Hail Eris, here I go: is Communism inevitable?

Great Debates
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[sub]throughout this post I use the convention that ‘man’, ‘mankind’, and similar apparently gender-specific terms are gender neutral. My writing is clumsy enough as it is without jumping through PC hoops on pronoun molestation[/sub]
THIS IS VERY LONG FOR A GD THREAD

Ah, Karl Marx—the most slippery of slippery slopers. But was the man right for the wrong reasons?

I was sitting in a few threads lately where, IMO, the conversation depended entirely on how one perceived market and government flexibility— that is, where the topic could conceivably revolve around the mutability of mankind.

Being a fan of Orwell’s 1984 I often adopt the theory that man is almost infintely flexible—for all practical concerns man can be made to do just about anything that he is physically capable of. His mind may not be a tabula rasa but it certinaly can be overwritten. (method overloading? been programming too much :p)

In order to hold at bay some more serious hijacks, then, let us assume that man is infinitely flexible, mentally speaking. There is no reason why he should adopt one mental outlook over the other.

Now, Marx’s point is that (very paraphrased) capitalism creates the infrastructure, socialism imperfectly organizes it in the public’s image, and finally communism takes over and everyone has their cake and eats it too. Fine; fantastic, I’ve heard stranger things from textbooks on the operations of the digestive system (no kidding, the author waxed philosophic about “What is a potato?” sheesh).

However, I am often guilty of holding, firmly and resolutely, two seperate ideas. Every once and I while I get creative (heh—that is, I ‘think’ :p) and see how these ideas interact.

What I came to do recently was combine the idea of the completely free market and human flexibility. Now, the thought process is still very fresh, so please forgive me if it sort of totters around a bit.

Question I asked myself: after the market has been in existence for more than a generation or two, can we say that the maret affects man more than man affects the market? Answer I gave myself: yes, undoubtedly. The more free a man is in the absence of a construct (social climate, for example) the more creative he can be. Any construct whatsoever can serve to undermine creativity (and hence growth), though it isn’t a rule. Thus many are of the opinion that free-ish markets and freeish governments (some form of democracy) are optimal solutions once we have assumed growth is a goal.

Let us also, then, assume that growth is a goal for the sake of this conversation.

Now, what comes with growth? Many things come with growth: increased potential, increased material goods, flexibility in the job market and in persoanl life, an increased understanding of the world in general and how one should interact in it to achieve certain goals.

Fine, fantastic. The problem is, as many are quick to point out (and I don’t disagree), that free markets and free governments do not provide all mechanisms necessary to achieve pluralistic goals. We desire freedom to achieve our goals, but as progress is achieved the freedom plurality offers becomes an active hindrance.

Thus, I come to my first hypothesis: freedom in the presence of a desire to achieve growth results in the curtailment of freedom. This is something I consider to be obvious and borne out, empirically, through the simple economic principle that material goods are not infinite. We cannot all achieve what we want (even ignoring that human wants and needs are infinite).

But in case that example isn’t clear enough to support the hypothesis I will elaborate. As technology— a key aspect of growth— increases the amount of effort a man must put forth te just “keep his head above water” increases with it in direct proportion (if not actually being a steeper line). That is, it does so unless there is some mechanism which exists outside of the market which provides man with the ability to keep up with progress without excessive effort. Let us, for the sake of argument (:p), call this extra-market entity the government and call the tool it implements to ease man’s act of keeping afloat “education.”

But here we meet our first contender for freedom: the only thing that will keep man afloat in the market isn’t just generic education, but education geared toward the current form the market takes. Other tasks—like swordmaking, for example—are simply not in demand and neither the government (for the sake of efficiency and our axiomatic growth) nor the market (who is a result of technological advances) offers generic education. It cannot offer generic education and achieve the goal of growth at the same time.

Thus, some freedom is lost in its entirety. Whole segments of knowledge and action are literally devoured by growth. Please reserve your value judgements here, because we wanted that to happen in this construct: we wanted growth, and growth demanded that superfluous activities are not rewarded in either the political or the capitalistic realm. Nothing stopped any particular individual from continuing to manufacture buggies and push-mowers; it simply failed to provide a mechanism rewarding the task.

We’ve already seen that loss of freedom results in a loss of creativity. Man’s mind has had a construct imposed on it consisting of his view of reality demonstrated through his education which was geared to support the construct.

