[houndred]

Whether or not the have ever achieved 'real communism' no communist revolution has ever actually succeeded in doing anything else than a Dictatorship of Bureacracy. There has been no dictatorship of the proletariat. None of these regimes have every produced a better society than the Mixed market regimes of Northern Europe and its diaspora.

So I am assuming that you, Marxists, wish to impose something else on us.

Given that you cannot get elected into power due to the fact that you cannot get enough electoral support how exactly are you going to achieve your aims?

Given that the Majority of your members/Supporters seem to be on the government payrol in white collar jobs why on earth would we trust your vanguards not to impose another dictatorship of the Bureacracy?

[seagrass]

I believe Marxists see Communism as a stage of historic development related to class conflict and the development of productive forces etc, not something you can just make happen.

?

[The Captain]

For communism to be achieved, we need a ginormous cultural shift.

In a nutshell: human beings must embrace a culture that does not revolve around acquiring as much power (aka money) as possible.

In the long run, it may be possible that we move toward a communist society, as far as capitalism is just what Henri Lefebvre called a "sub-system" and every sub-system is bound to eventually fail and collapse because it destroys the base on which it rests. In the case of capitalism it will be the utter destruction of earthly resources.

Then we won't have any other possibility but create a new society that is not based on the pursuit of endless profit regardless of the consequences.

Hence, communism might be a possibility once we won't have a choice but to seek other purposes in life than power and profit. If we all get a fair share of society's prosperity, we may be able to focus our attention on more important things.

If one wonders what I mean by "more important things", I mean : everything we say that we don't have time to do, for we work too much.

Happy ?

[Tainari88]

The Captain is fast becoming on of my favorite posters. How come I have not read him before?

I think the big goal Captain is just to get to the modest and realistic goal of having workers control their own labor. That would be a giant leap forward for humankind. Instead of depending on capitalists who want to exploit people to profit more from their more powerful position on the socioeconomic totem pole--have workers control and share their labor with each other. Pool the surplus value and have everyone decide who is the best at leadership decisions. And have people decide themselves if they want their labor to be valued higher or lower than someone else's. That is a great thing. Let the workers be their own bosses essentially but also be held accountable to the social pressure of the many just like them. No top down manipulations.

[houndred]

That certainly is not communism Hainari.
The main problem for respurces is the uncontrolled breeding in the third world.

[oppose_obama]

i can tell you I'm going to law school in DC, after 3 years i will become a lobbyist and try to gain as much money/power as i can no change in culture here, I'm out to get mines


and if it ever comes down to it, ill be the one proposing putting communists against the wall

[Tainari88]

That certainly is not communism Hainari.
The main problem for respurces is the uncontrolled breeding in the third world.

Houndred, the uncontrolled breeding stops with education and opportunities. Right now there are infertile couples in the USA and in Europe going to India to 'rent' out uteruses for their in vitro children. They pay the woman some $2000 bucks and keep the rest for them. A bargain compared to the uterus' of the USA who offer 40k and up for carrying a baby to term as a surrogate.

Bangladesh, Mali, all high population ratios...they have less children if you do the job of educating and getting women to have skills and education and more control of what goes in economically. Otherwise? No incentive to stop having kids. Many of these nations have high infant mortality rates too. So a woman has nine or ten infants in hopes that three or more make it to adulthood and are her 'social security' system. If she has a social security check and a profession or a trade and can make a living and have a good relationship with her partner and her community? She will cut back on the kids. It is a given. So if you care about that issue Houndred, then give to education programs in the third world. If you just want to criticize and not act? Who cares what you think the issue is? You aren't solving it. And you can't stop people from getting pregnant and having the kids anyway. So? Moot point.

And my name is Tainari. Not Hainari. Unless you want me to call you Hounded?

[The Captain]

The Captain is fast becoming on of my favorite posters. How come I have not read him before?

I think the big goal Captain is just to get to the modest and realistic goal of having workers control their own labor. That would be a giant leap forward for humankind. Instead of depending on capitalists who want to exploit people to profit more from their more powerful position on the socioeconomic totem pole--have workers control and share their labor with each other. Pool the surplus value and have everyone decide who is the best at leadership decisions. And have people decide themselves if they want their labor to be valued higher or lower than someone else's. That is a great thing. Let the workers be their own bosses essentially but also be held accountable to the social pressure of the many just like them. No top down manipulations.

