oldscratch:
Damn!! I shoulda known you sharp bastards would have thoroughly tilled that plot.
The rest of the planet: http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000980.html
The Devil said got the essence of it way back last Halloween when he said:
[In capitalism, people are rewarded for doing something valuable with money, and the amount of money they recieve is proportional to the value of the service or product they are providing. When you take away that money you are in effect punishing them. In communism there is no reward for doing anything.] http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/003127.html
I like this old saying that boils it down even more. In capitalism, if a worker sees his boss driving a nice car he says, “I’m going to have one like that someday”. In communism, the worker says, “I’m going to take that away from him someday”.
Just to contain the shit storm I’ll draw a few lines. I’m not going to try to defend capitalism. I’m not going to rehash gory details of the 20th century. I’m not going to wrestle with the ghost of Karl Marx. I am going to pick out why I think communism doesn’t work on a large scale.
It’s all about incentives and the human animal.
Let’s have a squint at the beast, walk all the way around. Sure, most folks love their fellow man, are kind to the less fortunate, and want to promote the common good. That is built on the bedrock of taking care of number one, backfilled with ‘blood is thicker than water’. Most people except my landlord aren’t evil, but I don’t run into too many angels either.
Beyond that people are born to run, climb, adventure, bleed, heal, gamble, grow, fly. Take that away and you get dry rot and hate. Everyone but children knows in their bones that life is just a summer day and the night is long. The worst torture is taking away opportunity, risk, and choice, leaving only the ticking of the clock.
Now let’s scope out the incentives, the framework.
Under communism, (big picture), you have workers directed by government. The government people mostly want to do good things and make the system work, but they also want to line the old pockets a bit too. There is no real fire under their feet because the top bosses can only pay attention to so many things at once. Besides some big central government decision will usually come rumbling through and change everything anyway, it happens at random all the time. So they aren’t going to really care and strive as much as they might. The workers are in a jail of the mind. They are told where they will live, where they will work, what they will wear, when to breathe. If the system works well they are directed and taken care of from cradle to grave. If the system doesn’t work so good, a leaky petrochem pipeline poisons the drinking well and nobody fixes it. Maybe tomorrow your town gets relocated to the north pole. Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if you go to school, work your guts out, or nap in the cellar. Pass the bottle.
Capitalism is much more like an ecosystem. There are angles, niches, choices, opportunities, plain old open doors to find. If you work, you get paid and can buy cool toys. If you work harder/smarter you get paid more, a lot more. If you don’t work you get hungry. Sure, you can screw up and lose it all, and you can’t sleaze out of the taxes, but what you get to keep is YOURS GODDAMIT. You can invest it wisely or blow the whole stack on a boxcar of pink feather dusters if you like. If that setup won’t light a fire under your lazy butt you don’t have a pulse.
deToqueville saw it clearly and said it best.
I didn’t say capitalism was perfect, I didn’t say it was right, I just said for organizing large groups of people it works better than anything else we’ve come up with so far. Looking at the sorry state of my neighborhood that can be hard to believe, but there it is.
The most valuable commodity is human intelligence and creativity. Large scale communism proposes that a few bosses can direct the details of 100 million lives better than 100 million motivated minds. Even us rich Americans can’t afford that kind of waste.
We have a joke in my crew; (carrying breifcase), “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”. It always rolls 'em in the aisles. The best government is the least necessary and then get the hell out of the way or feel my smoking bootprints. Last year I threw my bedroll in a truck, drove 1500 miles and started over. Didn’t ask anybody if I could, damn sure nobody got in my way, and I keep in touch. Maybe I’ll get rich and maybe I’ll starve. That freedom is by far my most prized possession. Safety tip; do not ever try to take it away.
Lay it on me, comrade.