Stability of Anarchy: Let's Continue Here, Smurf

[Smurf]

Because everyone will be like that...not just a few. So they are just as bad as before only now they have more company with which to share their misery.

And just how do you plan on proving that claim townsend? Surely the more socialist-oriented countries today could make very strong arguments against that. Cuba, for example. Not a single person in Cuba lives on the street. They have the highest ratios of doctors to patients in the world and one of the healthiest populations in the hemisphere. Cuban students in comparative national tests out-perform all other students from the hemisphere by 100 points over and above the regional average.

Moreover, this had been accomplished with the limited material resources the country possesses, the absence of long-term foreign aid or soft loans. The outcome is even more extraordinary if one considers the 42 year economic embargo that the United States government has imposed on the island, the disappearance of the Soviet bloc, and the fact that the accomplishments have been done by the Cubans without significant foreign assistance since 1992.

 

[Smurf]

One person becoming rich DOES NOT necessarily take away the wealth of ANY else. If I make a new super-duper-thing-a-ma-bob...mass produce and sell it then the people who buy it are exchanging their money for a product they want. They have lost no 'wealth' in doing so. I gain wealth...out of thin air!

Wealth is not created out of nothing. In your illustrated example your wealth was created out of nuts and bolts which you bought with your own money. Or maybe you didn't, maybe you sold your house and used the funds to start your business. Maybe you took out a loan on your car, or you were given the money from a rich relative. You still created it out of your existing wealth - and, most importantly, out of your labour.

Why has the amount of material possessions we have gone up throughout history? Collective labour has pulled resources from the Earth and turned them into other products. As Marx said, Labour is all the wealth the working class has. The wealthy already have material possessions from which they can turn into more wealth (hence: "Power leads to power"). The lower classes do not. So, they have to sell their labour. That is what wealth is created out of, not thin air. And labour has a price, and a demand and a supply - it is a commodity in a free market, and it is traded like one; Thus, most of it's value goes to the upper class, just like any other commodity, as illustrated above.

 

[Townsend]

snip...

Let's just cut right to the chase Smurf...

If I lived in a socialist country what would I be working for? Do I get a wage a salary or nothing but government supplied housing food and whatever else I might happen to absolutely need? Do I get a car? Is there only one kind of car that exist so that no one has any higher standard of living?

What color is my house or box or whatever the government gives me. What kind of hours do I have to work? What happens if I don't come into work?

I don't get it Smurf...how is everything done so that everyone has exactly the same social class? If there is any different social classes then you have fixed nothing...everyone must be exactly equal...you don't get to buy a new CD unless everyone gets to buy a new CD...make zero sense.

Explain my life to me Smurf...tell my why I should want to live in a socialist society instead of a capitalist society where I can make money and buy whatever I want...

 

[Burnsys]

i agree with bio hazzard "Money is just paper", Today we see entire nations with plenty of natural resources, oil, metals, water, fertile lands, and food with it's population submerged into poverty, starving and living in the most awfull conditions, just becouse they have no money! they have no painted papers..

I will say it again, my country exports food to feed 4 times it's own population, and 25% of it's is starving... (Becouse we have no money )

 

[Townsend]

i agree with bio hazzard "Money is just paper", Today we see entire nations with plenty of natural resources, oil, metals, water, fertile lands, and food with it's population submerged into poverty, starving and living in the most awfull conditions, just becouse they have no money! they have no painted papers..

I will say it again, my country exports food to feed 4 times it's own population, and 25% of it's is starving... (Becouse we have no money )

Raw material is not wealth...fiat money is not wealth. Wealth is the power to buy what you want. It can come in almost any form... fiat money just lowers the transaction cost...

 

[loseyourname]

But equality is one of the most fundamental requirements for a happier society.

How on Earth can you say that? If that were the case, then no one on the planet would be happy, since no one person is equal to all other people.

 

[loseyourname]

Wealth is not created out of nothing. In your illustrated example your wealth was created out of nuts and bolts which you bought with your own money. Or maybe you didn't, maybe you sold your house and used the funds to start your business. Maybe you took out a loan on your car, or you were given the money from a rich relative. You still created it out of your existing wealth - and, most importantly, out of your labour.

Wealth can be created very easily, not out of nothing, but out of demand. Buy a stock someday and watch its price rise in the next fifteen minutes. Your net worth just increased and wealth was created by nothing more than the fact that people wanted that stock at that time. Not a single material good was produced. Wealth can be created because value is a completely subjective thing. House prices go up not because the houses are any better, but simply because people are willing to pay more for them. Appreciation has far outpaced inflation in most parts of the USA (especially the coastal regions), creating new wealth. Come on, smurf, it's extremely basic economics that wealth is not a zero-sum game.

 

[loseyourname]

i agree with bio hazzard "Money is just paper", Today we see entire nations with plenty of natural resources, oil, metals, water, fertile lands, and food with it's population submerged into poverty, starving and living in the most awfull conditions, just becouse they have no money! they have no painted papers..

In most cases, that is because the resources are either badly mismanaged or owned by interests either outside of the country or with no interest in distributing their wealth within the country.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Oh my where to begin... I'm not sure if I have the patince to go back through all of that and pick out quotes to comment on. Let's see...

