Kollectivisation: Could it work??

Great Debates
21

You would have been better off letting people think it was a Tom Clancy quote. At least that shows an interest in politics instead of science fiction.

There have already been umpteen threads on communism, collectivism, moneyless societies and the like, so I guess I can respond to one more.

In a free market economy like the US, the only people who support communism/collectivism are a) ivory tower academic types and b) lazy and/or untalented people who are jealous because they see others getting ahead of them in life.

The most popular misconception seems to be that everyone in a communist system will have the highest standard of living. This is of course, absolutely false. Even if you divided Bill Gates $36 billion dollars among the 250 million people living in the US, thats only $144 each. About enough for a new pair of nice shoes, or half a DVD player. So the reality is, everyone would have the same standard of living, but it would be pretty low.

So why would anyone want to live under communism? You would still have your crappy standard of living, but so would everyone else, no matter how talented they are. You would still have an oppressive boss, but the only thing that has changes is your boss is the government.

22

There’s another, much bigger problem, which is that communism doesn’t work even in theory. The reason has to do with information theory - capitalism is a system that uses negative feedback to correct itself. The price system acts as an information conduit to pass necessary information about the supply and demand of goods and services. So a capitalist economy works more like a massively parallel computer.

In a communist system, control of production comes from the top down, creating informational bottlenecks. It’s also much slower.

Modern economies are extremely complex. Milton Friedman wrote a famous essay once in which he showed that no one in the world knows how to make a pencil. Even something as mundane as a pencil requires the collaborative efforts of people, and each of those people needs to have specialized knowledge. Therefore, if you can put the decision-making in the hands of those people, and create an economic system that rewards and punishes them when they are right or wrong, you are in essence building a very adaptive, fast-responding, stable environment.

Consider what happens when the demand for pencils goes up. Pencil manufacturers respond to the increased demand by raising prices. This forces out marginal users who really don’t need pencils, which helps alleviate temporary shortages. In the meantime, the increased profit of pencil manufacture brings more competition and leads to increased pencil production. This, in turn, puts more demand on wood, graphite, ferrules, erasers, etc. The increased demand for brass ferrules drives up the spot price of brass, which causes the price of other brass products to increase a bit. That in turn causes marginal brass users to use less of it, which helps control temporary shortage. So now brass doorknobs cost more, so people use more glass or aluminum doorknobs. That in turn increases the price of glass and aluminum…

These changes ripple through the system, and production of and demand for millions of different products subtly adapts to accomodate. In the end, the increase in demand for pencils may, through several secondary interactions, cause the price of fish to rise. The exact results are impossible to know in advance for all but the most trivial of changes.

And the beauty of the price system is that the guy who makes doorknobs doesn’t have to know anything about pencils or the demand for them. The price system is efficient because it acts as a natural filter, passing only the necessary information and nothing else.

Now consider what happens when someone with imperfect knowledge tries to manage production from the top down. Let’s say we decide that people should use more pencils. So we order them up, but now there are those shortages of wood and brass. But we’re smart guys and we thought of that and ordered more wood and brass production. But that caused an increase use of woodcutting blades, and there weren’t enough sharpening tools available. So now our wood is lying uncut. So we order more sharpening tools, which diverts production away from knife sharpening. So now people have dull knives, and compensate by using more foods that don’t require cutting. Oops. Now there’s a shortage of fish, and a glut of tougher meats. Never saw that one coming… So now we try to adjust to that, which causes other unforseen problems. Plus, there is a much bigger time lag between action and reaction than there is in a capitalist system, which makes these problems worse.

What you find in practice is an increasingly complex set of rules and bureacracies trying to keep it all going. And all of these people may have good intentions and want to do the right thing, but it’s simply impossible. In practice, what you generally wind up with is a series of gluts and shortages, poorer quality, and an overall lower level of productivity.

This problem doesn’t exist just in communist countries, but is a characteristic of any government-imposed solution. Look what happened to Hillary Clinton’s health-care task force - they started with a simple enough goal, but as they worked through all the permutations and distortions, the plan rapidly grew into a monstrosity consisting of something like 1200 pages of regulations. And I guarantee that wouldn’t have even begun to cover al of the problems once such a system was put into place.

23

I think that I’ve misrepresented myself. What makes a collective work in small numbers is the fact that free riders and deviants are visible and easily corrected. I’ve put too much emphasis on the visibility part, and not enough on the fact that people are corrected by their immediate peers.

