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On May 05 2012 06:18 liberal wrote:
It's not just human nature it's against, but the fundamentals of economics. Scarcity cannot be eliminated no matter how advanced our technology becomes, and the only way to allocate scarce resources without a market is with an authoritarian system which employs force.
Not necessarily, it might be possible to do it by non-forceful manipulation.
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The United States was pretty laissez faire in the late 19th century. Corruption ran rampant and consumer rights were of course, non existant. Furthering the problem was that during this time factory labor was hazardous and there were many child laborers. The end result was of course taxes and rights for the working class being secured.
We were much further to the capitalist end of things than I would say communist nations are communist, as in a real communist nation you don't have an "elite class" everyone is working in union, which just doesn't work in my opinion because some people are unmotivated and it's much easier to motivate with incentive than with...nothing really; It's also important to note that people don't do things because they think it's the right thing, historically people will do things just because someone told them to do them, even if they feel it is wrong.
So to the idea of one nation it could happen in the future, but I don't think in the next century or even two, there are so many factors to making it work, and there has to be mutual benefit for all parties involved. Sadly, you will always have power hungry people who get into power and wouldn't want that to be reduced in any way.
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The people who wrote this didn't study economics.
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Terrible vid. And that's coming from someone who's quite far left. Like communism and liberalism, it requires everyone inside the economy / world to follow this way of life, which obviously will not happen as long as humans are humans. Free world communism and free market liberalism utopias might work out amazing in people's dreams, but since they'd need everyone to be 100% in effect to function at all, they will never function. Ever.
Anyhow, just for the standard communism rebuttal argument which I see used so often - money is a strong motivator, sure, but it's far from the only one. A world without money would not stagnate. Pride, prestige and passion are stronger motivators than money, surely, and these would still be undiminished. Pride and a sense of achievement, for excelling, for doing something extraordinary. Prestige and respect in others eyes, social standing and idolation. And of course, passion - doing what you want, because this is what you BURN for.
Anyhow, capitalism is not the current problem, even though our current system is an abomination which should be put down. The problem is globalization.
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On May 05 2012 08:12 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 07:42 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 07:36 liberal wrote:On May 05 2012 07:18 rackdude wrote:On May 05 2012 07:12 Ottoxlol wrote:
please look up what communism did to the world.
remove this garbage from TL pls. Show me a country that was ever communist. Lol, that is the paradox (if you don't get it, read about communism and you will find out why if you ever name a communist state you just named a state that wasn't communist). The true paradox is that the natural consequences of communism never actually look like the dreams people envisioned, and so people always claim that communism never exists when actually the problems they see are the true face of communism. In other words, it's an idea which does not and never will have any basis in reality, and so you can never have physical evidence against it. Much like religion, in a way. ...or capitalism. Much like people complain today that having a government is the source of all problems, and if we really had a real free market without nasty regulation getting involved, everything would be swell. This way we only have a half solution and it's not capitalism's fault that it blows now. Plus an obligatory mention of Austria somewhere in there. There are three differences. First, that it is difficult to make an argument that a continually expanding government bureaucracy is somehow predicated by the capitalist system. Capitalism is an economic system, and although communism may be considered economic it has far more to do with politics, and so the distinction and conclusions with regard to government actions are much more predictable. Second, capitalism has indeed had the predicted consequences, as far as raising the standard of living for the average citizen in largely free nations. Capitalism does indeed have flaws, but you have to put those flaws in context with the vast amount of progress and growth in wealth, technology, health, etc. that have been wrought as a consequence of the market system. I cannot name the advantages that attempts in communism have created anywhere. Attempts have always led to poverty, repression, and in some cases mass deaths. Perhaps we could point to the advantages of the welfare capitalism in much of Europe, but in either case the economy is still largely run on the price mechanism and not on bureaucratic distribution. Third, the idea of communism as people seem to advocate it has never existed anywhere and never will exist. When people call for less economic regulation, they can actually point backwards to a time when a more free market did in fact exist, and so it's not some far-fetched utopian argument, unless you are debating anarcho-capitalists or something.