We also know that growth is continuing. This means that the education necessary to stay afloat in the market increases. It increases so much so that we have what are called “entry positions”. That is, you have the education, but even that education is too gneric; you need to enter the general workforce at lower pay until you have learned how to operate within your field specifically.

A solution to this that will occur in the near futre is going to be that we must expand our education base. high school must be longer, or college must become longer, or education standards in either must rise. But clearly if we don’t do something we will find ourselves in the wake of another market failure, where the market demands something it cannot provide, and nothing else is stepping up to provide it.

We also see a trend toward aiding people in ways apart from simple education. We see public housing, monopolistic utilities (within a give geographic area), welfare programs. What it takes to keep mankind above water is increasing as well, and growth demands it.

So we face a conundrum: do we abandon growth and let the market fail, or do we continue with growth and provide more for man?

Well, since we’ve already assumed that growth is the primary goal of society, the choice is clear: we will provide more for man so that he may better interact in the market.

And this is truly a game of give-and-take. The market demands people who are well-fed, clothed, sheltered, and educated, yet it doesn’t provide these things de facto. True, it provides food, but not low cost food (hence farming subsidies). True, it provides housing, but not housing everyone can afford. It isn’t even a matter of “well, you don’t have to live in the city. Move where it is cheaper.” that is remarkable inefficient. We want people to have the freedom they want so that the time they spend interacting in the market is better used for growth. When we provide a mechanism for better housing, better food intake, easier education, the growth occurs and everyone is lifted up materially. but then the services and goods provided by extra-market avenues are utilized and we find ourselves back there again, debating what we need to provide to continue the path.

Note that each step along the way involves the efficient creation of material goods and services necessary to keep man interacting in the market. But because the market continues to abandon inefficient tasks and products, our choices as individuals continue to shrink. We lose freedom by default by simply condoning growth.

Eventually we must reach a point where more and more is provided for by extra-market entities in order to keep the market chugging until, at some point, we find that the optimal solution for growth involves clear, predetermined goals.

This is the shift into socialism, pure and simple. The market as a tool for growth can no longer provide anything it demands from those who would interact in it. Everything left to itself becomes a market failure. The government must have its hand in everything to keep anyone afloat, including itself!

So, effectively, we’ve lost the market. Now interaction is simply based on a matter of politics; propaganda attempts to shape man (who, remember, is infinitely flexible) to acept and desire the same things as other men to continue growth. Growth, now, is no longer a generic term for progress; growth is a specific goal, set by the body politic. Pluralism is curbed once by the market, and once again by majority rule. Out of respect for pluralism we would still find that people who cannot achieve a statistical majority are still allowed to achieve many of their goals.

But we have still reached a case where there is but a single mechanism for response to perceived desires: voting. And growth is still, as ever, our goal.

Once we have surrendered to the realm of politics we surrender to the beast of compromise. Propaganda is the tool pressure groups use to push people away from pluralism. We (as a majority group) need to show them (as a minority group) that it is in our best interests (for growth) to see eye-to-eye on many issues. And so compromise works to promote growth by whittling away pluralism for the goal of efficiency and growth.

And we are then left in the state where the government controls all resources (socialism) and the public agrees almost entirely with the government (communism).

Comments?

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Well, except, in Communist theory, the ultimate goal is no government, and for that matter, no market, because Communists argue that all government and markets are based on inequality, and history follows a pattern where power and wealth is gradually spread among larger amounts of the population. According to Marx, initially, states are despotic, where a king or emperor controls all the wealth and means of production, and hence the power, and eventually the wealth grows and disperses, there’s a change in power as the small group of individuals around the king gain wealth and control means of production, and hence power. This is called feudalism. Eventually, a middle class forms, and they gain wealth and control over means of production, and then power, and this is capitalism. Ecventually, workers gain wealth and control over the means of production, and this is socialism, which ends when everyone has control over the means of production, and every one has equal power over their lives. At that point, government, which exists so that the group in power can control the rest, becomes obsolete, and you have a communist world.

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Well, exactly, actually. In the end, the propaganda and campaign driving with compromise after compromise creates a society where everyone basically agrees with each other. Everyone is the government.

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Eris,

I suppose what you mean is that we lose the freedom to pursue some activities as a means of making a living. (Although as a member of the SCA I can assure you, folks still make a living as sword-makers, but we’ll just assume there will be tasks for which the economic benefit is not enough to live off of.) But we don’t lose the freedom to pursue any pursuits as purely a hobby. And I fail to see how socialism or communism would give us the ability to pursue things as a full time job that are not in demand. Such ineffeciences lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But the market adds more products at a rate faster than it discards them. Every year a hundred new gizmos are introduced, items that I never knew I needed until these items were created. Occassionaly we lose out on a choice, no Beta VCRs, but typically growth results in more choice, not less.