Small scale collectives work because the people telling you to act according to a collectivist ethos are your friends, neighbours and family. The enforcer of social order is peer pressure, which is far more effective than laws or armed oppression. It’s constant and omnipresent, and it’s coercive in a permissible way–you can’t reject it without rejecting your community.

I don’t see how technology can replace that immediacy.

24

There are perfectly sound arguments, I think, to support the position that “collectivism” (depending on how one uses the term, of course) tends to be unworkable. Therer are certain ways, however, in which these arguments should not be made.

Sam Stone:

Why do you feel the need to throw a (very) thinly vieled personal insult at the OP? This falls squarely into the category of “Not Helpful.”
msmith:

No, a Tom Clancy quote would show an interest in Russians-are-coming thrillers. This is not the same as an interest in politics.

This is not only insulting, but also demonstrably false (“demonstrable,” that is, by anyone who knows socialists who are neither incompetent, nor lazy, nor “ivory tower academic types”). On the other hand, it must be comfortable to believe that there’s something wrong with anyone who disagrees with you.
Regards,
Jer

25

Well, can we agree that universal surveillance (available to all), combined with highly sophisticated computers (available to all), if would make it much easier for anyone to spot a free-rider?

26

A question to the OP:

Are you aware that about the only folks in the US (& a good many of the board readership is US-based) who replace C with K like you’ve been doing are the KKK?

Just asking.

27

…and just look at the US energy policy. Why, it responds totally to a free-market capitalistic approach. No hint of anything smelling of from-the-top guidance. It’s all driven by the consumer. Right. :rolleyes:

Sorry, Sam. I do agree with what you are saying. Capitalism(as practised in the US) works better than Kommunism(as practised in Russian, et al.). I just had to get in a dig.

28

And that’s why I specifically said in my message that these characteristics can be found in capitalist countries any time that the market is replaced with top-down control.

A lot of people here are under the assumption that Communism works ‘in theory’, but only breaks down in the real world because of free riders, evil people, laziness, etc.

My point is that even if you could wave a magic wand and turn every person in the world into the perfect communist who worked his ass off for the good of all, communism would STILL grossly under-perform capitalism because its very structure makes it less efficient.

In addition, Communism is lousy at innovation, because it’s impossible for central managers to be as creative as millions of individuals. Communism settles for ‘good enough’, and therefore doesn’t strive as hard as capitalism. Remember when Bill Gates said that he could ever imagine anyone needing more than 640K of RAM? How would you feel if he was technology czar? The market forced Bill Gates to re-evaluate his thinking. Absent that pressure, we would all still be using 286’s, if we had personal computers at all.
Communism is flawed in theory, and destructive in practice.

29

Um, no. As you already pointed out, having a camera in every car, home, office, store, and street corner is a recipe for information overload. If a computer paged me because my wife was taking a nap, I’d probably turn off my pager.

The problem with this scheme is that the surveillance is unnatural. In a small commune, the visibility of the participants is an abundant byproduct of the constant interaction between the same people. In the society you’re proposing, the surveillance is artificial and imposed from above; also, the peer pressure that glues a small commune together doesn’t scale. If someone phoned me at work because they saw on a camera that I was picking my nose, I’d either tell them to fuck off, or I’d spend every minute at work sweating bullets because I was afraid someone would see me giving less than 100%.

The overall point I’m making is that a small commune has an effective method of limiting the range of behaviour among its citizens, but that that method doesn’t scale. In a small community, that effective control means that the society can effectively demand fairly strict compliance to the social order. The problem with communism is that it demands that most people be good communists for the state to function properly; as the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and every other communist state ever tried so far proves, people are not naturally good communists. It works well in a strict environment, but large societies aren’t effectively strict.

[As an aside, I recall someone saying something to the effect that the genius of free market capitalism/liberal democracy is that it doesn’t demand that people be either good capitalists or good liberal democrats–thus, it’s longevity. Any society demanding that it’s citizens be good citizens is inherently unstable.]

30

Well, I’m hypothesizing that you have a sophisticated enough computer to bother you only with important stuff.
**

Videocameras are unnatural too. But, after the Rodney King incident, I suspect that black people get beat up by the police somewhat less.

**

Well, can we agree that the pressure on police not to mistreat suspects is greater than in the past? Why is that?
**

Not really - I suspect that few people would bug you for picking your nose if their own pecadillos were on display.

I agree that it doesn’t scale. But technology can change the scales on which groups of people can operate. For example, I used to work in a law firm with 1000 lawyers in 20 different cities, all over the world. Without telephone, facsimile, and other stuff, such an arrangement would be infeasible, I suspect.