Alex, the band-aid I referred to was revolution not socialism. Personally I don't see the two as being synonymous.
Your example of capitalism as theft is inaccurate I believe. What you sited was a something akin to corporatism, the state transfering wealth/resources to a preferred class of individuals to be managed. This has nothing to do with capitalism. The idea of the state redistirbuting (not evenly in this instance), wealth and property goes very much against capitalism. Capitalism strongly supports private property rights. By your same concepts Communism is theft. The state takes the property from those who have worked to secure it and gives it to other people just as in your example except to a larger group. Ofcourse we are talking about anarchy here and in anarchy property is theft so...

It seems to me that nearly all of the problems had with capitalism so far expressed in this thread truly spring from corporatist type activities. Capitalism does not support law makers adjusting laws to help out corporations. Note the etimology; corporation - corporatism. Laws allowing corporations to form with certain rights that give them an advantage over other businesses is corporatism, not capitalism. Corporations are also the types of businesses that are notorious for exploiting workers, resources, monopolies, loopholes in laws, ect all for the purpose of expanding profits which are again those things that the anti-capitalists in this thread are pointing to as problems with capitalism. As I already stated in my previous post regarding this capitalism does not necessitate corporatism, though one easily leads to the other. Not all capitalists support corporatism, nor do all capitalist societies support it.
Personally I still need to read up on the logic being corpratism before I decide if I condemn it fully or not but currently there are plenty of there are plenty of things about it I don't like.

Now let me see what else I wanted to respond to...

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

About Linux
Linux was started by individuals with the resources that they personally had available to them. They did not have to ask permission to work on their project or allocate reources to it, except that I think they may have been college students and may have needed to ask the college for certain things such as lab access I don't know for sure. One way or another they had no need to ask the state or community for permission and resources to allocate, at most they had to ask a professor or dean, and had their own resources (due to private property) to invest in the project. Once complete they were capable of maintaining ownership of their product so that they could determine what will be done with it regardless of the wishes of community or state. The state/community could not intervene and take ownership of their property and decide what will or will not be done with it from that point on. Their capacity to do what they did came from the fact that they had the right to private property granted to them by our capitalist system. Personally I have more faith in the charity and ingenuity of individuals than I do in a community or state. That is I don't think a similar project working by commitee of the state would have worked out nearly as well. Capitalism allows for individuals to do things such as the Linux project while lack of private property and enforcing accountability to a community for most if not all product and resource would hinder such an undertaking it would seem to me.

 

[vanesch]

A person becoming rich will take money from someone else - this is because his resources are limited and so he cannot merely create wealth out of thin air.

I think this is a fundamental mistake: there's not some finite amount of wealth from which we all take our share. Wealth can be CREATED, and the question is how to get organized so as to create much wealth. However, concerning limited ressources (like land surface or natural ressources), I agree with you, and I think that this is indeed a problem that capitalism does not handle well. But the scarcity of mobile phones has been greatly reduced, so everybody became "rich" concerning mobile phones. Mobile phones is where capitalism works well.

 

[oldunion]

Let's just cut right to the chase Smurf...

If I lived in a socialist country what would I be working for? Do I get a wage a salary or nothing but government supplied housing food and whatever else I might happen to absolutely need? Do I get a car? Is there only one kind of car that exist so that no one has any higher standard of living?

What color is my house or box or whatever the government gives me. What kind of hours do I have to work? What happens if I don't come into work?

I don't get it Smurf...how is everything done so that everyone has exactly the same social class? If there is any different social classes then you have fixed nothing...everyone must be exactly equal...you don't get to buy a new CD unless everyone gets to buy a new CD...make zero sense.

Explain my life to me Smurf...tell my why I should want to live in a socialist society instead of a capitalist society where I can make money and buy whatever I want...

Previous posts on my behalf have already covered this. You should want to live in a socialist nation because it is better for everyone, and everyone includes you. Rather than working for yourself, you are working for everyone, which boils back down to your own improvement because you are part of the community.

recently i read that about 90% of people go to college to get a job that pays well, which means about ten percent go because they like what they do; this would be me. Now i know that when i graduate i will not make a ton of money, but I've learned that such things arent the sole mission in life; vanity is empty, solidarity is poweful. So i could imagine the transformation from me working in the usa, to me working in socialist usa as me likeing what i do, getting necessities for working, planning community projects, and not having social cares or worries about myself or my confederates.
You work now and you make a ton of money, you go ahead and buy a bmw and indulge in excess, everything you were taught was the purpose of this society. but all around you people who could not succeed in this society for one reason or another, are dying, are starving, are being profiled, and in general are getting the **** end of the stick while the capitalist players manage the money and pass flimsy legislation that chips off some wealth here and there for "good services, and aid packages."

The real service would be to destroy capitalism. Life would be everything it is now, just with all the gaps filled in, and nothing you don't need. After not having watched tv for a month, i don't miss it; i don't miss the bmw i used to drive; i don't miss buying big chain clothing lines; etc. So imagine you work in a world where you love your job, you are compensated in full with everything you need, and then some, and you have the satisfaction of working towards the good of your community/yourself/your compatriotes.

If you don't come into work, why should you get services? If you want to paint your house blue, instead of red, why not? If you want to add a wing for your new child, why not? Most people don't realize how the world would be the same, just different in every way that right now you tend to be unreceptive to.