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Communism, inevitable? Nah. People are naturally greedy and selfish. It’s one of the traits that allowed our species to survive for the millions of years before we invented Civilization.

I might argue that some form of capitalism is inevitable.

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Do you feel this can happen forever? As technology increases the amount of effort required to create these gizmos will increase, meaning the education level of people desire to use or produce these gizmos must also increase.

I guess that’s my question: can technology outpace us? It certainly seems to be the case. already there are more papers written in seemingly esoteric fields that the time it takes to understand the topic one wrote about almost precludes the necessity to not read others’ papers!

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I agree with Tracer. Capitalism seems to be inevitable, in part perhaps because it allows an excellent outlet for greed (not to say that capitalism is evil by any means).

As an example, it’s interesting to observe the capitalist evolution of communist China. Quite impressive.

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Erislover, great OP, I read it with a lot of interest. You asked for comments, I’ll give you a few.

I don’t want to argue this assumption one way or another, but I am curious what led to to assume this.

What you are saying is that an extra-market entity uses up resources provided by the market (i.e. growth) in order to facilitate more growth. But you are assuming that the growth used up by the extra-market entity will eventually become greater than the growth it is attemting to create. would you care to elaborate?

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You must have a lot of time on your hands to compose this Manifesto. However, since things are slow today at work, let me see if I can address a few points:

JJust so I understand Communism correctly, does Communism only take over the existing infrastructure or does it allow for new infrastructure to be created?

They effect each other. The degree they effect each other depends on the elasticity and efficiency of the market. For example housing in NYC is an inelastic and inefficient market. There is considerable lag in meeting demand because 1) it takes awhile to build new apartments and 2) there is no place to put them. #2 pencils on the other hand are the oposite. They are cheap to produce in bulk, and so on.

So an individual man is affected by the market because the constraints placed on him by his budget and the costs of products in the market. The market, however is affected by the aggregate demands of consumers, costs of production, and so on.

The other side of that argument is that social constructs add an element of stability. Creativity is good for thinking up new solutions for problems, but logic and reason must be applied in order to choose the most efficient solutions.

Note that I am assuming that raw materials and energy sources are not in infinite supply. Although that may actually be a prerequisite for the communist system you propose.

I’m not sure if I follow the whole education bit, but I think you may be a little off. The only true constraint on a mans freedom in the capitalist system is that he must add value to it in order to recieve any benefits. In other words, you need a J-O-B so you can eat (your paycheck is simply a statement of the value the market places on your work).

Once you pass beyond the generic stage of your education, you are free to educate yourself however you choose. The only constraint is that you need to learn a valuable task otherwise you don’t eat.

Or it must become more specialized earlier. Also, do not discount the effect of technology. For example, I studied civil engineering in college. There are computer programs out there that allow me to design a steel frame structure in an hour. Such work would have taken a week or longer to calculate by hand. Do I need to know everything about how that tool works? No, there are specialized people who build the software. For that matter there are other people who design stronger alloys, etc, etc. Specialization is a good thing.

Monopolistic utilities and welfare are two diferent things. Welfare programs are in place because society recognizes a need for a TEMPORARY safety net that keeps people from starving in the streets when they have a run of bad luck. It is not a good long term model since you basically have one class of people working in order to support an idle class of society. In a way, it’s not any diferent than workers supporting an aristocracy, cept that welfare cases don’t live like aristocrats.

You provide growth because it is better to have a small piece of a very big pie than a big piece of a small pie.

This statement does not make any sense to me. With farmers, technology and consolidation has allowed less farmers to provide more food. That frees up farmers to produce other goods (which is why the US is not an argarian society anymore). The reason we have farming subsidies (essentially where the govt pays farmers not to produce) is because politics demands that extra-market entities like the government support an artifically high number of suppliers. Left to market conditions, food prices would drop forcing many farmers out of the market. By the way, food here in the US is really pretty cheap.

Its a lot more efficient than building high rise after high rise until everyone who wants to live in Manhattan can afford to. Think of it like this. To meet the greater demand of living in Manhattan (which has a finite amount of land) it is necessary to build taller and taller buildings. Taller buildings cost more in resources to build and maintain. There is not an infinite supply of resources.

