Planet of the Humans Controversial film among lefties - Page 19 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15093369
Julian658 wrote:
There is no such thing as equality. Inequality is the natural state.




That's goofy. You live in a civilisation, not in a cave.

We started figuring out we had things in common in the 1700s (We hold these truths...)

Then in the 1800s we found a bunch of new ways in which our fate is shared. You know, like plagues.

We also learned the hard way, after the Great Depression and WW2 that putting too much power into the hands of too few people was a sure fire recipe for things going straight to hell.

Pull your head out.
#15093371
late wrote:That's goofy. You live in a civilisation, not in a cave.

We started figuring out we had things in common in the 1700s (We hold these truths...)

Then in the 1800s we found a bunch of new ways in which our fate is shared. You know, like plagues.

We also learned the hard way, after the Great Depression and WW2 that putting too much power into the hands of too few people was a sure fire recipe for things going straight to hell.

Pull your head out.

I hear you, but there is no equality. Show me two people that are equal.
#15093375
Julian658 wrote:
You are correct regarding the concept of one human working for another. It is either slavery or submission. I have admitted that many times since the onset of this dialogue.

Labor is an important ingredient in the creation of a product or the delivery of a service. When you use the Internet there is a huge number of people that maintain the system for you. They are paid to maintain the system and you benefit from their labor. When you teach a child in school you sell your talent so kids can benefit from your work. You can also sell your artwork in exchange for other artwork or sell it to a museum who then charges people to enter the museum to see the art. The number of voluntary exchanges is near infinite and that is what defines an economy. Labor or work produces some wealth, sometimes a lot sometimes nearly nothing. A wealthy nation can provide better for its citizens.

The worker sells his labor to the factory owner. This is a form of slavery or submission, take your pick. I assume it is slavery if you dislike the job and have no other choice but to do the job. Will this person perform the job he hates so much in a communist society? Who will perform the job no one wants to do? You are preaching salvation and your theory sounds a lot like gospel. It does not work at the practical or metaphysical level. I have said that capitalism is far from perfect, but all you have is an unproven theory.



Okay, thanks for the forthrightness.

I'd like to *clarify* a few things, given these shared understandings.

The *reason* it's 'wage-slavery', despite it economically / formally being a 'mutual contract' and exchange, is because many do not have any *alternative* to this economic system of capitalism for the means of life and living. Those who happen to have no other means *must* -- are *compelled* to -- get a job for the sake of a wage.

Now, regarding a potential post-capitalist political economy, the reason I expound on such is because the world can certainly do better than the existing social organization of private property ownership. When it's small-scale it's too fragmented and fractious, and when it goes through combinations -- corporations -- it's too hegemonic and towering.

Since you're acknowledging the core importance of *labor*, I'd just like to forward that labor, then, should be *predominant* in its *social*, and control, role in society. Labor is doing the work, and so labor should be calling the shots. That's it, no religion, no 'belief' necessary -- it's a *value judgment*.

Maybe you'll one day review my 'labor credits' framework -- it would speak-to your questions here regarding implementation, which is precisely why I created it. I'll excerpt from it, as appropriate:



Whatever the program and motivation, society as a whole would be collectively *ceding ground* if it didn't keep the 'revolution' and collectivism going, with a steady pace of automation that precluded whole areas of production from social politics altogether. Technology / automation empowers the *individual* and takes power out of the hands of groups that enjoy cohesiveness based on sheer *numbers* and a concomitant control of social reproduction in their ideological direction. The circulation and usage of labor credits would be a live formal tracking of how *negligent* the social revolution happened to be at any given moment, just as the consolidation of private property is today against the forces of revolutionary politics and international labor solidarity.



-> What's the *point* of all of this? Where's it all *going*? Why can't people just do what they like?

Overall, I'd say that the working objective for any post-capitalist social order is that it should be at least *as-materially-productive* as capitalism is, with its own communism-type socially-necessary production, but with far greater material *efficiencies* due to emergent, bottom-up per-item 'centralizations' (coordination) of multi-locality production, and also due to full-automation, for far-less-required human labor-hour *inputs* of work effort directly for the general social good. It should also actually *uplift* those who, under capitalism, are passed-over by the market system due to lack of funds for full economic participation -- thus thoroughly fulfilling real human / humane need with socially-necessary liberated production.