Agreed!
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communism ? capitalism ? not really bad ideas, but human corruption is always present so...every system however sound may seem will crumble due to human defects .... democracy ? watch it today and see how every phone call is recorded, how all your social media activity is stored/monitored for "key words" ..... there is no democracy without privacy, with the most disgusting example of the banning of psychedelic drugs. capitalism has also failed a lot...you may think you're doing fine by being able to buy anything at 4 am .... but in order for this to be possible, slave working is done in parts of the world ( it's a bit exagerated, but all the minerals for the tech stuff are mined out of hellish places using slave labor so ... same goes for cloths and stuff )
People just need to realize that if they help people around them and align with like minded people, they will be happy and successful, unless you are really unlucky and have a bad sense for bad people. With a society where no1 is competing in the "dirty" way you should have a cool world. Do your best at what you love.
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I watched the video and read over some of those charter things and imo I think the videos really short sighted and acts as if "those natural resources that are a birthright to birds and moose as well as humans" can just appear out of thin air
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silly humans... when will you ever learn that socialism does not and cannot work.
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The United States was pretty laissez faire in the late 19th century. Corruption ran rampant and consumer rights were of course, non existant. Furthering the problem was that during this time factory labor was hazardous and there were many child laborers. The end result was of course taxes and rights for the working class being secured.
The industrial revolution was a tremendous event for mankind. It ended famines, which had been endemic since the dawn of time. Factory labour might be hazardous compared to the cushy office jobs of today but it was far better than what proceeded it. The 'rights of the working class' were secured not by labour unions or politicians but by the development of capital. Increased productivity meant that workers could be paid more (since everyone is paid their marginal revenue product) OR they could trade off higher wages for better working conditions.
The 19th century in America saw skyrocketing standards of living for the poorest of the poor (and everyone else). It was a great time.
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On May 05 2012 08:45 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
silly humans... when will you ever learn that socialism does not and cannot work.
when the leading class will not abuse their powers and actually try to make communism what it really is ?
I'm not really knowledgeable about it but still, I play DotA and I do the drafts, I pick a certain combination with a specific plan so everything falls into place right, however teammates don't really follow my guidelines and game will end badly.. Same goes to communism... has it really been tried ? Not really right ?
You can never say something will never work if it hasn't been tried to 100% of it's potential imo.
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On May 05 2012 08:12 liberal wrote:
There are three differences. First, that it is difficult to make an argument that a continually expanding government bureaucracy is somehow predicated by the capitalist system. Capitalism is an economic system, and although communism may be considered economic it has far more to do with politics, and so the distinction and conclusions with regard to government actions are much more predictable.
At the same time, the power of the market and those in favorable position on the market inevitably leads to corruption and disruption of political systems in place. Capitalism is an economic concept, but one that empowers economic entities to the point where economic power directly translates to political power - which can in turn be used to hurt competition and redefine the rules of the market itself, basically contradicting the fundamental principles of capitalism. Since it translates to political power, and in fact skews the political power distribution quite significantly, it has quite a lot to do with politics.
On May 05 2012 08:12 liberal wrote:
Second, capitalism has indeed had the predicted consequences, as far as raising the standard of living for the average citizen in largely free nations.
This is not a correlation you can ever prove. Just like the "consequences" of so-called communist state attempts, there are far too many variables and far too many factors you're neglecting to acknowledge that have resulted in these outcomes.
Raising of the standard of living has as much to do with the progress of science (which is largely unaffected by economy), geopolitical situation, exploitation of cheap workforce in the third world countries, and so on. A lot of it can also be credited to the countries in question actively upholding (political) democratic principles, which generally make people more content and give them a feeling of safety and stability.