The best thing i can recommend is to read everything you can. The greatest success of this nation, was to make the population part of the vegetable food group. Most people won't have the answers, but books always will.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

People are not born equal
So far as looks and charisma and talent go you aren't going to have much luck fixing this sort of "inequality" without installing some sort of opressive totalitarian state. People are going to be born with what others may consider good looks while others wont. What are you going to do about it? Eugenics? Same with talent and intelligence. You can't easily control these things especially if you intend to allow people their freedom as individuals.
-Inheritance-
I don't see a problem with this. Let's take the capitalist aspect out for a sec. What happens if I decide to build my own home? I get together all the resources necessary, by aquisition through the state since we are not talking about a capitalist society, and then put a lot of hard work into making myself a beautiful and comfortable home. Let's say that this home, due to my own handiwork, is far superior to all the other homes in the area I live. Due to it's superiority it is now more valuable yes? I would hardly think that an anarchist state or workers state would begrudge me the product of my own labour right? I have a family and then I die and leave my home to my child. Now my child without having done a thing to work on it has a more valuable home than anyone else on the block. Will you take it away from him/her now simply because he/she did not acquire it through their own labour? How about other things... say a collection of artwork that I produce, a collection of books that I gather or even write myelf, anything that I have worked hard for that has value... are you going to take these things away from my children simply because they did not work for them? Can I not do what is within my power to give as much as I can to my children for then to live a quality life after I am gone?

Disperity of wage between workers
I don't see what is unequal really about different workers receiving different wages. It's about getting back from something what you put into it. When you start a job on the ground floor with no experience you are bringing little to the table. Once you gain experience theoretically you will be a better worker and more productive, bringing more to the table. After a period of time you will have shown a loyalty to your job and give your employers the knowledge that you will be there to work and help for the long haul, theoretically. You may show a great amount of responsability and be given more work to preform due to this and perhaps the job of managing other employees. Perhaps you will learn more skills and gain knowledge over time that will make you that much more valuable a worker. In a capitalist society you will ideally be paid more money depending on how much you are doing for or capable of doing for the business you work for and how well you do it. I realize that there are businesses that don't appreciate their employees as much, mainly corporations, but technically this is the way it is supposed to work. Realistically an employee will do a better job the more you do for your employee and the better your employee does the better your business should do. Corporations circumvent this by taking over a massive section of the job market and leaving employees with little other choice than to take a job there. They don't have to treat the employees as well because they are easily replacable by someone else who needs a job. Smaller businesses don't have the same leverage really.
At any rate I don't see what is unequal about this. A person receiving back what they put into something. A person receiving based on how much work they do and how well they do it and how important their individual job is to the whole of the operation. Why should a brain surgeon receive as much in return for his work as an orderly who empties bed pans?

The $40 Pentium
Does it really only cost $40? Are we just taking into account materials and basic labour? What about the people who designed the chip and the resources that went into the design? What about all the other workers that work for the company that produced that chip who do other jobs aside from the actual manuel putting together of the finished product? Were they all taken into account? And if not why?

 

[loseyourname]

Now i know that when i graduate i will not make a ton of money, but I've learned that such things arent the sole mission in life; vanity is empty, solidarity is poweful. So i could imagine the transformation from me working in the usa, to me working in socialist usa as me likeing what i do, getting necessities for working, planning community projects, and not having social cares or worries about myself or my confederates.

Wait a second here. According to you, you are already working for satisfaction rather than money (presumably that means you have the basics you need for working), and you can already plan community projects (which would seem to contradict your claim that you wouldn't have social cares). So what exactly would change? Would you just suddenly feel less pressure because you knew you would never lose the little you have?

About the "not having . . . worries about myself" thing: There are worries in life other than money, you know, which seem to have enough of as you already aren't worried about making it. Socialism doesn't mean your marriage will be good and your kids will be happy and you'll suddenly become liked and popular and all your friends will become mentally stable.

 

[oldunion]

People are not born equal
So far as looks and charisma and talent go you aren't going to have much luck fixing this sort of "inequality" without installing some sort of opressive totalitarian state. People are going to be born with what others may consider good looks while others wont. What are you going to do about it? Eugenics? Same with talent and intelligence. You can't easily control these things especially if you intend to allow people their freedom as individuals.

Again I've addressed this. These kinds of social variations do not matter. Economic regimentation is the sole enemy of the people, once it has been eliminated, it doesn't matter if your einstein or Horrus the village idiot-there is a task for you to complete.

-Inheritance-
I don't see a problem with this. Let's take the capitalist aspect out for a sec. What happens if I decide to build my own home? I get together all the resources necessary, by aquisition through the state since we are not talking about a capitalist society, and then put a lot of hard work into making myself a beautiful and comfortable home. Let's say that this home, due to my own handiwork, is far superior to all the other homes in the area I live. Due to it's superiority it is now more valuable yes? I would hardly think that an anarchist state or workers state would begrudge me the product of my own labour right? I have a family and then I die and leave my home to my child. Now my child without having done a thing to work on it has a more valuable home than anyone else on the block. Will you take it away from him/her now simply because he/she did not acquire it through their own labour? How about other things... say a collection of artwork that I produce, a collection of books that I gather or even write myelf, anything that I have worked hard for that has value... are you going to take these things away from my children simply because they did not work for them? Can I not do what is within my power to give as much as I can to my children for then to live a quality life after I am gone?

We are now fully immersed in the grey zone...honestly i don't have anything to say about this, the superfluous values of the artwork (assuming perhaps you came across a da vinci) would have to be regulated or collectively prioritized, maybe donated to a museum where its value wouldn't matter. Well actually, i don't think the painting would have much value in socialism, which would seem to present a contradiction in philosophy- interesting.