Interestingly, with this system / approach, *no one* is under any obligation to do *anything*, and could still probably live decent, healthy lives -- but the problem with lack of participation in a fundamentally *collectivist* political economy would be that not much would get done for *anyone*. If in such a society, people *really* didn't want to do much, and didn't want to coordinate around work projects, that might actually be okay, if they happened to be content with whatever little *was* produced. After all, it would be *their* society, collectively, so they could have it at whatever material capacity they liked, even if such was quite minimalist. But, with all labor being their own (liberated), there *would* be an objective dynamic of wanting and needing to *automate* as much mass industrial production as possible -- if not entirely -- so that whatever liberated-labor *was* done afterwards would be *highly leveraged*, with much greater material outputs, per hour of labor put-in. This would require initiatives and work for higher-tech capabilities, for full computerization and full automation. Once a new, fully-automated workflow process would be completed and implemented, consumers could reap *repeated* productivity benefits indefinitely from that initial set-up, as we see today with web searches for information on the Internet, and with personal customized 3D printing of any arbitrary objects.

The alternative to social-productive *cooperation* would be very low-level qualities of production, and a widespread *balkanization* of liberated-labor efforts, to where everything would become d.i.y. by default, to the extent where people might have to *forage* every day for their sustenance from nature, while technological usage and human culture would regress, etc.



https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... -Questions



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Julian658 wrote:
It may be exploitation yes. See above. It is not that simple. People will have to work in the communist utopia. Unless we get there at the end of capitalism. World domination where everybody is assimilated into a single global philosophy is a difficult task that can only happen with immense wealth. Even if there is no currency to measure wealth you still need wealth to make the system function.



Yes. (Please see the previous segment.)

I have to take exception to your (repeated) *totalitarian* characterization of a potential post-capitalist, socialist- / communist-type political economy.

The *quick* answer here -- and I'll be glad to *defend* it -- is that people's own *lifestyles* would be *irrelevant* to the post-capitalist political economy itself. As long as there was *enough* / a 'critical-mass' of voluntary liberated laborers, on non-private, *collectivized* machinery, then society's needs, at whatever qualitative level, would be *provided for*.

Wealth, and all money, and finance (exchange values), would *no longer* be needed because all material-economic activity would be *fully intentional* and pre-planned. There would be no speculation and only minimal waste, if any. Anything *productive* would necessarily be *socio-political* and not subsumed under any kind of private interest or private control.


History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle

Spoiler: show
Image



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Julian658 wrote:
I expect to be inconsistent. I am not in the extreme left or right. I am fully aware of the inconsistencies of capitalism and how it is prone to corruption as you have eloquently explained. However corruption exists in both ends of the spectrum. The concept that "we are the good guys and they are the bad guys" is tribal.



Okay, well said. I'll ask you to consider that 'corruption' is endemic to *class* society, because it only describes opportunism / 'initiative' taken at the *individual* level, instead of normally 'being tribal', basically.

The thing about revolutionary politics is that it's really non-specific as to personnel. It's not about *me*, personally, nor about any *other* revolutionary, specifically. It's not a cult, it's not a religion, it's not 'new management' or any kind of capitalist ownership faction, vying for king-of-the-hill status, as we're so used to seeing historically. It's actually based on the solidarity of the *working class*, worldwide, etc.

I mean to say that the religious-minded 'good vs. evil' narrative is *inappropriate* -- I like to think of it more *technically*, myself, as a 'needed upgrade' to society's social organization and functioning. All implied concerns from that point on are sheerly *logistical*, as in how to do the revolution and so on.


Julian658 wrote:
Who decides how much to pay for labor? It is the market; supply and demand? Look at a laptop computer: There are hundreds of parts manufactured in different places to be assembled in multiple different areas. How about the software and operating system? How many authors are involved? Who provides the most significant component for the computer? How much is the public willing to pay for the computer? The public will pay if they think they get something is return. Otherwise, why buy it? This is not simple.



Yes, I agree, and I would characterize all of these economic sub-issues as being *too problematic* to allow capitalism to continue functioning. We're all forced to take-the-market-at-its-word, basically, which means that we're effectively *dispossessed* over any intentional, combined control over economic matters under capitalism. We could do far better with the market mechanism out-of-the-way, once and for all. These issues / problems are all derived from the problematic of using *exchange values*, which are too 'hands-off' for our modern, fully-communicative-enabled society.

