I agree! My standard is “decades of prosperity and a standard of living for even the poorest people that would have been unimaginable for people like Marx”. Compared to “the Holodomor”, I think that stacks up pretty damn well.
I don’t know which @Gyrate meant. I was replying to your claim about what actual countries are doing.
My claim about what actual countries are doing is that they are not, in fact, following the platonic ideals of free market capitalism:
The thing to understand is that all government and economic systems, really all organizational constructs are inherently convoluted, imperfect, and full of bullshit and corruption on some level. The reason for that is that they are all designed to more or less do the same thing - get people of varying skills, abilities, and motivation to actually coordinate on working on stuff so civilization doesn’t collapse.
“From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” sounds good because everyone contributes what they can into the system which them collectively provides. But it only works if people are filling the bucket with at least as much as they are taking out of it. And there isn’t really a mechanism for incentivizing people to work to the best of their abilities (unless you count working in a Gulag at the point of a rifle). Nor is there a way to prioritize needs vs wants (see “Gulags”).
At least in a market-driven economy, you have the ability to negotiate your abilities for your wants and needs.
Now where market economies fail is when people don’t have anything to trade. My generation has been raised on you get trained and educated on jobs that are in demand (as indicated by the market) so you can earn money to buy goods and services you want and need. But decades of unemployment uncertainty, outsourcing, technology disruption, the rise of bullshit jobs, and now the promise of AI begs the question of what work can people actually do to contribute to the system?
And let’s also not forget that any economic system will have to support people who are not productive - children, elderly, disabled, etc.
I was referring not only to minimal regulation but also, as already noted, to the free movement of labor. Which - as also already noted - tends to get increasingly less free as time goes by, which then warps the markets considerably in favor of those with capital, which results in increasing wealth inequality etc etc. And then economies collapse for a while.
A heavily-regulated market is not a free market, but it is a considerably more stable one.
I’ll concede that that is a glaring exception to the global free market, and doubly so when the USA demands that countries drop their import duties while at the same time limiting immigrants from that country.
I know nothing about economics, not even how to read a ledger. But I DO know that one major problem with most variations of communism is that they completely disregard the natural desire of people to give advantages to their children. And by “advantages,” I mean real socioeconomic advantages over others in their cohort. Parents generally want their children to better educated, healthier, and wealthier. This objective goes down the crapper in a pure meritocracy or in communism.
Why? Accumulating capital is how you usually achieve this. The advantages you are willing to work very hard for so your children are more successful are basically erased each generation. It’s pretty demotivating.
Knowledge isn’t erased. Skills aren’t erased. Social abilities aren’t erased.
I agree that most people want to accumulate money — especially in societies in which that’s essential for comfort. But money’s not the only kind of wealth.
It isn’t that people necessarily want to become rich, primarily they want to (mostly) be left alone, and keep the fruits of their own labor. “What is your fair share of what someone else has earned?” comes to mind. There is no incentive to be a diligent laborer, strangely enough, when there is no ownership. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. “Private property is theft” is a pretty tough act to follow.
None of this is wealth. So I pass on some kills to my kid, so what? They still have to wait in long lines for basic necessities like bread. I can’t build anything and pass it on to them in the hopes they have a better life than I did.
You’re right, money isn’t the only kind of wealth, there are other assets like land, automobiles, personal posessions, etc., etc.
You don’t think the children of political officials, senior Communist party members, and other prestigious positions don’t enjoy advantages?
I don’t think that’s it. At least not completely. I think it’s more about allocation of capital than workers working harder for their shitty wages to produce more. Communist countries set quotas like “we’ll produce X loaves of bread and sell them for $1”. When they run out of bread they run out. Market economies, a shortage of bread drives prices up, signaling that there might be money to be made selling bread. That encourages investors to fund more bakeries.
For anyone who believes “private property is theft” I invite them to participate in this thought experiment:
Assuming you want a roof over your head, food on the table, transportation, clothing, etc, unless you plan on becoming a homesteader and running your own sustenance farm, who should provide these things for you and what do you plan to contribute in return?
I think their point is that they obviously do but Communism is designed without that in mind which is why it fails.
Oh yes that’s “it”. Mostly. Communism also has a fairy tale aspect to it.
They didn’t respond to market forces. They thought they could “believe” their way into Utopia. It’s difficult to explain, but a good example was during the Revolutionary France period. The idea was, you prohibit charging more than a Franc (or whatever it was) for a loaf of bread. Price controls.
Never mind the fact that the bakeries were unable to source the raw ingredients for that price. It isn’t that they “ran out” of bread, there isn’t any for that price. You can force people at the point of a gun to operate a business at a loss, but the enthusiasm just ain’t there.
“How much is a loaf of bread?”
“Well, I charge a Franc, if we had any…” Maybe you can run down to another bakery and not get any bread for .95 Francs?
Anyone not down with this financial absurdity was accused of not “believing” enough, or insufficiently not down with the struggle, or whatever. LOL
It’s you “hoarders and wreckers” that ruin everything, you see. In Communism, everyone lines up for bread. In a Free Market, the bread lines up for the people.
I agree, Babale. This is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier. Providing perks and advantages to high-ranking officials is definitely not “according to his needs” (or, “according to his labor”).
Even if the apparatchiks don’t get actual luxuries, simply being guaranteed that their ration coupons WILL get immediately redeemed, and before anyone else’s, is a privilege.