Explain how this works?

I think you assume that all products will end up being a homogenius offering provided by a monopoly. That is incorrect. Look at automobiles. Only a few companies manufacture autos, but specialization requires a wide variety of types (trucks, motorcycles, SUVs, cars). Each type is better suited to different tasks and environemnts. There is also overlap in these markets. Advances in technology have made it economically feasable for companies to mass-customize their products. So if anything, growth has led to more choices, not less.

Long term subsidation by the government is not a viable growth model. In the short term, it allows stability by preventing companies from going out of business, but subsidies must be paid for in taxes which decrease the purchasing power of all consumers.

Yes, and the government has done such a wonderful job so far with socialized programs like Social Security, Medicare, and welfare. The reality is that in a complex society, there is a complicated interaction between government, business, and consumers. While some socialization is necessary, I hardly think that it indicates communism is inevitable.

And such a system worked so well in the CFKAUSSR (Country Formarly Known as USSR), Cuba, North Korea, China…

Besides, growth is really dependent on available natural resources and their efficient distribution. IMO, a central organization is unable to allocate resources to every sector of the economy as efficiently as the market.

And of course the ENTIRE public will never agree with the government. That alone is enough to ensure that Communism is not inevitable. You speak of freedom, but how can there be freedom in a society where everyone is expected to think the same way?

You also asked if technology can outpace us. Ask someones grandparents about what computers, aircraft, cloning, rocketry, robotics, lasers, and nuclear power were like 50 years ago. It obviously can outpace us. Will it outpace us forever? Who knows.

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Ok, though I addressed Blackclaw directly it is time for me to hunker down and chat with the rest of ya’. I would like to stress, however, that this topic is a serious concern for me: those of you who remember my previous incantation should be aware that I am not a communist, and certainly have no desire to be! :stuck_out_tongue: Those of you who don’t are just going to take me at my word anyway :slight_smile:

Ok, seatbelts fastened?
tracer

Indeed, I don’t doubt it. In fact, I think that is why we have been as successful as we have as a species, though I must admit the whole teamwork thing also contributed greatly to our survival. Actually, that is my main concern: greedy teams accomplish the most when they agree on what they are trying to accomplish. This very nature is what I fear will drive us headlong into communism.

I’d love to hear that! But no, greed does not automatically imply capitalism; at least, history has not borne that out yet. Capitalism is a remarkably recent economic system that has yet to be adopted all over the world. Marx’s idea of natural societal progression is very intriguing. Each step is necessary, and the result of each step is essentially unavoidable because of the kind of creature man, generally, is. Though this itself does not explain the assortment of societal constructs and economic systems we see all over the modern world, it is only meant (AFAICT) to serve as a long-term perspective. At any instant in history conditions may cause an “progressive recession” where socialism’s corruption drifts the market back toward capitalism. For example.

By no means am I a Marx scholar, however. I have read the communist manifesto and thought about it a few times, and of course I’ve read Atlas Shrugged and thought about it a few times, and I come to the boards here for what is usually a nice moderate perspective which is neither intensely liberal, libertarian, or conservative, but rather usually finds me reading assorted opinions all along the moderate spectrum. The board gives me real-worl data and eprceptions where theory is based off rules of interaction at the necessary exclusion of known facts (for simplicities sake).

I— as usual— digress. Let it be said, then, that knowing just what kind of creature man is in general can go a long way toward prediction of how he will interact in any given situation. Marx and Rand both, seemingly, felt that man was something, while Orwell’s fatalist perspective was quite the opposite: man was whatever; I think he was a subtle follower of Neitzce’s (sp, damnit) Will to Power ideas, however. But the mind is a very flexible thing, and can be mashed into all sorts of social constructs so long as they don’t violate man’s core being. I feel that man’s core being is very minimal, consisting largely of a simple drive to survive in whatever means are presented as easiest; he is both a creature of standard animal drives and a keen desire to be “lazy”— that is, to pursue the core drives in such a manner that guarantees their near-permanent satiation with as little effort as possible. This, unfortunately, does not present itself as a key component of any particular social or economic construct; all will serve perfectly well so long as man thinks or finds evidence that they will work perfectly well.

As technology and society change, I feel that that drive finds new outlets where explicit morality and ethics fail to keep up. We will do what we need to do, morals and ethics be damned.

