Actually, what I wanted to know was would the overall standard of living be higher under this system, all other variables being equal. If you did away with all the capitalists, would everyone else be eating better, working less hours and living in larger homes?
In a capitalist society, the capitalist gets an idea to sell pencils. He puts together a business plan, raises financing, sets up the production facilities, hires the workers and coordinates the whole process through his management teams. He takes a much greater risk than the workers who only have to worry about their jobs. The capitalist can potentially loose everything. In other words, the capitalist produces the infrastructure that allows the workers to collect a paycheck.
From what I’ve read, marxists would have you believe that factories just poped into existance with everyone locked into either owner or worker classes. That is not the case. In any Western country, anyone can start their own business if they have a good idea. it may not be successful, but the opportunity is there. How does innovation occur in a communist country? Does someone have to hope that they can convince everyone of the merit of a new idea? In a capitalist economy, you just go do it. If it works, everyone benefits. If not, you go out of business and the capital and labor is dispersed back into the system.
If you created your own business out of nothing, wouldn’t you deserve a greater reward than some guy who just has to show up and collect a check?
Ripping off labor? The labor gets payed what the market will support. How is that ripping them off? Labor is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.
And what about professional services? Where do they fit into the Marxist model? How much is the labor of a lawyer, accountant or consultant worth? How does the fact that “workers” in these types of firms can become “owners” if they progress to the partner level fit in to the Marxist model?
I’m pretty sure I have a pretty good understanding of what Marxism is about. You aren’t telling me anything about marxism or Communism I haven’t heard before.
Every time I hear Marxists whining about capitalists adding no value and ripping off the workers, it disgusts me. If you think a capitalist adds no value, go start a business. See how much value you don’t need to add. Even better, make all off your workers equal partners and pay everyone (including yourself) the same. See how long the business lasts when every decision requires the consensus of the entire work force.
Do you consider Robin Hood a hero for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor? I ask because it wouldn’t seem too heroic if you were the one who worked and took risks to get ahead in life, only to have it taken away and handed to people who did not take risks or work as smart.
[Personal anecdote] A friend of mine since childhood was extremely and radically communist while we were in college. Then hestarted a small bookstore with the idea of selling communist stuff but when that wasn’t selling too well he specialised in technical books because he was a geologist. Things started to go well and eventually he had three specialised bookstores not very big but with a number of employees. Then things started to go bad and he was osing money and he didn’t know why. It took him five years to catch on and he had already lost one of the bookstores. It turns out one of the employees was stealing and had figured out a pretty complex way of doing it (It involved returns or something which I did not understand well). All the stolen money went for drugs. I told him that’s what happens when you are a capitalist and an exploiter of workers. [/anecdote]
Komsomol, how does this fit in with your professed faith in collectivisation? Earlier, I asked you for an empirical example where a collective economy worked. Instead, you’ve put your finger on one of the glaring examples of the failure of the Soviet collective economy.
Ukraine has some of the richest farm land in the world. Prior to the formation of the Soviet Union, it also had skilled farmers who knew how to make the land productive.
Prior to the revolution, with that combination of natural resources and landlord-peasant farms, Ukraine could feed itself (bar the occasional bad harvest). Of course, a lot of those agricultural skills disappeared with forced collectivisation and the murder of kulaks (peasant and small landlord farmers) by the state.
By the end of the Soviet era, the USSR was spending a lot of money importing grain from Canada and the US. It had to, if it wanted to feed its people and prevent famines. If, as you recognise, it had the basic natural resources to feed itself, why did it have to import wheat?
Could it be that collective planning simply is not efficient, no matter what riches of natural resources and skilled people you start out with?
You began this thread with a statement of faith, but you’ve begun to pose sceptical questions. In my opinion, if you carry on with your sceptical questions, and answer them honestly, you might find your faith imperilled.
