loseyourname said:
I'm not sure that's a problem with communism so much as it is a problem with wage labor in general. Even salaried employees have no financial incentive to work any harder than they need to in order to keep from being fired, unless they're on the track toward a managerial position.
I would think the more reasonable sounding problem with communism is the question of why someone would become a doctor rather than a fry cook when both make the same amount of money. I don't know that there was ever a study conducted on how many people with the potential to become doctors instead opted for fry cook, but there is something to be said for the prestige and satisfaction that come with doing a more difficult and rewarding job, even if you are not paid fairly. Otherwise, why would anyone in the US ever become a professor? And, in fact, we still have that problem under the American system, whereby certain jobs - fireman, schoolteacher, social worker - are essential and require a great deal of skill and hard work, but don't attract the brightest and most qualified among us because the pay is quite low.
So each system has its own respective motivation problems. Under communism, it could be said that one might opt for the easier job, while under capitalism, one might opt for the job that pays more. In neither case is one opting for the job more important or essential to the overall health of the society.
Very nice post IMO, as to the first question, there are many days when I wish I were a fry cook, flip some eggs, and be done with it all, til the next day, when I would flip some more eggs. Noticing that I was just flipping eggs and living in a studio, while the owner was making money hand over foot and was buying a very nice new house, had a Mercedes, and whose sole input into the enterprise seemed to be to rake over the coals any deriliction of duty, I wondered if this was fair. After all without my great egg flipping abilities, he'd be nowhere, just an average diner owner among many, breaking a bit above even. He says, "what imperinence--I provide you with the opportunity to make a decent wage, and this is the thanks I get."
Personally, I believe it is best to avoid either horn of this dilemma and recognize as in any biological situation that different strategies produce greatest rewards, including altruism, under different environmental pressures.
If for say the greatest exigency facing humankind today was runaway AGW, that would call upon a different style of cooperation than say, looking down the barrel at a huge asteriod. Socialism in education, health care, and other endeavors might be the most successful approach, esp if combined with no head starts. I bristle when I hear conservatives attack any program such as "head Start" or Affirmative Action, completely oblivious to the 1/4 mile head start given them by wealth, race, connectedness, etc. They scream bloody murder, completely oblivious to the fact that a Dan Quayle or GBW would have gone nowhere if hatched and raised under such circumstances.
At the same time, I can give you a concrete example involving a few friends and many acquaintences attempting to capture various NASA prizes in the deserts of New Mexico. The thinktank of NASA has finally realized that throwing huge amts of $$ at the usual players may not be the most efficient approach--even though the former might be considred a capatilistic venture, it becomes so corrupted by the political process and habit/safety concerns, it usually becomes some form of governmaental welfare where after the contract is given, the fire in the belly now sated with huge influx of $$, gets decreasingly productive.
I personally beieve that there is a myth that when large scale $$ are involved, a capatalistic system will be cheaper, more hungry, etc. And I might agree to the point until they wield sufficient political power, that they are no more efficient, arguably less so, as it requires the payment of taxes and full scale lobbying to achieve the same governmental efficiency.
This is much more complicated issue of whether I work better under under financial inducement, or have no choice but to flip eggs, or even whether I would be happier being a doctor who in a good day can help a few, and cause no harm.
The US took advantage of the Napoleonic wars and declared war on Britain and unsucessfully invaded Canada but found they had bitten off more than they could chew when the Canadians repelled them and the european war ended releasing hundreds of thousands of experienced soldiers and ships of the line. America's only major military success came at the Battle of New Orleans which actually took place after the war was officially over which itself was followed by the last military action of the war the battle of Fort Bowyer, which was won by the British.
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