Abe

Well, it is somewhat interesting, but what Communism is supposed to be and what China’s government was are pretty much two seperate things. Communism has never been tried because the conditions have never been optimal for it to serve man’s purpose. Conditions always prevailed which allow for the rebellion of pluralism; that is, pluralism itself has always had— thus far— something to offer society over single-mindedness. This is why dictatorships have been classicly unstable, and why capitalsim flourished in the first place, and why so-called market failures occur too.

I addressed my current view on “greed—teamwork” continuum up in tracer’s response, if you didn’t read it.

puk

Good question. IMO, man as a creature seeks satiation. Satiation comes in all shapes and sizes; whether that means you have plenty of food on the table, plenty of sex on the platter, freedom of movement, valuable abilities, or whatever doesn’t really matter. We just want to do something that raises us ever above the level of point-blank survival. Apart from that we are, basically, blank slates who are written on and who write on ourselves.

The drive to stay farther and farther away from bare survival is encapsulated efficiently and totally in the idea of growth. More population, specialization, wealth creation, infrastructure, security… the list is seemingly infinite given infinite time. We can never be, IMO, far enough away from bare survival. It always feels like it is breathing down our necks, ready to drag us away from lackadaisical living down to the sludge of simple food and shelter aquisition.

Recent growths in the potential to achieve a higher standard of living have amply reflected this. Birth rates are dropping. Scope is less on getting a family together and more toward setting up for retirement. Previously it was almost unthinkable that a person could provide everything for themselves upon reaching an age where work was no longer a viable option, and family units—close knit—were necessary for continued survival; no longer, it seems, except that old habits are still lurking here in there in what are definitely concepts which were better applied to living in a different time. Society naturally changes with respect to the world it lives in, and it can change fast.

Hmm, did I? Growth demands increased resource allocation, either by brute forcing them (extracting mroe) or by technological advance (getting more from the same) or, really, both. So long as there is room to grow, we will grow. The extra-market forces take existing resources and divert them from what the market would use them for and uses them to create what the market demands. It does this to allow the market’s demands to be met, facilitating growth where previously there was simply no room (well, a bit of a misnomer; more like there was nothing the market could do to fulfill its own requirements— clearly this isn’t the case constantly, it is simply a sort of cycle that we go through).

Elaboration is quickly becoming my middle name in this thread! :stuck_out_tongue:
Again, the growth isn’t “used up.” There is no growing to do; we’re stuck. The market needs specific things (educated man, well-fed man, satisfied man) but is unable to provide it spontaneously and so there is no growth. The extra-market entity then diverts market resources to create what the market cannot create for itself. Then growth is able to be realized.

msmith, you get your own response, I ain’t going to try and pack it in here! :slight_smile:

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I think I see what you mean. But in some ways new techniques emerge that allow us to discard older techniques that were actually far more complicated.

The first computers were monstrous vacuum tubed things that were very complicated. I would have had no hope of assembling one myself. But now that we understand semi-conductors and what is required to make a modern CPU, assembly of computers has grown much easier. Most of us can now skip having to learn about how vacuum tubes work.

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msmith

What I have read has led me to believe that communism will supoprt itself, but does not seem to be able to do so spontaneously from scratch. Yes, it must “take over” existing infrastructure, but the construct is, theoretically, just as able to provide more to meet demands once it has been properly implemented.

No doubt. My concern is that a large market is more powerful than a single man; it sort of gets “a mind of its own.” People need the market to survive, and thus become swallowed in its construct. The market’s construct changes as man’s desires are met and new ones are formed, but the process is still one motivated by the market assuming what could almost be interpreted as an independent existence.

Oh, certainly. This drive for growth is best realized with efficiency in mind; our morals subtly shift over time to meet our desire to live above the level of bare survival. Stability is one such “product” that helps this, but stability comes with a curse of not-rocking-the-boat. When presented a choice between the status quo creativity and blatant DaVinci-style creativity, the “aggregate demand” you mentioned earlier plays a key role: man, statistically seeking the easiest alternative, naturally restricts freedom to obtain security to ensure growth. Though there may always be movers and shakers, their accomplishments are eventually washed away in the wake of status quo. Again, this is neither a good nor a bad thing, it is simply a reflection of how man interacts with the world around him. There is nothing implied to be noble here, or fatalist, simply trying to make assertaions based on some simple observations.