Needless to say, most of these countries have been in advantageous positions throughout the last 300 years. Most of the initial wealth has been amassed by colonizing (and again, exploiting) territories around the globe, slavery, abundance of natural resources (post-colonial US), geopolitical position. Compare that to the state of decay Imperial Russia has been in, or China for that matter.
On May 05 2012 08:12 liberal wrote:
Third, the idea of communism as people seem to advocate it has never existed anywhere and never will exist. When people call for less economic regulation, they can actually point backwards to a time when a more free market did in fact exist, and so it's not some far-fetched utopian argument, unless you are debating anarcho-capitalists or something.
I do agree that capitalism is not a far-fetched Utopian argument - as Utopian societies, unrealistic as they may be, actually aim to create a recipe that will, in simple terms, make everyone's life good and fair. Democracy itself is somewhat of a utopian principle, and a perfect example of how some of these ideas are actually not all that far-fetched. European modern-day social democracy even more so.
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when the leading class will not abuse their powers and actually try to make communism what it really is ?
We could sooner wait for the sun not to shine than expect those with power not to abuse it. As Lord Acton famously quipped, power corrupts. Communism will never work because it contains no mechanism within it for economic calculation. I'd imagnie someone from Eastern Europe would be better schooled on the dreadfulness that is the communist state. Communism does not work because without a price structure derived from market activities it is impossible to say how resources should be allocated. Instead of relying on hopeless government planners the laws of supply and demand ensure that whatever people need and are willing to buy will be supplied. if people need nails and there aren't enough the price goes up and profits go up until the market place has enough nails. But if there is no price system you have to hope that some government agent figures this out, for everything, for nails for cabbage for everything. It's impossible and so you have massive shortages, poverty, famine, etc.
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aising of the standard of living has as much to do with the progress of science (which is largely unaffected by economy), geopolitical situation, exploitation of cheap workforce in the third world countries, and so on.
And yet no society in the history of the world has seen advances of the standard of living on the scale that nations which practiced lassez-faire capitalism has seen. Funny that.
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On May 05 2012 09:01 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
if people need nails and there aren't enough the price goes up and profits go up until the market place has enough nails. But if there is no price system you have to hope that some government agent figures this out, for everything, for nails for cabbage for everything. It's impossible and so you have massive shortages, poverty, famine, etc.
That's the main concern?
You can make an algorithm for it and have computers do that kind of activities on their own with basically no human input at all. We're not in 1930s anymore. -_-
On May 05 2012 09:03 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:Show nested quote +aising of the standard of living has as much to do with the progress of science (which is largely unaffected by economy), geopolitical situation, exploitation of cheap workforce in the third world countries, and so on. And yet no society in the history of the world has seen advances of the standard of living on the scale that nations which practiced lassez-faire capitalism has seen. Funny that.
And when we have a sample size of hundreds of thousands of all kinds of countries (or even just thousands), THEN we can come up with conclusions that ignore context and are based on what's essentially a statistical observation.
Until then, that is not a very strong argument and is, indeed, funny. Even this way, the way you phrased it (relative advances) I'm quite sure that a couple of ancient world societies can compete with the modern-day ones, if not beat them handily.
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On May 05 2012 09:03 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:Show nested quote +aising of the standard of living has as much to do with the progress of science (which is largely unaffected by economy), geopolitical situation, exploitation of cheap workforce in the third world countries, and so on. And yet no society in the history of the world has seen advances of the standard of living on the scale that nations which practiced lassez-faire capitalism has seen. Funny that.
Funny that advances in standards of living in many communist states for long periods of time were on the same scale as in the lassez-faire capitalism nations. That the advances in standrads of living are not really correlated to how pure the capitalism practiced in given country is. All things point to much more causes, some of them at least as important.