I believe that future technology will make a global commune possible.
**

Sure, because people will stray unless someone is watching. You can set up “watchers,” but who watches the watchers? My proposal solves that problem, because everyone will be able to watch everyone else.

31

Komsomol, I would reply to your assertion that collectivisation “can and will work” by asking you for some empirical evidence that supports your assertion.

After all, Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. In the century and a half since then, millions of people around the globe have tried to make collectivisation work, in a variety of societies and economies. It hasn’t worked.

Those countries which have tried the hardest to rely on a collective economy have had poor economic records, often unable to provide basic necessities for their citizens. Those same countries have had horrifically bad records for human rights.

Don’t you think that if the idea is so sound, that in the past 150 years someone would have been able to make a success of it?

32

Collectivization is almost always done by force, with a serious loss of life. Usually, then ones getting whacked are the economically successful ones. Okay, they may be exploitive as well. Think about the productivity impact when you take over for example a factory and either sack or whack the top management. The wealth of experience, contacts, sales ability, knowledge, etc simply evaporates. Those few critical people may be the only difference between a successful operation and an unsuccessful one.

In such an environment, who wants to be an entreprenuer or a leader? Not to mention that being a good manager leads you open to political schemings and purges.

Collectivization might work, but human nature has to become more collective first.

China had it’s experiment with collectivization. They are dismantling it as fast as they can. If you are really curious visit a collectivized country such as China, Cuba, etc. Hell, just go visit a food co-op and see how efficiient the service is.

33

Yes, but those who are watching would all have slightly varying ideas of what “shirking” would entail. Some might be liberal, others more strict. Also–and I think this was discussed in another thread–things could be seen that, while not illegal or punishable, are downright humiliating. For instance, I don’t want the entire world to know how often I push the pleasure button, if you know what I mean.

Your proposal requires the inherent good will of humanity, faith in the fact that we won’t use the information against others maliciously. I don’t have that faith. I think very few people do. Therefore, I believe that widespread camera coverage is not an option in enforcing collectivism (or anything else).

34

An interesting example of Sam Stone’s argument that collectivisation cannot handle fluxes in demand, Gorbachev said during the communist era they actually had to form a special committe to ensure the supply of panty-hose. This is the same group of people that had to manage weapons that could destroy the entire world.

My co-workers are physicists from Poland. One of them told me that a couple of times a year he was required to go into the fields to pick potatos. Not the most efficient use of his time eh?

35

Technically, if you want to be anal retentive about it (and it appears that you do for some reason), the Tom Clancy quote would show an interest in political fiction (since the protagonists in Tom Clancy novels are not always Russian). I think most people on this board are intelligent enough to realize that Tom Clancy has about as much to do with actual politics as Brendan Frasier has to do with actual Egyptian archeology.

Than please demonstrate it is false to me. I do believe there is something wrong with people who favor communism. Just as I believe there is something wrong with people who, in this day and age, feel that facism, national socialism, apparteid or slavery are good political systems. The system is so obviously flawed that I cannot comprehend why someone would advocate it. So Carl Marx (or is it Karl?) wrote a book. Big deal. So did Adolph Hitler. Marx’s manifesto is as much a work of fiction as Clancy’s.

Lets take one example: lucwarm seems to think that with enough cameras, computers and technology, everyone can watch everyone else to make sure we are all good little commies. Obvious facist Orwellian Big Brother comparisons aside, how much of a countries infrastructure will be wasted on policing its own citizenry? Compare this to a capitalist or capitalist/socialist hybrid system where market forces ensure that people work more or less efficiently. Already, the communist system is less efficent.

Besides, some miracle technology is always required to make communism work. “I foresee advanced enough computers or robots or glowing radioactive monkey butlers that …”

Balduran - You are right, of course. However there are people who feel, for some reason, that it’s only real work if it involves backbreaking labor. In reality, having your physicist friend pick potatos makes about as much sense as having a potato farmer be a scientist for a day.

I have also noticed that communist systems and people who propose them are grossly intolerant. What is considered a “deviant” in those systems? Someone who doesn’t work fast enough? Someone who dresses a little differently? Someone who practices a different religeon? The problem with a system where everything is “for the common good” is that you need a population that is very homogenious. Ever work in a company where you were expected to speak and dress and behave in a certain way? Imagine doing that all the time, every second of the day for fear of being branded “deviant”. The problem with a system that requires everyone to always act in the interests of the “common good” is that there is very little room for individualism.
And what is with the using the K instead of a C?
“My kompanion, Klause the Klansman and I went to Kircuit Kity to by a klassic rock KD. We then went to the korner to katch a kab home.”

