trademark of oppressors throughout the ages.
Anyway, can’t hang around - little babies don’t eat themselves you know!
This is beautiful - a treasure, really. The goal is the reality? Does, say, the weather know about this, in order to avoid dumping snow except where there are just enough plows to deal with it?
You misunderstand me, Duncan. I’m not espousing communism, I can see their philosophy. I’m just looking for a capitalist philosophy to compare it to.
You had the commie bugaboo standing on a heap of bodies, horrifying the innocent capitalist. And, by implication, the commie machine using slave labor to build the railroads.
No, the capitalist system seems to work ok, as long as it’s held in check by some sort of socialist controls.
Sam for a smart guy you really miss the mark sometimes.
As I’ve stated numerous times, this community isn’t one of perfect equality, it’s a meritocracy. Those who toil harder and smarter for Bob reap the good life. Just like those who toil harder and smarter for themselves in capitalisms reap the good life. The difference is in Bob nobody starves, is denied a good education, or fails to recieve the medical care they need just because they were born poor.
Precisely which utopias are you talking about? The USSR, China, Cuba? Those are/ were repressive, authoritarian Marxist communisms. There is no such thing as utopia, its an abstract idea, so how can you presume to say that a functional utopian society is doomed to failure? Which is worse: idealistic naiveté or cynical hubris?
And I’ll say it again, collectivism, communism, and socialism are valid, real-world concept that aren’t going anywhere, and frankly the US could stand to learn a thing or two about community because it’s no-holds barred, outstandingly self-interested (and that’s the name of the game isn’t it – self interest, the premiere virtue of capitalism) approach to world politics post WWII have burned a lot of bridges. You students of history should recall that we weren’t always hated by a sizable chunk of the world.
Whether we were killing commies in fear of a slippery slope of dominos, building influence in oil rich regions, or simply pursuing some passing economic opportunity for America and its corporations we played to win and to hell with our cherished values of freedom, liberty, and democracy, that’s for inside the borders exclusively. So we killed off democratically elected leaders like the Mossedeq in Iran and others mentioned by Olentzero, aided or installed monsters like the Shah, Saddam, bin Laden, Noreaga, and Pinochet, and outsourced our labor needs to third world children. In some cases we handed over massive “humanitarian” aid to our new dictator friends, and held the unsuspecting masses accountable for the massive debt that incured when their beloved dictator pissed the money away and while they starved. Then we cry foul when the most downtrodden of them plan unspeakable acts of revenge on us from their impoverished, rubble strewn homelands.
All in all pure, unfettered capitalism has been a smashing success in the last 50 years, if you live in America or another developed Western nation. All the little guys kind of got the short end of the stick, who would of thunk they’d decide to sharpen it and tell us where we can put it.
Brian, I’m sorry for assuming that you were deliberately misunderstanding my example of Clear Channel. I will try to make sure my references are more clear (no pun intended), in the future*
However, I still stand by the point that, in Capitalist as well as Communist societies, that resources can be misappropriated by bureaucratic incompetence. We can debate the extent of it, but we wont really have any clear data since the above example of communism has never been achieved.
I certainly think that bureaucratic waste be as bad or even worse than the current system, however, this wouldnt necessarily take the form of “resistance”.
It could take the form of hyperdynamism if the system is set up to reward risk-taking. Lots of wasteful projects that dont produce much.
On the other hand, a greater equity acheived by this might make up for whatever lack of efficiency will be obtained.
My point was, though, that you certainly cant assume that capitalism does NOT stifle creativity!
Example one, clear channel, run by people who pride themselves in not being music fans, and are in a cabal with the record companies and research firms to provide sub-par music**. Example two, intellectual non-compete clauses, wherein an employee’s entire output is the property of their company.
arguably, this could be a defect of cainxinth’s system too, if all the “social credit” devolved upon those approving the project rather than the creators, but I think it would be better adaptable to reward creators than managers.
Of course, the question is, would it be more efficient, even given that? Who knows.
*probably with hyperlinks, to avoid, by making intertextual comments to things people DO know, the possibility that people will think I’m condescending 
** can it really be called a conspiracy when most participants’ real crime is being lazy? you make the call.