Well, actually, that was only part of what you were asking… you were also asking what benefit there would be under that sort of system according to Marxists, and that was the answer I had given you. Specifically, that capitalists take value away from workers without having produced anything of their own except the companies and capital by which they take more away.
An Emphasis: I DO NOT support Marxist political economy. Kindly keep that in mind before you tar me with that brush. Still, I will attempt to address your points.
Hmm… after attempting to do a point-counterpoint, I decided it would honestly take more time than it’s worth. So I’ll just respond generally.
First, as to the creation of businesses et al; that is a valid point, but keep in mind that at the period when Marx was writing there was a common belief that the days of the small business owner were numbered, and that massive industrialists were destined to run the economy. While a point can be made that a small business owner deserves to be rewarded for the time, effort, and labour that is involved in creating a business, the kind of wealthy industrialists that Marx was referring to were a very different breed, whose risk vs. reward ratios are entirely different than someone who is risking their shirt on a concept. (Hence the distinction made between “bourgeosie and petite bourgeosie”)Most modern Marxists I’ve met generally run along the same lines, but usually aim their guns at multinationals and large corporations nowadays. After all, it’s not like Bill Gates risks much when he brings out a new product. (Not like the guy who started charging people for an initially free product and who ripped off CP/M and IBM at the same time in different ways is exactly the poster child for honest business growth, but anyway…)
Second, the key concept, again, is labour; Marxists wouldn’t argue that factories “simply pop into being”, but that people worked on them, and that each time somebody worked on them their labour was exploited and the surplus value lifted away. Sure, those factories don’t come out of nowhere; a capitalist spent the money to create them in order to be able to get more productivity out of those 8 or 9 or 10 hours that the employees get, and compete with others. This doesn’t exactly ameliorate the problem for the workers themselves, however; they’re still getting screwed out of the difference between what they get paid and the amount of value that they produce. Why not take that back and do it themselves? Plants would still get built, it’s just that there wouldn’t be capitalists enriching themselves and providing nothing but a service (surplus value distribution) that workers could do themselves.
How would they do it? Ah, there’s the rub. And the reason it never bloody well works. (I told you I wasn’t a Marxist).
Thirdly, that whole “their work is worth whatever the market pays them” bit kind of misses the point which I was trying to emphasize, which is that the value of what comes out of their work is (objectively) worth more than the (objective) value of what they’re paid; the whole point of the labour theory of value (as opposed to the subjective theory of value that underpins neoclassical economics) is that things are not worth “whatever the market decides they’re worth”… there is a real value and worth to everything, and that’s determined by the labour. You’re reading Neoclassical economics into Marxian political economy. (or, for that matter, political economy in general… the idea of “the value of something is whatever people decide it is” isn’t exactly a popular classical political economic concept, unless I really missed something). And yes, even lawyers et al have produced something.
Fourthly, that consensus thing…actually, I agree. (As I said earlier). Then again, couldn’t a simple analogy be a company and its shareholders, except that the shareholders happen to be the workers?
Fifthly, as for that bit about “Robin Hood” and risk: I’ll give you a quote from J.S. Mill:
“However irrefutable the arguments in favour of the laws of property may appear to those to whom they have the double prestige of immemorial custom and of personal interest, nothing is more natural than that a working man who has begun to speculate on politics, should regard them in a very different light”.
Those who feel they are exploited may not honestly give a rats ass about the “risk” taken by capitalists if the entire system that requires this sort of risk is fundamentally unnecessary and wasteful, supporting people whose only contribution is that they skim value off the top and use it to make more ways in which they can skim more value off the top, producing nothing else of real value. A Marxist would probably note that any business, after all, is useful to workers only in what it can produce and the employment (or organization of labourers, whatever) it provides. If they don’t need the businesses to do either, then why not do away with them? At one point, people thought they needed kings too.