Disperity of wage between workers
I don't see what is unequal really about different workers receiving different wages. It's about getting back from something what you put into it.

Because this translates into difference of living style, which means someone is getting exploited or oppressed. Some people cannot be brain surgeons, so now they must suffer for their entire lives because their mental capacity was not as great as a doctors at birth? That doesn't sit with me.

When you start a job on the ground floor with no experience you are bringing little to the table. Once you gain experience theoretically you will be a better worker and more productive, bringing more to the table. After a period of time you will have shown a loyalty to your job and give your employers the knowledge that you will be there to work and help for the long haul, theoretically. You may show a great amount of responsability and be given more work to preform due to this and perhaps the job of managing other employees. Perhaps you will learn more skills and gain knowledge over time that will make you that much more valuable a worker.

workers all have value, regardless of the task. we all need people to carry out the trash as much as we need people to cook our food, make our paper, manufacture our computers, fix our bodies, take care of our pets, etc. All workers are equally required when the collective benefit is taken into account.

In a capitalist society you will ideally be paid more money depending on how much you are doing for or capable of doing for the business you work for and how well you do it. I realize that there are businesses that don't appreciate their employees as much, mainly corporations, but technically this is the way it is supposed to work.

This is how it works because no one can do anything about it, because unions are dead anymore, and government regulation has no part in protecting workers' rights.

Realistically an employee will do a better job the more you do for your employee and the better your employee does the better your business should do.

imagine translating this into the better the worker does, the better society is. not the more the worker does, the better such and such a sector of society does, while another sector loses.

A person receiving back what they put into something. A person receiving based on how much work they do and how well they do it and how important their individual job is to the whole of the operation. Why should a brain surgeon receive as much in return for his work as an orderly who empties bed pans?

even the hard working employee who is clever and gifted, is still exploited. And as I've said, every worker function is essential to society when looked at quantitatively. However in the current system, all work is still essential, yet some of this work is in the business of making profits which is why they make more money. If healthcare was socialized, do you think doctors would make as much? No, they get paid like pirates because of corporate medical giants.

The $40 Pentium
Does it really only cost $40? Are we just taking into account materials and basic labour? What about the people who designed the chip and the resources that went into the design? What about all the other workers that work for the company that produced that chip who do other jobs aside from the actual manuel putting together of the finished product? Were they all taken into account? And if not why?

[/quote]
no this example was for a material and labor price of 40 dollars per unit, advertising and 3rd party costs like research were not taken into account. However, one can assume that all of those costs have been remunerated long ago and Pentium is banking huge on artificial prices. I think AMD should sell at 50 percent off and blow pentium away, so that chips would be permanently lowered in value as pentium counter-attacks.

Wait a second here. According to you, you are already working for satisfaction rather than money (presumably that means you have the basics you need for working), and you can already plan community projects (which would seem to contradict your claim that you wouldn't have social cares). So what exactly would change? Would you just suddenly feel less pressure because you knew you would never lose the little you have?

I am a student. By social cares i should have said social concerns, like homelessness and vagrancy. I can't plan anything on the community level, that's up to my local government and endless miles of bureaucracy. What would change is that people would have more freedom to be active in the community, a true government for the people by the people.

About the "not having . . . worries about myself" thing: There are worries in life other than money, you know, which seem to have enough of as you already aren't worried about making it. Socialism doesn't mean your marriage will be good and your kids will be happy and you'll suddenly become liked and popular and all your friends will become mentally stable.

yes there are, but government should NEVER become a part of this class of worries, and more and more we see that it is mostly government causing a majority of the problems in some peoples lives. Marriages may still suck, neighbors could still be jerks, etc. But government would have little to do with it.

 

[alexandra]

Wrong Smurf...wealth is created out of thin air...that is in fact the whole reason capitalism is works. If was not the case then there would be as much wealth today as there was before anyone ever lived. How did the first person become wealthy? I guess he had to get from somewhere so where?

One person becoming rich DOES NOT necessarily take away the wealth of ANY else. If I make a new super-duper-thing-a-ma-bob...mass produce and sell it then the people who buy it are exchanging their money for a product they want. They have lost no 'wealth' in doing so. I gain wealth...out of thin air!

Wealth is created out of thin air? Do people really believe this myth? While I agree with you that wealth is not (necessarily) made by directly stealing others' wealth (although increasingly it is - I saw a couple more CEOs were found guilty of milking millions of dollars from companies in the US again today), it is definitely made by exploiting the labour of workers.

It is not that hard to see that the wealth of the few in capitalist societies absolutely depends on not paying workers the full value of what the products they produce can be sold for. If workers were paid for the value of their labour, no-one could make a profit by employing them. Wealth creation depends on the exploitation of others' labour. It was not only Marx who presented this theory - in fact, here's a quote from an academic text used in first year Politics uni courses:

Unlike conventional [bourgeois] economists, who estimate value in terms of price determined by market forces, Marx, in line with earlier theorists such as Locke, subscribed to a labour theory of value. This suggeests that the value of a good reflects the quantity of labour that has been expended in its production. Capitalism's quest for profit can only be satisfied through the extraction of 'surplus value' from its workers, by paying them less than the value their labour generates. Economic exploitation is therefore an essential feature of the capitalist mode of production and it operates regardless of the meanness or generosity of particular employers" (Heywood, A. (2003). Political Ideologies: An Introduction, 3rd edn., Palgrave MacMillan: New York, pp.128-129).