Infinite resources are not required… in fact, the whole idea of finite resources is crucial to understanding why I feel communism is inevitable! As technology increases, the projects we undertake will be more and more resource intensive. this is in part to the large population necessary for efficient specialization, but also inherent in the creation of high technology itself. No doubt that, as Blackclaw mentions, semiconductor computer chips have made computing easier and cheaper than the old tube-style logic, but the level of technological sophistication, education, and manpower needed to create the factories which put out such devices is staggaring. They say that it takes less than a cent to make silicon chips, except for the first one which can cost literally billions of dollars (not true for the start-up company, but true when we include the societal costs of allowing people access to such education as to make it possible). This is a huge consumption of resources for a specific task. We cannot put them back. They are used, now and forever. The amount of resources that it takes to do such a thing drastically limits the amount of resources that may be diverted to other things.

Why? Because growth is key. It will be achieved at any cost. The Darwinian perspective of societal interaction bears this out, as well, in the wars that have been fought over history. “We” will spread. “We” will take what we need to accomplish what we want. Why?— because we are humans who have an innate desire etc (outlined previously).

Because our resources are limited, efficiency is paramount. Pluralism, while initially the best way to ensure growth when resources are apparently (presently) limitless, becopmes its own enemy as resources become more scarce. goals must become more focused to match the restrictions of the environment. Capitalism flows naturally from a high-resource, pluralist environment. A low-resource pluralist enviroment will consume itself in struggles and we would find (IMO) a return to monopolies, dictatorships, feudalism, etc etc. To avoid this path, the sensible man adopts the popular view: he wants stuff, and being the loose cannon in a world of limited resources undermines his ability to survive.

Precisely! This, however, isn’t strictly a function of capitalism but of the governmental structure we call democracy 9in its many incarnations). No capitalist market has demonstrated its ability to provide the education it requires for growth. The market, it seems, naturally tends to stagnate people. But, as noted, this is inefficient, and so extra-market entities step in and do what they can to spread resources around to ensure a general level of specialization and material fitness.

Yes, specialization is fantastic. It is a seemingly necessary tool for growth, but it requires a large population base, and this itself is resource intensive.

Education becoming more specialized earlier will only be a temporary solution. We face two problems: spontaneous technological growth resulting from the material fitness of society and its education level, and the finite resources that are the result of specialization and its requirements. In the struggle between the two, efficiency must win (accepting, still as ever, that growth is always a goal), and efficiency demands that pluralism be pushed aside as resources diminish, or growth will stop, people cannot change it, and the entire society collapses on itself (drastic, I know).

Well, depending on the perspective they are different things. My perspective, in this thread, demonstrates their similarity: efficient production of things that the market demands. Natural monopolies fall out of the market (in the case of power production) but monopolies aren’t naturally very stable (in a democratically free society) and so the monopolies must be enforced to ensure that the resources they both use and provide are not being used without some efficiency in mind. As for welfare, the market cannot spontaneously provide for all people, and so welfare becomes necessary to, as you say, get people back on their feet. The market needs people, but it doesn’t provide for them naturally.

Compellingly astute comment, IMO. I agree completely.

Exactly! Growth is paramount. It is unstoppable. We either grow or we die. Growth == biological imperative. The difference is that man may in some ways shape the environment to grow, whereas lesser creatures have no choice. They simply grow until they cannot grow anymore, but are seemingly unable on their own to adjust either themselves or the environment to allow for further growth (except in the obvious case of natural selection; indeed, growth is a pattern we see all over this planet, relative to all life and pseudo-life (like virus life)).

Farming is a funny topic, I think. It easily falls under the scope of natural monopolies in a specialized society, and natural monopolies (especially ones that are necessary for life period!) are easily able to fall to poor market behavior. Their control is absolutely necessary. It isn’t like we can play around with food production, unless we produce far more than we need to consume. The best way to do this is to support more farmers than the market can handle. It is a waste of resources, but a huge leap in security. If a natural monopoly farmer fucks up, everyone is fucked. This is clearly something that cannot be allowed to happen.

Don’t I know it. I can eat well and not really go hungry on less than $30 a month. This wouldn’t be the case if food was left up to market forces alone.

Well, it is more of a balancing act than an either or. As population increases, the preceptage of population in busy areas must also increase. Efficient growth demands continued people living in Manhattan. Though Manhattan itself (until recently) was starting to reach its maximum potential for current technological and monetary means, such cities are growing where there is room, and that growth requires for peak efficiency an economically and educationally diverse group to live there. Businessmen eat lunch, you know, and waiters and dishwashers will have an easier time (money-wise) not commuting when public transportation can allow them to live cheaper on thier admittedly smaller salaries. It is a delicate balancing act, and almost no city seems to have it down (that I’ve been to).