Anyway, like I said, I’m no Marxist, but that attempt to argue that “labour is worth whatever the market says it’s worth” seems to show that you’re trying to compare apples to oranges here. The OP is pretty obviously not overly well-informed on Marxist theory either, or else he would have argued in favour of the examples I just gave (and likely been quite a bit more impassioned about it… I’m just attempting to fight ignorance, or at least trying to provid clarification). Personally, my response to Marxists is pretty simple: “prove it works”. If it does, kudos. If it doesn’t, them’s the breaks. They haven’t been able to pull it off yet, but to be fair the economies that they were trying to do it with were (to put it mildly) underdeveloped, and the entire idea was that the whole thing came after the big capitalist buildup. Since nobody’s been able to pull it off yet, I’m not holding my breath.
Oh, quite, but it’s very different to say “capitalism is on the whole better” and “there is no role for government-administered programs and government intervention in a capitalist economy if the need should arise” which was my point. I normally would assume the former, but the rather extreme form of anarcho-capitalism that tends to be prevalent online leads to overreaction, and Hayek really didn’t like government in the slightest.
Is it better to have a smaller slice of a much larger pie? Some would argue yes, some would argue no. While there are inequalities in any capitalist system, in general overall production is higher which translates to a higher standard of living.
True enough, however we can see now that Marx was incorrect. There is still a place for the small business owner (almost half of all Americans still work for small businesses).
I have also found that there are generally more opportunities to advance in a large corporation than a small mom and pop business.
Which may be considered misguided since arge corporations like Microsoft, GE, ExxonMobile and WalMart are largely responsible for the high standard of living we enjoy today. The fact that their CEOs enjoy multi million dollar salaries is largely irrelevant IMO.
There are other political ethical and environemntal considerations, but as production machines, these corporations are very successful.
Not now he doesn’t. What about when he dropped out of college to start his own business?
Also keep in mind that much of Gates $33 billion is tied up in MSFT stock. In a large part, his worth is linked directly to the success of failure of his company.
I guess we have different definitions of what “value” is. Labor has no inherent value. Your labor is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. There is no “surplus value” being lifted away because you are getting paid what the market thinks your worth. That extra value as you call it is reinvested back in the company. Its like I always tell people who think they should be getting paid more - if you feel as though you can get more money somewhere else, you should look around.
They only feel they are getting screwed because they don’t make as much money as the owners and managers. In reality, they get what they are worth. What is the value of what they produce? It’s whatever it can be sold for. Labor and operating costs and sales revenue are not set. They are determined by the market and the market sets these prices far more efficiently than any collective 's central beuocrats.
By who? Who determines how many plants and in what proportion? Who decides to produce new and innovative technologies. And once the plants are built, what drives them to produce more efficiently?
Can they manage and coordinate themselves? Most workers in large companies see only a small peice of the business.
On this we can agree:)
Which is a good thing. That surplus value allows the business to grow and expand.
I guess. I’m just offering my oppinion based on by admittedly rudimentary knowledge of economics and a better than average knowledge of business.
It could, however it is my understanding that under communism, everyone would be equal shareholders.
I am largely a proponent of employee stock purchase plans. I believe they are an equitable way of allowing workers to enjoy the successes of the company. After all, how many millionares did Bill Gates create? Unfortunately, as in my last job, the employees also share in the financial risk when the company does poorly.
It is only natural to resent those who are better off than you. Doubly so when those people are also responsible for your salary or your employment. The contribution of capitalists should be to make sure that their company continues to be a source of revenue for its employees.
its like the old saying about Democracy…Capitalism is the worst system out there, except for every other economic system.
mssmith: funny that you should mention that “small slice of a much larger pie” thing, considering that J.S. Mill was also the father of Utilitarianism which, in many respects, is the answer to critiques of inequalities of capitalism. Sure, the lower types aren’t as well off as the upper types… but they’re certainly better off than they were before, equal or no.
Of course, I suppose this depends on how you define “better off”. As nice as my DVD player is, this remains an open question.