Think about it...

However, in a socialist world I have ZERO desire to make that new super-duper-thing-a-ma-bob because it does me no good. So that wealth the could have been created is not created. And because of the multiplier effect the wealth I would have created would have made everyone in the economy wealthier.

So you only work for money? You never do anything because you have intrinsic motivation to work on it? You don't have any interests or hobbies or intellectual obsessions? Hmmm, very odd. Though perhaps that is not so odd, given the sort of society we are living in.

 

[alexandra]

Wealth can be created very easily, not out of nothing, but out of demand. Buy a stock someday and watch its price rise in the next fifteen minutes. Your net worth just increased and wealth was created by nothing more than the fact that people wanted that stock at that time. Not a single material good was produced.

I am confused, loseyourname. Do you mean to say companies you buy stock in are just 'virtual' and don't actually sell anything that someone worked (for wages) to produce? Can you literally make money out of selling nothing? Surely not! Ok, I'm trying to understand here: people buy stock because it is in demand. Why is it in demand? Someone wants to buy the stuff if sells... I just don't get this. Surely somewhere down the line it is material goods that are being sold? Or some kind of service or something? Surely workers' wage labour has to come into it somewhere.

 

[alexandra]

About Linux
Linux was started by individuals with the resources that they personally had available to them. They did not have to ask permission to work on their project or allocate reources to it, except that I think they may have been college students and may have needed to ask the college for certain things such as lab access I don't know for sure. One way or another they had no need to ask the state or community for permission and resources to allocate, at most they had to ask a professor or dean, and had their own resources (due to private property) to invest in the project. Once complete they were capable of maintaining ownership of their product so that they could determine what will be done with it regardless of the wishes of community or state. The state/community could not intervene and take ownership of their property and decide what will or will not be done with it from that point on. Their capacity to do what they did came from the fact that they had the right to private property granted to them by our capitalist system. Personally I have more faith in the charity and ingenuity of individuals than I do in a community or state. That is I don't think a similar project working by commitee of the state would have worked out nearly as well. Capitalism allows for individuals to do things such as the Linux project while lack of private property and enforcing accountability to a community for most if not all product and resource would hinder such an undertaking it would seem to me.

You make an interesting point here, TSA. I do think, however, that everyone has the wrong idea about how stifling of individuals a different sort of society would really be. The USSR was a really bad example - but even there, was not a lot of time (and resources) devoted to pure research? I don't know a lot about this, but I believe some of the best physics/maths theoreticians came from the USSR? I don't want to come across as an apologist for Stalinist not-socialism, but even under that totalitarian regime, individuals and groups working collaboratively must have been encouraged and allowed to do research else they wouldn't have achieved the excellence they did. In any case, I am not a proponent of the sort of society (totalitarian) that would stifle individual creativity - on the contrary, I think Linux-type projects would be positively encouraged in a more people-oriented society. It would be in everyone's best interest to encourage (environmentally sound) technological development, after all.

For anyone interested, here are a couple of links explaining 'copyleft' (ie. as opposed to 'copyright') as used by Linux: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

 

[Anttech]

However, in a socialist world I have ZERO desire to make that new super-duper-thing-a-ma-bob because it does me no good. So that wealth the could have been created is not created. And because of the multiplier effect the wealth I would have created would have made everyone in the economy wealthier.

I think you mean communisim... Socialism is not like that

 

[alexandra]

I think you mean communisim... Socialism is not like that

Or perhaps he's confusing communism with Stalinism (which was neither socialism nor communism, but was presented as such by capitalist propagandists).

 

[Townsend]

So you only work for money? You never do anything because you have intrinsic motivation to work on it? You don't have any interests or hobbies or intellectual obsessions? Hmmm, very odd. Though perhaps that is not so odd, given the sort of society we are living in.

I will only work for someone else if they can offer me something I want in exchange for it. It doesn't have to be money...it could be a new car that I want or a new house or that 52 inch plasma tv...there are things I will work for but unless it is on my own time I will NOT be altruistic. Beyond that I will work for myself to build my wealth but then that would just be capitalism...

 

[Townsend]

I think you mean communisim... Socialism is not like that

So I could become richer than god in a socialist society? I am confused...

What good does it do me to work if it is not to build my wealth? My basic needs are very minimal and I wouldn't have to work at all to take care of those needs.

So what's the point in working at all? I don't see any point...I would be content to sit around all day and read books, study stuff and just be a lazy bum...why not? I certainly don't like to wake up and worry about being on time or having to maintain a clean appearance...screw you guys. If you want to go through the hell of a 9 to 5 er and not be able build your wealth then be my guest...I would rather be a bum and live just as good as you hard workers wasting your lives to make sure I get food, beer, drugs or whatever I want since I have free health care too...

 

[Townsend]

Previous posts on my behalf have already covered this. You should want to live in a socialist nation because it is better for everyone, and everyone includes you. Rather than working for yourself, you are working for everyone, which boils back down to your own improvement because you are part of the community.

I don't care about most other people! I hate over 90% of the people I meet! Why do you think I live in a small town? Fewer people...