The market requires active trading of ideas and products, as well as luxuries like spare time and nice steaks. It requires this because man needs to be happy to work toward growth, or at least needs to see that working towards growth can bring happiness. So we want freedom to achieve maximum growth potential.

This leaves us in a bad spot, however, as resources begin to dry up in any particular area. The pluralistic behavior which once served to create growth now hinders it because, with what little resources there are, pluralistic goals cannot amass enough resources to be realized.

Only so long as the resources available can fit all those desires! My major point, really. Communism == result of growth exceeding pluralistic-technology’s ability to find resources to meet growth’s needs. Both the free market fails, and democratic pluralism fails. They cannot provide man what he needs to grow, and we must abandon them, abandon growth, or perish.

Hardly borne out by evidence. We subsidize the shit out of farming, medicine, scientific research, poverty-level people, policing agencies, national defense strategies, education, property right regulation, justice allocation…(takes breath)… None of these have crippled us. They provide the means for growth that other strategies could not provide, and that freedom itself in politics or market-interactions could not provide spontaneously. They are “common sense” solutions to providing the stability that further growth requires. As I said, each step of the way we will take steps that we see as necessary or obvious. We want it to happen. It is completely natural, and because our mindset (flexible as it is) accepts that, it works. Simple as that.

Well, that view of central organization is just the form that communism took in our era. No communist I know advocates it; communists are like anarchists who want everyone to think the same. Our government will be in pretty much the same form as it is now, except that more and more people will agree with the government because it will be necessary for growth to do so.

The crumbling of economies in the face of socialism is not yet borne out. Because we currently have, as a species, enough resources to go around and still promote pluralism then that is the dominant force of the time and such econmies will, and should, collapse over and over again. It is easiest for man to not adopt a specific mindset, and so when the opportunity exists he will take it. When resources begin to dry up, such free-thinking and multi-culturalism can no longer serve man positively. There aren’t enough resources to serve so many varied interests.

I know you thought this was a pipe dream in the anarchy thread. I am not sure why you feel this way; perhaps you simply don’t agree that man is that mentally flexible, and that (unlike Orwell and his Winston Smith) there is a point where man will not succumb to the demands of his environment, and would rather live on his feet than die on his knees. I can only disagree here, as empirical evidence would actually favor both our opinions.

Blackclaw, a response to your most recent post is technically buried in the above text. :slight_smile:

13

Well, but Marxism doesn’t care if people agree with each other or not. Individuals are free to believe whatever they want, so long as they don’t try to impose their beliefs on others by force. The Marxist says that under Communism, government will disappear, because he or she believes that the role of governments is to allow the dominant economic class to oppress subordinate economic classes.

Any similarities of belief that will come to exist in the hypothetical communist world will be due to the fact that everyone is on the same economic level, and, according to communism, one’s economic status influences his or her ideas.

14

Interesting, erislover, interesting.

15

Ah, and see here, this is why I do disagree with Marx. I do not believe people can maintain pluralism without some means of exerting power. This may be through brute force, this may be through politics, it may be through economic means, but it is my opinion that no pure society of any type can exist without force unless most people think the same. And I do not think we will think the same unless the environment demands it for (man’s lazy-stayle)survival.

Well, that is where I come in. I state that everyone agreeing with the government is practically the same as having no government at all.

Truly, it isn’t much different than the anarchic free-market society that I normally espouse, except that there is no free market and everyone is the government. (heh, I guess it is a little different).

Hehe, hi sven! :wink: :smiley: I wonder where you lie in this, being a self-proclaimed communist… do you feel that my view of communism is harsh or possibly realistic?

One more thing, everyone, the key factor in my “equation” is that technology can not turn finite resources into (practically) infinite resources. If there are always plenty of resources there is never any need, by my construct to convert into communism; if resources should fail, in my construct, I feel communism is inescapable; in fact, I feel it is plain old desirable. It will come naturally.