I'm glad you share my opinion, basically yes this is the kind of goal I was thinking but I'm afraid that without a radical cultural paradigm shift we may get nothing but chaos in the end.
I think most people would be ready to live in such a labor system, but the way society functions nowadays, it seems unfortunately possible that people are going to have a hard time to detach themselves from meaningless consumerism (which sadly goes hand in hand with modern capitalism)

i can tell you I'm going to law school in DC, after 3 years i will become a lobbyist and try to gain as much money/power as i can no change in culture here, I'm out to get mines


and if it ever comes down to it, ill be the one proposing putting communists against the wall

Pardon me but it seems to me that becoming a lobbyist to change anything in DC is quite an unrealistic goal, for lobbyist don't change anything but preserve the status quo.

[Eran]

Pardon me but it seems to me that becoming a lobbyist to change anything in DC is quite an unrealistic goal, for lobbyist don't change anything but preserve the status quo.

Yes and no. Lobbyists are advocates for the special interest groups that pay them. The interest of such groups may sometimes involve preservation of the status quo and fighting against change, and sometimes advocating change (albeit gradual and politically-feasible).

Policies advocated by lobbyists are also not of one nature. Some are legitimate (shielding people from government intervention) and some aren't (advocating such intervention).

[The Captain]

Yes and no. Lobbyists are advocates for the special interest groups that pay them. The interest of such groups may sometimes involve preservation of the status quo and fighting against change, and sometimes advocating change (albeit gradual and politically-feasible).

Policies advocated by lobbyists are also not of one nature. Some are legitimate (shielding people from government intervention) and some aren't (advocating such intervention).

Lobbyist who work on the behalf of a corporation work to preserve the interest of shareholders and thereby, more often than not, work against the interest of the general public...

Shielding people from government intervention is also not of one nature. There's illegitimate government intervention, when the latter tells you what books you can read, what things you can say on television and what you ought to do in the privacy of your own house, etc... But there's also legitimate government intervention such as proposing a ridiculously cheap universal health care to people who have modest means, as the government does where I live.

It's a little bit obvious I guess, but I thought it should be mentioned.

[Eran]

Lobbyist who work on the behalf of a corporation work to preserve the interest of shareholders and thereby, more often than not, work against the interest of the general public...

Why? What makes you think that natural state of affairs is a conflict rather than coherence of interests between corporations and the public?

Excessive regulations, for example, increase production cost and, in turn, force corporations to raise prices, to the detriment of the public.

[mum]

But there's also legitimate government intervention such as proposing a ridiculously cheap universal health care to people who have modest means, as the government does where I live.

Isn't food more important than health care? If all healthcare stopped overnight most people would still keep on living right? There would be some in hospital and needing emergency treatment etc that would die. But as a whole, civilisation would keep going on fine, especially the younger people.
However if you stopped food overnight what would happen? In a couple of weeks everyone would be dead.
So if healthcare is so important to provide for free or "cheap" then why isnt food ? Electricity/gas is probably more important than healthcare in cold places, so that should all be free as well? What is so important about free healthcare ?

Not mentioning the insultingly obvious point that nothing is free. take tax out of the economy and add all the mindblowing inefficiencies of government and then provide a subpar healthcare system with long wait times.

Recently in the US a couple of surgeons created a fully private hospital and listed most of the prices of their operations on their website.
They are very very busy because people without insurance can actually afford to get surgery that they need. The costs are so much lower than the public hospitals because, like all government owned operations, costs become very high, very quickly. When the government funds something, anything after a while the costs spiral out of control due the basically unlimited supply of money to pay for it.

The hospital has many Canadian customers because they can get their surgeries done with no waiting time. The healthcare system in Canada has shockingly long wait times. People are even making a profit from their insurance companies who recognise the hospital because the prices for a "standard" public operation are so much higher than what these guys charge they pocket the difference (if the insurer doesnt care).

A great example of how a private company runs more efficiently than any government run behemoth.

[Eran]

The costs are so much lower than the public hospitals because, like all government owned operations, costs become very high, very quickly.