I'll counterpose my quick 'landscape of piles of stuff' sketch, to posit that a post-scarcity, post-capitalist society could work *nonlinearly*, without a 'blueprint', to decide what should be taken from which piles (supply chains), for what, by who, for who, and with liberated-workers then voluntarily working to replenish the piles of stuff as empirically needed.


---


Julian658 wrote:
It is not exploitation if the worker gets market value for the labor. It is a voluntary exchange. If you work as a teacher: You provide a service and get paid for it. It is an exchange and no one puts a gun in your head.



ckaihatsu wrote:
It *is* exploitation because labor is treated as a *commodity* and is not paid for what the *value* of the products of that labor is worth on the market.

I find it immoral that the capitalist keeps the lion's share of the revenue just because of hiring / managing / exploiting labor, and selling the resulting products on the market. That *financial* function does not merit what it is rewarded with.


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

Spoiler: show
Image



Julian658 wrote:
All morality is relative. There is no right or wrong. What may be immoral for you may be just and correct for others. What is just for you is immoral for others. You are fighting the very essence of nature.



Yes, you're correct, and I basically *never* use the term 'moral', except for just now. I'm a *materialist*, philosophically, so I mainly see *quantities*, and I eschew moralism, but I do think 'morality' can be valid, and can mean 'sound value-judgment', basically, to put it secularly.

I think we've covered the 'value judgment' aspect of the exploitation of wage labor earlier in this post.


Julian658 wrote:
Yes, we are slowly getting there. Be patient! Once the wealth is redundant there will be a bonanza for those that are low in the talent hierarchy. However, my fear is that getting something for nothing will lead to a dystopic world.



Okay, couple things:

I can't be as optimistic as you are regarding any conceivable 'inevitability' of the course of capitalism, towards an *emergent* socialist society. This is because the *character* of capitalist political economy will always be for a *wealthy elite*, and we've seen the world's bourgeoisie go to the extremes of wars, world wars, nuclear bombings, and imperialist invasions (Russia, 1918), so as to forestall any social developments that are *more socially progressive* than the bourgeoisie's capitalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War


I do share the *hope* that capitalism's emergent technologies will *empower* everyone in humanity -- and it already has, of course -- but I don't think that it will *guarantee* an 'escape', and full non-participation for everyone, from capitalist economy.

I *don't* share your 'moralistic' (if-you-will) view of a massively leveraged material production (full-automation), with egalitarian distribution from the same. On this *I'm* more optimistic, in that more people would be freed to do higher-level stuff, given enough stuff and free time, and that the need for competitive warfare would *lessen* as people became more personally fulfilled, from the bounty of the modern world. I think this is *already* happening, roughly since the mid-'90s.

Moreover I'd say that *this* is the human condition, since *much* has been humanely developed *due* to the emergence of class society, and *despite* its elitist control over society.


Julian658 wrote:
We never had a great leader in Marxism. Even Marx was suspect with his anti-semitism and living off the labor of workers. Engels supported Marx financially. Engels was a businessman and factory owner. It is quite ironic, however, I will admit that does not make Marx theory right or wrong.



Thank you -- these *are* different 'levels', and the same kind of assessment goes for Thomas Jefferson, incidentally, even though he used slaves.


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Julian658 wrote:
That is a strawman. Private prep schools encourage critical thinking. Discipline and academics work well together. It seems you have no solutions for the problem.



ckaihatsu wrote:
But you're not repudiating this two-tier system of tracking. Remember that 'separate but equal' was found to be an *erroneous* principle in U.S. history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal



Julian658 wrote:
That is a very weak argument against reparations for slavery. This is about reparations and those that were not affected need not apply.



ckaihatsu wrote:
I'm *not* repudiating reparations for slavery -- I *support* such.

You're changing the topic again -- going off on a tangent.



Julian658 wrote:
You objected to a school where discipline was very important. You also mentioned separate but equal out of left field which made ZERO sense in the conversation.



You're more concerned with the *culture* of schooling, and I'm more concerned with the *politics* of schooling.


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Julian658 wrote:
I wish she would participate instead of hurling insulting remarks. I think that she could say something of value if she refrains from being abusive or acrimonious.
#15093376
Julian658 wrote:
I hear you, but there is no equality. Show me two people that are equal.



You seem to think you are saying something.

You are not.

I've gone over some of the other ways you are silly, but perhaps the main point is that this isn't what we're talking about.