36

This is a problem in any society, whether it be collectivist, socialist, or whatever. It applies to a commune with 20 hippies, or a nation of 300,000,000 citizens.

I’m not a sociologist, but I suspect that most societies have a rough consensus of what is appropriate behaviour and what is not. I do not see why this wouldn’t apply in the scenario I have proposed.
**

I believe that the problem of voyeurism would be far less than what you imagine. Consider that today, voyeurs generally conduct their activities in secret and behind a cloak of anonymity. This applies to the NSA as well as to the guy at the mall who tries to point a videocamera up women’s skirts.

What do you think would happen if those who would invade our privacy had no privacy themselves?

I disagree strongly. If anyone uses information maliciously, the facts of what they have done would be known to the world. Also, their personal information would be totally open to their victims (and anyone else). IMHO, these are very strong deterrents.

37

From the OP:
“…I need critisism, dissection of how it works and why it can and can’t work”

OK…It can’t work because if you try to take away my freedom I will kill you. How’s that for an example?

Same goes for lucwarm’s Big Brother society of spycams looking out for people the Government decides are “lazy”. If you try to impose this society on a free people, they will kill you. If you would like to be subjugated to an all seeing controlling authority, be my guest, but don’t impose it on my family and me.

This is one basic flaw you will never be able to debate away.

38

Allright, lucwarm, let’s suppose your “cameras everywhere” idea is feasible and (somehow) democratic. You have now figured out how to identify the free riders in a collectivisation system.
What you have not yet posited, however, is the enforcement mechanism.
In a village-level collective society, there are two tools of enforcement. For first or lesser instances of an individual not pulling his weight, there is social disapproval. For repeated or extreme cases, there is expulsion.
On the nationwide system you posit, social disapproval is useless. What the hell do I care if some bureaucrats 1000 miles away are annoyed at me for shirking? And expulsion won’t work either, because there is nowhere to expell the shirker to. What you are left with is force - do the work, or we kill you/throw you in jail.

There is another problem with collectivisation - it only works when the type of vocations available are limited. In a farming community, your option is to be a farmer or something closely related to that profession. In a varied nationwide economy, the society may want you to be a farmer, but you want to be an engineer. How do you get the engineer wanna-be to be a farmer? Force. And if you don’t force him/her into the role society has set for them, then a large percentage of people will go into what are perceived as the cushy/interesting jobs, with the result of inefficiency and/or neglect of needed professions.

Sua

39

I see someone who is taking a half hour break, and I think “well, he’s tired, and he’s been a really good worker; I guess I can let it slide just this once.”

Someone else sees the same person doing the same thing and thinks, “He doesn’t need to take that long; everyone else is only taking a 20 minute break today.”

. . .Um, I don’t know if you’re getting my point; I don’t want someone watching my most intimate moments. I don’t want someone watching me get undressed. I don’t want someone watching me while I’m sitting at my computer in my pajamas, looking like crap and sniffling so much I feel like my nose is coming off. It doesn’t matter if the person who is watching me is getting a thrill out of it or is just doing his job; I don’t want it. It makes me feel ooky.

When I say maliciously, I don’t necessarily mean blackmail. I mean social exclusion, or teasing, or the loss of a job on grounds which are not based in absolute necessity or morality, but rather on the personal whims of those watching. This kind of thing would be impossible to avoid.

40

In a capitalist society, the problem of shirking is addressed by the “carrot and stick” method. If you work hard, you generally get ahead. If you don’t, eventually you are replaced. Some people are not as capable as others so some people become doctors and lawyers and others become factory workers or secretaries. What makes our system so superior to communism is not that everyone gets the same pay, but that anyone can aspire as far as their ability and ambition can take them. You want to be rich like Bill Gates, go right ahead. Just invent something revolutionary and market it to the world. Nothing is stopping you. But I suppose it is always easier to say “he doesn’t deserve to have that much money, we should take it away from him” instead of figuring out how to get ahead yourself.

I wish that for once, one of the pro-communist people on this board give a legitimate reason why a communist society is preferable to a non communist society. We have already established that a communist society offers less freedom. So what benefit do we get for giving up our freedom? Better standard of living? Shorter work week? I see nothing to indicate that this is the case.

I would rather work 60 hours a week in a capitalist job I like and live in a decent appartment instead of 40 or even 30 hours a week in some stupid communist potato factory and go home to some state-run housing project.