Some other comments: Yes, you’re right in that “value” is defined differently… that’s my point. The way you define “value”, after all, didn’t come out of a vacuum, and there are those that disagree. Useful labour (classical political economists were careful to make this distinction) does produce something… it takes a bit of nature and makes it more useful. Exactly how one goes about organizing this particular act of shaping nature is, of course, the fundamental question that Marx was trying to answer. His answer was “one class works, the other class organizes”. Then, of course, he raised the question of whether one class couldn’t do both. (Helps if you believe in the concept of class, of course, and as shown in that other thread it’s kind of a tricky concept because Marxists define it differently).
True, but I’m sure a Marxist would respond by saying that you could plow more money back into the company if the shareholders didn’t keep skimming cash off the top to get a return on their investment. Why not leave the shareholders out entirely and have somebody else decide what to produce and when?
Who?
Well, there’s the question again. Most Marxists would probably say “the working class, democratically”, but, well…
A distinction that few Marxists ever seem to pick up on. Honestly, it’s not surprising, considering that Marx himself spent most of his own time picking apart capitalism rather than building up an alternative, and all the theories that followed seem to have crashed and burned. I guess the key question is “all systems that have preceded it, or all systems that will ever follow it?” I think there’s one really useful fact to be retrieved from all this, which is that we can’t assume what’s happening now is eternal and inevitable. At one point in the past, you and I would no doubt be talking about the Divine Right of Kings, not the Divine Wisdom of the Market. Even if his critiques of capitalism have never really worked out (and frankly Keynes did a better job anyway) that’s something important to keep in mind.
Unless, of course, you’re Francis Fukuyama, but that’s a whole 'nother subject.
A) Since everyone will assume we’re being watched all the time, why would they be shy about anything? You’ve already anniliated privacy. People will have to have sex and romance and all knowing that some sleazebag will be watching them, or at least keeping that thought in the back of their minds. Why would they even care anymore what some anonymous computer thought about them?
B) Since you are, as near as I can tell, a complete lunatic as you want to eliminate privacy and leave everyone living in constant fear of some BIG BROTHER ™ computer system, thus placing all of humanity in a constant state of fear, will you at least tell why this is a “worker’s paradise” and a successful Communist government? Secondarily, why would anyone live in it? You;d have a rebellion in 5 minutes, presumably followed by the robo-police killing the offenders. So much for socialist paradise.
C) Wher in the dear Lord’s name did you come up with this madman’s game?
Maybe we should merge this thread with this one and [url=]this one. They were all encouraged by the same member anhttp://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=111285yway (not that I disapproved of Komsomol - (s)he’s an idealist, sure, but that’s what the world needs).
One thing I personally do disapprove of, however, Sam Stone, is your attitude towards things you disagree with. It’s fine if you think capitalism is groovy, but please stop this “you should be ashamed of proposing crap like this” thing. It’s plain arrogant in my eyes.
And one advice to Komsomol: No matter whether it’s true or not, it’s not a clever idea to state “Kollectivisation can and will work” in a thread entitled “Kollectivisation: Could it work??”.
I dunno…maybe for the same reason people hate Nazism? You know, mass murder, war, oppression, more mass murder…All in all, communism has killed more than Nazism ever did. Communism has been one of the most vile of all ideologies once put into action (though doesn’t look so terrible on paper).
Because Communism is a system that is set to destroy all forms of independence. Independent work, independent action, independent property, independent thoughts, independent minds, and independent individuals. Conformity, alikeness, servility, submission, and obedience are necessary to establish a Communist slave state.
Sounds like a good reason to hate communism to me.
If you came in here and said, "So what was wrong with the Holocaust anyway? Wouldn’t the world have been a better place without the Jews? " Then you could expect the same reaction from me.
But many people in the west never seemed to see the true horror of Communism, and therefore it keeps sneaking back as a ‘respectable’ ideology. It’s not. It’s very essence is slavery, and the natural result of its implementation is mass murder and oppression.