Income inequality is, at root, a political problem. Equality of opportunity is, at heart, a commitment that every kid should get a good education.
#15093391
Pants-of-dog wrote:Educating yourself on the technical aspects of environmentalism is not hard. If you were to study it as a hobby for a few years, you would have enough acumen to discuss it intelligently.


A few years of study by a layman not-scientist and the best you can do is regurgitate some books and articles you've read just like I said, you still know wouldn't what you're talking about, you can't peer-review academic papers are test hypotheses. Arm-chair climate scientists and arm-chair electrical engineers don't know anything but they think they do, which is the most dangerous of all.

For example, the whole “overpopulation is the problem” mantra. This claim completely ignores the fact that climate change is caused by the global north and a handful of companies, and instead tries to spread the blame to all of us, effectively letting the real culprits off the hook.


30% of global CO2 emissions are caused by China, which more than the EU and the US combined.
#15093397
Unthinking Majority wrote:A few years of study by a layman not-scientist and the best you can do is regurgitate some books and articles you've read just like I said, you still know wouldn't what you're talking about, you can't peer-review academic papers are test hypotheses. Arm-chair climate scientists and arm-chair electrical engineers don't know anything but they think they do, which is the most dangerous of all.


No, not really.

For example, if you wanted to analyse different methods of producing electricity, you can look at the ratio of energy generated by a project as compared to the amount of energy required to run a project over the entire life cycle and clean-up of the project. It is just one number. The higher the number, the better.

Will you have enough acumen to make your own studies and research? No. But you will have enough to discuss things intelligently and know where society should be headed according to science.

30% of global CO2 emissions are caused by China, which more than the EU and the US combined.


If this is accurate, it is a snapshot of current GHG production, not a comprehensive analysis of who put GHG into the atmosphere over the last 150 years and caused the problem.

Since CO2 stays in the atmosphere for about 200 years, you would have to look at who pumped CO2 into the atmosphere during that time period and look at each countries cumulative output.
#15093406
I DID NOT PROOF READ
WILL DO LATER

ckaihatsu wrote:Okay, thanks for the forthrightness.

I'd like to *clarify* a few things, given these shared understandings.

The *reason* it's 'wage-slavery', despite it economically / formally being a 'mutual contract' and exchange, is because many do not have any *alternative* to this economic system of capitalism for the means of life and living. Those who happen to have no other means *must* -- are *compelled* to -- get a job for the sake of a wage.


No disagreement! And as far as I am concerned that is the strongest point in selling socialism to others.

Now, regarding a potential post-capitalist political economy, the reason I expound on such is because the world can certainly do better than the existing social organization of private property ownership. When it's small-scale it's too fragmented and fractious, and when it goes through combinations -- corporations -- it's too hegemonic and towering.


100% agreement. The natural hierarchy of talent has a massive propensity to become oppressive and tyrannical if it becomes large. And that can happen in both sides of the political spectrum. I am even willing to end inheritance and allow descendants of the wealthy to start from scratch.

Since you're acknowledging the core importance of *labor*, I'd just like to forward that labor, then, should be *predominant* in its *social*, and control, role in society. Labor is doing the work, and so labor should be calling the shots. That's it, no religion, no 'belief' necessary -- it's a *value judgment*.


Yes and no. It depends! Sometimes the workers know the factory in much greater detail than a faraway supervisor. However, the factory needs to make what people actually need and that is not always easy to predict. Building a gadget that no one needs is a waste whether you have a capitalist or non-capitalist system. IN state run Cuban shops you see a lot of merchandise that the Cubans do not need. However, some bureaucrat probably thinks it is a good idea to manufacture thousands of ashtrays. As for income: IN Cuba a physician earns 28 dollars a month whereas a bartender in a tourist area can make that much in a day. So Doctors and engineers try to work as bartenders. To get that bartender job "you better have a connection" . The human condition is a "bitch". Ideally you would want a work force that works for the actual pride of working and earning their weight in society. I believe this is possible in a communist society and there is no need for wages if wealth is redundant. Why would anyone need money if everything is available? The Incas did not have currency, but they exchanged services and privileges.

Maybe you'll one day review my 'labor credits' framework -- it would speak-to your questions here regarding implementation, which is precisely why I created it. I'll excerpt from it, as appropriate:


As long as the talented achieve more than the less talented there will be a drive to work.

I have to take exception to your (repeated) *totalitarian* characterization of a potential post-capitalist, socialist- / communist-type political economy.