So waht the hell makes you think I want to do anything for the good of a bunch of people I hate?

recently i read that about 90% of people go to college to get a job that pays well, which means about ten percent go because they like what they do; this would be me. Now i know that when i graduate i will not make a ton of money, but I've learned that such things arent the sole mission in life; vanity is empty, solidarity is poweful. So i could imagine the transformation from me working in the usa, to me working in socialist usa as me likeing what i do, getting necessities for working, planning community projects, and not having social cares or worries about myself or my confederates.

Fine...donate 75% of your income to charity...be my guest, it's your money!

You work now and you make a ton of money, you go ahead and buy a bmw and indulge in excess, everything you were taught was the purpose of this society. but all around you people who could not succeed in this society for one reason or another, are dying, are starving, are being profiled, and in general are getting the **** end of the stick while the capitalist players manage the money and pass flimsy legislation that chips off some wealth here and there for "good services, and aid packages."

Not everyone should have as good a life as everyone else...

Reality says that some animals have it better than others...

The real service would be to destroy capitalism. Life would be everything it is now, just with all the gaps filled in, and nothing you don't need.

The American Indians had everything they needed. Take away everything we have that we don't need and your right back on the open plains. Everything else is just a luxury that was created by wealth.

After not having watched tv for a month, i don't miss it; i don't miss the bmw i used to drive; i don't miss buying big chain clothing lines; etc. So imagine you work in a world where you love your job, you are compensated in full with everything you need, and then some, and you have the satisfaction of working towards the good of your community/yourself/your compatriotes.

I don't watch TV and I don't care if I drive the nicest car on the block...I care that if I wanted to drive the nicest car on the block I could bust my rump and buy one.

If you don't come into work, why should you get services? If you want to paint your house blue, instead of red, why not? If you want to add a wing for your new child, why not? Most people don't realize how the world would be the same, just different in every way that right now you tend to be unreceptive to.

Ok...so I want a 4500 sqft house on 5 acres in downtown LA...why not?

The best thing i can recommend is to read everything you can. The greatest success of this nation, was to make the population part of the vegetable food group. Most people won't have the answers, but books always will.

Books are written by people who don't always have the answers...

 

[Anttech]

So I could become richer than god in a socialist society? I am confused..

In a socialistic style goverment, the public sector owns large companies... The Rich are Taxed propotionatly fairer against the poor, so the government can put this money back into the country and help the less well off, for example in the UK there is the NHS, the National Health Service... Which is a socialistic ideal...

You can still become weathly within the frame work of socialism, you just will get taxed more at your top percentiles...

Its a combination of Communism (everything is publically owned) and captialism (nothing is publically owned)... Which is different from Marxism

A lot of European countries are like this, and are also weathly...

 

[oldunion]

I don't care about most other people! I hate over 90% of the people I meet! Why do you think I live in a small town? Fewer people...

what you think about other people doesn't matter.

So waht the hell makes you think I want to do anything for the good of a bunch of people I hate?

because the decision of the masses is stronger than your resolve. if 8 people want it, and you dont, 9 people will be getting it. this is democracy.

Not everyone should have as good a life as everyone else...

Reality says that some animals have it better than others...

people are capable orf reasoning, we have formed complex social groups, we don't hunt in packs and we arent primal creatures. this basic darwinist approach holds little ground.

The American Indians had everything they needed. Take away everything we have that we don't need and your right back on the open plains. Everything else is just a luxury that was created by wealth.

no. once you have everything you need, luxuries will become standardized.

this isn't about making everyone poor so they are equal. Imagine the current society as a 2 dimensional rectangle made of legos, except that some pieces of the ractangle are built higher (the rich) then others (the poor)- so you have a jagged edge. if you took pieces from the rich, and filled in the poor, the ractangle would develop a flat edge. At this point, when everyone has their necessities, luxuries could be standardized, and slowly the economy would progress into one that has never been known in history.

if I wanted to drive the nicest car on the block I could bust my rump and buy one.

why is this important to you

Ok...so I want a 4500 sqft house on 5 acres in downtown LA...why not?

if i was leader this house would be confiscated and turned into a multi-family complex.

Books are written by people who don't always have the answers...

No one has the answers, they have the information for you to conclude on your own. But books are your best source of information.

 

[Townsend]

In a socialistic style goverment, the public sector owns large companies... The Rich are Taxed propotionatly fairer against the poor, so the government can put this money back into the country and help the less well off, for example in the UK there is the NHS, the National Health Service... Which is a socialistic ideal...

You can still become weathly within the frame work of socialism, you just will get taxed more at your top percentiles...

Its a combination of Communism (everything is publically owned) and captialism (nothing is publically owned)... Which is different from Marxism

A lot of European countries are like this, and are also weathly...

Well that is what America is right now, just to a lesser degree. So is this is more or less just about how much socialism is best then? Some people want more and some people want less? Thats just the classical debate about the balance between liberalism and democracy that has been there since America started.

 

[russ_watters]

I cared little about this thread until a few days ago. But now it's back to reiterating that the only reason people still believe in the various flavors of socialism/marxism/communism/anarchism is because they don't understand how/why economics works. Ie:

Wealth is created out of thin air? Do people really believe this myth? While I agree with you that wealth is not (necessarily) made by directly stealing others' wealth ... it is definitely made by exploiting the labour of workers.

Wealth is not created out of nothing. In your illustrated example your wealth was created out of nuts and bolts which you bought with your own money. Or maybe you didn't, maybe you sold your house and used the funds to start your business. Maybe you took out a loan on your car, or you were given the money from a rich relative. You still created it out of your existing wealth - and, most importantly, out of your labour.