Operations don't actually have to be government owned to exhibit high costs due to government intervention.

The general rule is that if there is a government policy that states that a given good has to be available to all regardless of cost, the price of that good will balloon beyond proportion.

The logic is clear - the normal market mechanism is for providers to limit their prices in line with what consumers can afford to pay. But with government effectively telling the market that "price is no object", private providers will increase their price.

In the US you can see this phenomenon in two different industries - health care and higher education. In both cases, prices have gone up much higher than inflation, and without corresponding rises in quality.

[mum]

totally agree, I just didn't explain it properly

[The Captain]

Isn't food more important than health care?

Where did I say that it wasn't ??

Not mentioning the insultingly obvious point that nothing is free. take tax out of the economy and add all the mindblowing inefficiencies of government and then provide a subpar healthcare system with long wait times.

Obviously you've never visited a country with a good universal healthcare plan, otherwise you wouldn't say such a thing. A lived in Canada for a while in the Great West and healthcare was quite good, but it's only my own experience...

Recently in the US a couple of surgeons created a fully private hospital and listed most of the prices of their operations on their website.
They are very very busy because people without insurance can actually afford to get surgery that they need. The costs are so much lower than the public hospitals because, like all government owned operations, costs become very high, very quickly. When the government funds something, anything after a while the costs spiral out of control due the basically unlimited supply of money to pay for it.

That's interesting, I'd be delighted to get more information about this hospital, do you have the website address ?

A great example of how a private company runs more efficiently than any government run behemoth.

That's incorrect, take water for example, every time a company takes over the job of water distribution in a city the quality of the water goes down, the prices go up.

In France, many cities had to kick out the private companies that took care of the water distribution to have decent water (and prices again).

And I'm not even talking about the scams and political corruption linked to the privatization of water...

[Eran]

That's incorrect, take water for example, every time a company takes over the job of water distribution in a city the quality of the water goes down, the prices go up.

If there is one thing that is often worse than government running a service, it is having private companies run the service on behalf of government.

Water is an excellent case. Without knowing the details you have in mind, I bet the water market was never opened to true competition. Rather, I expect municipal governments simply bought water from a private provider, or gave a monopoly over water provision to a preferred supplier.

[The Captain]

If there is one thing that is often worse than government running a service, it is having private companies run the service on behalf of government.

Water is an excellent case. Without knowing the details you have in mind, I bet the water market was never opened to true competition. Rather, I expect municipal governments simply bought water from a private provider, or gave a monopoly over water provision to a preferred supplier.

Absolutely, though in some cases the local councils may have chosen the supplier that offered the best service (I'm not sure about that, for I think that in most cases they chose a preferred supplier for reasons that are obscure to me hehe).

Still, now that the cities took over the job of supplying water, the prices went down and the quality is up again.

[Eran]

I am not sure what that observation is trying to show.

The primary debate is between private and public provision of services. For free markets to work, you need to allow (broadly) free entry of private providers interacting directly with consumers. This has not been the case with any municipal water system of which I am aware.

[The Captain]

I am not sure what that observation is trying to show.

The primary debate is between private and public provision of services. For free markets to work, you need to allow (broadly) free entry of private providers interacting directly with consumers. This has not been the case with any municipal water system of which I am aware.

Probably, I don't have a lot of details about these scandals. I'm aware that many public services are everything but efficient, but in the case of water, it's obvious that public services have greatly maintained a high standard at a reasonable price.

[Eran]

Not true.

The problem with water is different - its distribution is highly politicised, primarily through heavy subsidies to agriculture.

That results in silly and cumbersome restrictions on retail use, including limits on the size of flush toilets and capacity of shower heads.

I live in England, the land of endless rain. Still, for most of the past couple of months, we faced a hose-pipe ban, even as many consumers (myself included) are not even metered.

I am very familiar with the same issue in both California and Israel. Politically-powerful farmers get plenty of cheap water, while government uses both propaganda and outright prohibitions to shave a few percentage points off overall water consumption by limiting the ways retail consumers can use water.

The result is highly irrational, with water-hungry crops being grown in the wrong places, at the same times that consumers are unable to purchase the water they need.