Forgive me for sounding <i>harsh</i> about such a system.
Stone, you’ve utterly Godwined yourself, and frankly, I think you’re misplacing where this “true horror of communism” actually exists. The west, defined as Western Europe and North America, haven’t exactly had first-person experiences of communism. Those that did tell a somewhat different story. I’ve been told that Russians are currently almost as disenchanted with capitalism as they were with communism, and China, last I checked, remains socialist. Heck, so was the governing party of France up until this most recent election.
(Then again, the East has never experienced communism either. It was called communism, but it was socialism; that “dictatorship of the proletariat” stuff. Communism was the goal that never happened, and that arguably couldn’t happen. )
As I was going to say in a post that got eaten, the comparison between communism and Nazism is apples and oranges to anybody who doesn’t have an ax to grind. Different reasons, different goals, different time frames and numbers of people, the effects of a specific regime and ruler as opposed to the system as a whole, etc. Heck, they aren’t even the same thing: one is an economic system, the other a political system. It also raises questions about what sorts of death tolls can be laid at the feet of other economic systems. Capitalism included.
(It’s fascinating, BTW, to read someone call communism’s “very essence” slavery, considering the whole point of the thing is that people are supposedly enslaved to the market and that they’ll eventually get heartily sick of it.)
>> Western Europe and North America, haven’t exactly had first-person experiences of communism. Those that did tell a somewhat different story.
Sorry but people who lived under communist rule tell pretty much the same story of oppression and no freedom.
>> I’ve been told that Russians are currently almost as disenchanted with capitalism as they were with communism,
Capitalism is not an end in itself and it is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Freedom is an end in itself and it implies freedom to own, buy and sell property, goods and services. For capitalism to work well a certain culture and experience is required. The problem with Russia is that they were very suddenly pushed into the water and had to sink or swim. Under those conditions many people do not have time to adapt and turn to crime. The whole thing has been a mess because there was no transition. China on the other hand is doing a much better job.
>> and China, last I checked, remains socialist.
I am glad you should mention China where the State part of the economy is shrinking very fast and where the private, capitalist, sector is growing by leaps and bounds. China is keeping a very authoritarian government during this transition to capitalism, but, make no mistake about it, what China has is raw in the tooth capitalism with practically no protections for workers. So you need to check on China again.
>> Heck, so was the governing party of France up until this most recent election.
You really want to tell me France is a communist country because the name of their governing party is “Socialist”? Gimme a break.
The French have a dual-executive system, a strong President and a strong Prime Minister. The President is the head of state, who the head of government is a volatile issue.
The French President is from the Rally for the Republic Party, a moderate conservative party that stems from Charles DeGaul.
The current French Prime Minister is from the Socialist Party, but his party doesn’t control the entire Assembly. It is in a coalition with the Green party.
What happened in the last vote was that the current Conservative President, Jacque Chirac, and the Socialist Prime Minister, Jospin, were expected to face off in the second round of voting. However, since there were 9 candidates on the left, 2 in the middle and only 5 on the right, Jospin’s support base was fractured, and he recieved roughly 0.8% less votes than the candidate from the extreme right National Front party, and about 3% less than Chirac, so he didn’t make the second round.
However, leftie candidates recieved a majority of the vote.
Chirac will be reelected in two weeks, and then have elections for a new Assembly. Jospin is bowing out in disgrace, but his coalition (Pink-Green), will no doubt swamp the rightist parties and maintain power in the Assembly.
So again, Rightist President, Socialist Prime Minister. But which one is really “head of government” is anyone’s guess.
Demosthenesian: It’s not an invocation of Godwin’s law to discuss the Nazis within the context of a conversation about totalitarian forms of government. The Nazis had a LOT more in common with the Soviets than either of them did with the west. If you don’t like the association, perhaps you should take a better look at what Communism really is.
So I’ll just respond generally.