Why has the amount of material possessions we have gone up throughout history? Collective labour has pulled resources from the Earth and turned them into other products. As Marx said, Labour is all the wealth the working class has. The wealthy already have material possessions from which they can turn into more wealth (hence: "Power leads to power"). The lower classes do not. So, they have to sell their labour. That is what wealth is created out of, not thin air. And labour has a price, and a demand and a supply - it is a commodity in a free market, and it is traded like one; Thus, most of it's value goes to the upper class, just like any other commodity, as illustrated above.

These statements reflect a misunderstanding of economics at the most basic level: the law of supply and demand. You cited it, Smurf, but you misused it. Let me give an example:

Prior to Katrina, gas was about $2 a gallon (guestimate) in the US. Within days, it was up above $3 a gallon. That's gas that was, for the most part, already on trucks to be delivered to gas stations. Suddenly, one day, it was worth 50% more than the day before? Where did that value come from? It literally came from nothing, as a result of supply and demand. It didn't exist the day before and it did exist the next day. No worker did any work to add this wealth to the economy. Every commodity (including money itself) works fundamentally the same way.

Next, there is a little bit of hairsplitting going on there: Smurf, you cited labor, well what, precisely, is labor? Its your time and your effort. And yes, it has value. But where is today's value for the work I do tomorrow? Well quite obviously, it doesn't exist yet, does it? If I skip work tomorrow, the wealth I would have added to the economy that day would never exist. If you prefer not to think about it in those terms, fine - its not worth splitting the hair - but understand where that wealth really comes from. Other statements from you, however do imply that you take this idea all the way (discussed below).

Also, one of the things that all those isms above are apparently based on is an intrinsic value to labor. Well just like other resources, the value of labor is not fixed, it depends on supply and demand, from the market, and education, ability, work ethic, etc., from the worker.

And last, this:

A person becoming rich will take money from someone else - this is because his resources are limited and so he cannot merely create wealth out of thin air.

This statement implies that you believe the quantity of wealth available is fixed - you said "limited", but in order for the first part of your quote to be true, the limit has to be precisely in line with population growth. Regardless, this is a trivially obvious falsehood because it is an obvious fact that while specific resources are limited, the total quantity of resources (wealth) available is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. One only has to look to The Sun to see that: the sun will provide us with as much energy as we care to utilize for the next several billion years and that energy is a resource - a commodity - available wealth - that for our purposes is limitless. But there are other examples: labor is a limitless resource as well. It doesn't just depend on the population, but as I showed above, the value of any individual's labor is not a fixed quantity either. With technology, education, and supply and demand itself, there is no limit to the value of one person's labor.

Even taking that back a step - even assuming we were limited to resources available on Earth - you'd still be wrong to say one person's wealth must be taken from someone else. Obvioiusly, that would not be true until all available resources were already in circulation. Ie, I don't have to take money from you to get rich: I can still simply dig it out of the ground.

 

[Smurf]

This thread has gotten SOOOO off topic. Okay, I'll respond tomorrow. I don't do economics on Tuesdays. Tuesday is my philosophy day.

 

[Townsend]

what you think about other people doesn't matter.

because the decision of the masses is stronger than your resolve. if 8 people want it, and you dont, 9 people will be getting it. this is democracy.

What I think matters in this conversation since I was asking why I should want to live in a socialist economy and you were answering. Therefore what I think is the only important thing in this conversation. However you are mistaken to think that the majority of people would want what your talking about. And if it is that majority should get what they want then don't complain when republicans are put in office.

Besides...you cannot make me work for you without violating my civil rights. And yet you want to make everyone have equal wealth. Ok fine...I won't work and I want to be equal. That is what your talking about...

And you idea of what everyone should get is just plain BS...who decides what everyone is allowed to have? If everyone is equal then everyone gets the same thing...PERIOD other wise it is not equal. If it is not equal then all you have done is miss allocate goods and services from people who would have earned them to people who would not have earned them. So in the end, there is no reason for me to work in your socialist society...not at all...and I better damn well live just as good as everyone else!

 

[Burnsys]

i think there should be a limit in the amount of wealth someone can have..
Let's say nobody needs more than 10 millon dolars.. you can have, 2 cars, 2 houses, a boat, a couple of 52' tvs etc with 10 millon dolars. Let's take bill gates for example. how much money does he has? 10 billion? whell leave him 10m and distribute the rest between his labor force proportional to their salarys, ok some of his employes has more than 10m now, take that money and reduce the price of their products, so that no one of the employes will get more than 10m... once that has been done with everyone (imagine the same with mcdonalds, or wallmart.), new whealt created in the comunity will rise the 10m limit for everyone who can get it.

 

[loseyourname]

Regardless, this is a trivially obvious falsehood because it is an obvious fact that while specific resources are limited, the total quantity of resources (wealth) available is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. One only has to look to The Sun to see that: the sun will provide us with as much energy as we care to utilize for the next several billion years and that energy is a resource - a commodity - available wealth - that for our purposes is limitless. But there are other examples: labor is a limitless resource as well.