A second component of my “equation” is also the “growth” factor. Having had the unique pleasure of talking this conversation out with spiritus tonight he reminded me that population growth itself can sometimes be shown to be a factor of resources available. Then he goes and ruins it by noting that if the situation were a bet on what the “natural” actions of man were, I’d probably get rich by betting on ‘growth.’ :stuck_out_tongue: (but again, I’d still like to assume the ‘growth goal’ as axiomatic in this thread, just wanted to mention that I realize it has some possible limitations)

16

Yes, poor.
Communism works by placing everyone at the lowest economic level. You will have to work just as hard as in a capitalist system, except you won’t have any possibility of extra rewards. What does it matter if you have to work for a corporation or a monolithic government? IMO, the only people who really think communism is a good idea are poor people and academics. And that’s only because poor people are upset that they don’t have as much money as rich people

Besides, why are you advocating a social system that has failed in just about every attempt to implement it? And don’t give me ‘the world wasn’t ready for communism’. A system either works or it doesn’t and communism doesn’t.

17

Firstly, I’m not advocating it, I’m trying to explain it.

Now, to answer the question, “Why work hard if you have no possibility of being rewarded?”. You start with a false assumption that the marketplace is the only place that people are rewarded for work, and also that financial rewards are the only rewards that exist.

Among the Old Order Amish, when a new family moves into the community, or some fire or other accident occurs, the men of the community get together and build the family who needs one a barn. Their only material compensation is a free meal. Why do they do it? Part of it is selfishness…they know that this tradition will provide them with free labor to build a barn if anything happens to theirs, but part of it is just because they feel that it’s the right, and the neighborly thing to do.

In the middle ages, monks copied and illuminated books and manuscripts. While the proceeds from their work benefitted the monastary as a whole, the individual monk, who swore a vow of poverty and owned everything in the monastary communally, didn’t fiscally benefit. Why did those monks work so hard? Love of their G-d, because the community needed their work done, and because they loved and were proud of the work they did.

One of the most positive things we saw in the tragedy of 9/11 is that, responding to the tragedies, people volunteered their time, their property, and their money, to try to save those trapped in the rubble, and help the rescue workers and families of the people who were lost. There was no profit in that either.

When I was in high school, a classmate was a Revolutionary War reenactor. He spent a lot of time and money on it, and every once in a while, he would get up early in the morning, put on a heavy red uniform and go to the nearby battlefield, where he and the rest of the men in his “unit” would be soundly beaten by a group of other people who did the same thing, except they wore blue suits. If he ever made any money from what he did, I’d be really suprised.

The senior partner at this firm is rich. He’s made enough money over the years that he could retire today, and have enough to support himself, his wife, and his sons for the rest of their lives. Why does he come in 4 to 5 days a week, and set up deals, and figure out how to make this place make money? Is it just greed for more money, or is it something else?

When I was a kid, my parents fed me, clothed me, and gave me a place to sleep, and I know that if I were to go to their house now, I’m guaranteed meals and a bed for as long as I want to stay. Admittedly, if they asked me, I’d rake leaves for them, but I think that I still come out ahead on the deal. Why do they do this?

There’s no question that financial gain is a major motivation behind actions. It’s not the only motivation, though. People are pushed to work hard for all sorts of reasons.

18

This is so totally wrong, though, msmith. The free market form of a social system fails miserably in the fact of poor education. Communism failed because it was both easier and possible to have a means of dissention. Nothing, in my construct, can change that. It is man’s core being: lazy-complacency. That includes not adopting the party platform when there is no need to.

Communism was a human failure because the world was not in such a state where Communism was a viable choice.

Ancient Greeks were a warlike democracy which no longer stands. Wanna tell me that democracy doesn’t work? Roman Empire was a republic: do they not work because the Empire no longer stands?

All social systems, to me, work, provided the environment at the time is suited to their mode of growth.

19

I’m not sure what you are talking about here. Are you asserting that because your oppinion is that the education system in the US is poor, the education market has failed?

In order to be a market failure, the education system would have to be unable to provide students meeting the educational demands of the market. In other words, our students would have to be too stupid to work. This is obviously not the case since dozens of collages, both public and private churn out thousands of students who meet the demands of the work force at some level.

Note that education follows the same supply and demand curves as every other product. For example, as an MBA, my skills are in greater demand and more scarce than someone with merely a 2 yr community college certification. Thus, I get paid a lot more.

What form of government do you envision that has no means of disention and isn’t totalitarianism? And what benefit do you envision from living in a totalitarian state?

20

No, I’m asserting that the market requires a level of education that it is not able to provide spontaneously (turn “fact” in my quote to “face” oops!).

Nah, just too stupid to provide growth.

One where almost all citizens agree with the government.

Efficiency in resource allocation toward what are now accepted, unified goals.