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On May 05 2012 09:07 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 09:01 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
if people need nails and there aren't enough the price goes up and profits go up until the market place has enough nails. But if there is no price system you have to hope that some government agent figures this out, for everything, for nails for cabbage for everything. It's impossible and so you have massive shortages, poverty, famine, etc. That's the main concern? You can make an algorithm for it and have computers do that kind of activities on their own with basically no human input at all. We're not in 1930s anymore. -_- Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 09:03 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:aising of the standard of living has as much to do with the progress of science (which is largely unaffected by economy), geopolitical situation, exploitation of cheap workforce in the third world countries, and so on. And yet no society in the history of the world has seen advances of the standard of living on the scale that nations which practiced lassez-faire capitalism has seen. Funny that. And when we have a sample size of hundreds of thousands of all kinds of countries (or even just thousands), THEN we can come up with conclusions that ignore context and are based on what's essentially a statistical observation. Until then, that is not a very strong argument and is, indeed, funny. Even this way, the way you phrased it (relative advances) I'm quite sure that a couple of ancient world societies can compete with the modern-day ones, if not beat them handily.
You cannot make algorithms that you propose with current state of computer science. That does not mean that command economy is necessarily worse even when guided by humans or that in the future such algortihms won't be possible, but right now they are not. And command economy guided by humans is plagued by so many problems that might not even be possible to solve that mixed market-socialist economies are the best practical solution.
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On May 05 2012 09:01 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:Show nested quote +when the leading class will not abuse their powers and actually try to make communism what it really is ?
We could sooner wait for the sun not to shine than expect those with power not to abuse it. As Lord Acton famously quipped, power corrupts. Communism will never work because it contains no mechanism within it for economic calculation. I'd imagnie someone from Eastern Europe would be better schooled on the dreadfulness that is the communist state. Communism does not work because without a price structure derived from market activities it is impossible to say how resources should be allocated. Instead of relying on hopeless government planners the laws of supply and demand ensure that whatever people need and are willing to buy will be supplied. if people need nails and there aren't enough the price goes up and profits go up until the market place has enough nails. But if there is no price system you have to hope that some government agent figures this out, for everything, for nails for cabbage for everything. It's impossible and so you have massive shortages, poverty, famine, etc.
Many communist countries kept some market mechanisms in place, so it is not true that there was no pricing mechanism. And as a person from communist block I can tell you that specific details of economic fuckups were very different from country to country. Which nicely illustrates the idea that capitalist or communist system is a bad predictor alone of economic success. In my country there were no famines and not really more actual poverty than in the west in last decades of communist rule. There were shortages of luxury goods and even some non-luxury goods (TVs, cars, ...), but those were not really massive, you just had to wait for some time. It was definitely inferior economic system compared to most in the west, but far from unviable. As I said basic necessities of everyone were easily guaranteed.
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We are not ready for this as a species, lol, it would have happened already. Money creates order, and social structure, which is needed to shackle our animal instincts, we are creatures of opportunity. What happens when everything is free, and a group of people get together, to take all of that over? lol, it can't work unless EVERYONE is on the same page, and we're not, and won't be for a LONG time.
Humans take advantage of opportunity, and weakness, this system would fail in a few hours.
It needs to happen naturally, over a long time.
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A price mechanism DERIVED FROM MARKET ACTIVITIES. You can arbitrarily set the price of bread at $2 a loaf, but if that $2 does not represent consumer demand there will be problems. You cannot just play market, you must have a market. Nor can a computer, or all the computers in the world calculate where goods should be allocated. Based on what algorithim? It doesn take into account the desires of consumers. The market place is perfectly democratic in that everyone votes with their dollars. They get as much of whatever good they are willing to spend their money on. How is a computer supposed to know exactly how much of what everyone wants? Why should we have the state determine what people get instead of allowing people to choose for themselves?
Ultimately it comes down to allowing people the freedom to make their own choices in life. We shouldn't dictate to others. We most certainly shouldn't steal their property and spend it on our own ends.
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This idea is ridiculous. Money will always exist. It makes trade much, much easier.
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EPT