The best example I can think of here is software and e-commerce. Think of how Bill Gates and Paul Allen got rich, and even how all of the overnight startups that eventually failed or at least fell back to earth, made all of their money. They used little to no physical resources at all. Their resources were almost entirely intellectual, which is another infinite (for all practical purposes) resource. The dot.com boom, in particular, created trillions of dollars out of thin air, simply because startups were viewed as a commodity. People became willing to invest in them, and even the ones that sold almost nothing were initially worth millions. Even the successes made money out of nothing. Look at Mark Cuban. All he did was create a website that sold t-shirts. He actually reduced the physical capital and labor required to produce and sell things, by not using any storefronts or expensive advertising. How did he become a billionaire? By selling his site to yahoo, whose stock values then skyrocketed, making them wealthier as well, without any exploitation of labor at all. They simply became worth more because investors saw them as being worth more. That's the beautiful thing about money and all resources in general. They're as valuable as the market says they are. There is no cap or limitation on it at all.

 

[loseyourname]

I am confused, loseyourname. Do you mean to say companies you buy stock in are just 'virtual' and don't actually sell anything that someone worked (for wages) to produce? Can you literally make money out of selling nothing? Surely not! Ok, I'm trying to understand here: people buy stock because it is in demand. Why is it in demand? Someone wants to buy the stuff if sells... I just don't get this. Surely somewhere down the line it is material goods that are being sold? Or some kind of service or something? Surely workers' wage labour has to come into it somewhere.

If all you are saying is that some form of labor is required, sure. What is the point? Increasingly less is. Take a person that sells software. How much physical labor is required to create software? Not a whole lot. Look at how Sean Fanning (the creator of Napster) got rich. He designed a program and distributed it through the internet. He never even pressed a single disc and, as far as I know, he never employed a single worker. Nonetheless, his product was bought by whoever now owns it for millions.

Another good example is very successful authors. J.K. Rowling, for example, was the first female billionaire in the history of Great Britain. She wrote books. How much labor did she exploit? Certainly nowhere near the amount of revenue she has created. Presses are almost entirely automated these days and the people selling the books at bookstores get paid to mostly stand around for eight hours.

Edit: Also, to reiterate what Russ was saying, look at how pricing works. The price of a good is not proportional to the labor required to produce it. Examples like napster being sold for millions when all the labor it required was one teenager sitting around in his room fooling with code being put aside for the moment, let's just focus on more common things. I brought up real estate before. My parents bought a house in the suburbs of Los Angeles just 15 years ago that is now worth almost four times what they bought it for. My dad and I have made some changes, but we certainly did not put half a million dollars worth of labor into it. Heck, in the 80s people used to do something called "flipping," where they sold a house for more than they bought it for before they even finished buying. Many people became overnight millionaires this way. They didn't put any labor into the houses they bought, and neither did anybody else. All they did was find someone willing to pay more than they paid (in most cases, they bought foreclosures or other drastically reduced-price houses). People can do the same thing when cars are auctioned off, or even on e-bay. There are people that make a great deal of money on e-bay, by buying cheap and then selling at a higher price. The only labor required to keep this going is server maintenance, which I can guarantee you is not equal in value to the amount of wealth being created.

The simple fact is that we do not live in the world that Marx and Locke lived in, where material wealth mostly meant who had the most physical resources. When the price of admission at Disneyland goes up faster than inflation, do you think that's because the cast members are working harder or they hired more of them? Of course not. It's just because Disneyland has become more valuable, for no reason other than that their patrons see it as such and are willing to pay more to get in.

 

[loseyourname]

The USSR was a really bad example - but even there, was not a lot of time (and resources) devoted to pure research? I don't know a lot about this, but I believe some of the best physics/maths theoreticians came from the USSR? I don't want to come across as an apologist for Stalinist not-socialism, but even under that totalitarian regime, individuals and groups working collaboratively must have been encouraged and allowed to do research else they wouldn't have achieved the excellence they did.

Pure research? The State employed them hoping to create a strategic technological advantage which they could use against the US. I highly doubt very many of the Soviet leaders had the good of the many or 'knowledge for its own sake' in mind when they approved research projects. They achieved the excellence they did because they were engaged in an arms race.

 

[loseyourname]

So what's the point in working at all? I don't see any point...I would be content to sit around all day and read books, study stuff and just be a lazy bum...why not? I certainly don't like to wake up and worry about being on time or having to maintain a clean appearance...screw you guys. If you want to go through the hell of a 9 to 5 er and not be able build your wealth then be my guest...I would rather be a bum and live just as good as you hard workers wasting your lives to make sure I get food, beer, drugs or whatever I want since I have free health care too...

For a completely socialist society to function, they'd have to give you no choice. You either work, or it's off to the re-education center.

 

[russ_watters]

i think there should be a limit in the amount of wealth someone can have..
Let's say nobody needs more than 10 millon dolars.. you can have, 2 cars, 2 houses, a boat, a couple of 52' tvs etc with 10 millon dolars. Let's take bill gates for example. how much money does he has? 10 billion? whell leave him 10m and distribute the rest between his labor force proportional to their salarys, ok some of his employes has more than 10m now, take that money and reduce the price of their products, so that no one of the employes will get more than 10m... once that has been done with everyone (imagine the same with mcdonalds, or wallmart.), new whealt created in the comunity will rise the 10m limit for everyone who can get it.

Assuming such a thing would even work or be desirable in principle*, what justification is there for it? It is not, for example, compatible with the concept of personal freedom, which is a pillar of all western democracies.

*http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2126576/bill-gates-gives-750m-help-african-children . Under your plan, such a thing would not be possible because Bill Gates would never have that much money to give.