The dictatorship of the proletariat will have to exist unless there is a natural culmination of capitalism into communism. If there is a revolution then you must have an authoritarian state. BTW, a good side effect of authoritarian states is the near absence of street crime.

The *quick* answer here -- and I'll be glad to *defend* it -- is that people's own *lifestyles* would be *irrelevant* to the post-capitalist political economy itself. As long as there was *enough* / a 'critical-mass' of voluntary liberated laborers, on non-private, *collectivized* machinery, then society's needs, at whatever qualitative level, would be *provided for*.


I agree, but you need redundant wealth. Imagine an endless source of energy like the sun. Actually the sun only has about 4 billion years left, but let's call it endless. Because the light of the sun is overabundant everybody has access to it (rich and poor).

Wealth, and all money, and finance (exchange values), would *no longer* be needed because all material-economic activity would be *fully intentional* and pre-planned. There would be no speculation and only minimal waste, if any. Anything *productive* would necessarily be *socio-political* and not subsumed under any kind of private interest or private control.


Humans will need an incentive to be productive. Humans also need self worth to avoid nihilism. Capt Jean Luc Pickard said: We don't have currency anymore and there are no poor people. However, we strive to succeed in other areas.


Okay, well said. I'll ask you to consider that 'corruption' is endemic to *class* society, because it only describes opportunism / 'initiative' taken at the *individual* level, instead of normally 'being tribal', basically.


IN high end societies people self regulate into doing the right thing. The Vancouver subway is automated. There are no obvious employees. And yet most people buy the fare before using the train. It would be rather easy not to pay for the ride, but most pay. The Germans are like tyhat too because they are somewhat robotic in behavior.

Regarding tribalism: That tendency is alive an well. I see it here in the forum; I will not mention names.

The thing about revolutionary politics is that it's really non-specific as to personnel. It's not about *me*, personally, nor about any *other* revolutionary, specifically. It's not a cult, it's not a religion, it's not 'new management' or any kind of capitalist ownership faction, vying for king-of-the-hill status, as we're so used to seeing historically. It's actually based on the solidarity of the *working class*, worldwide, etc.


That solidarity is tribal.


I mean to say that the religious-minded 'good vs. evil' narrative is *inappropriate* -- I like to think of it more *technically*, myself, as a 'needed upgrade' to society's social organization and functioning. All implied concerns from that point on are sheerly *logistical*, as in how to do the revolution and so on.


Agreed


Yes, I agree, and I would characterize all of these economic sub-issues as being *too problematic* to allow capitalism to continue functioning. We're all forced to take-the-market-at-its-word, basically, which means that we're effectively *dispossessed* over any intentional, combined control over economic matters under capitalism. We could do far better with the market mechanism out-of-the-way, once and for all. These issues / problems are all derived from the problematic of using *exchange values*, which are too 'hands-off' for our modern, fully-communicative-enabled society.


It sounds great, but humans need motivation and competition. YOU cannot change thousands of years of evolution just like that. It is likely that the greediest early humans had an evolutional advantage.

I'll counterpose my quick 'landscape of piles of stuff' sketch, to posit that a post-scarcity, post-capitalist society could work *nonlinearly*, without a 'blueprint', to decide what should be taken from which piles (supply chains), for what, by who, for who, and with liberated-workers then voluntarily working to replenish the piles of stuff as empirically needed.


I don't think it will work unless you have endless wealth. Humans are not that simple, they tend to be corrupt. It is impossible to make everybody wear a mask in my neighborhood park.



Okay, couple things:

I can't be as optimistic as you are regarding any conceivable 'inevitability' of the course of capitalism, towards an *emergent* socialist society. This is because the *character* of capitalist political economy will always be for a *wealthy elite*, and we've seen the world's bourgeoisie go to the extremes of wars, world wars, nuclear bombings, and imperialist invasions (Russia, 1918), so as to forestall any social developments that are *more socially progressive* than the bourgeoisie's capitalism.


If we have redundant wealth I think that can be somewhat mitigated. In fact the trend is going in that direction. The rich do not get the treatment they used to get in medieval times or even the 1920s.

I do share the *hope* that capitalism's emergent technologies will *empower* everyone in humanity -- and it already has, of course -- but I don't think that it will *guarantee* an 'escape', and full non-participation for everyone, from capitalist economy.


I am nearly certain it will, but I will be dead by them.

I *don't* share your 'moralistic' (if-you-will) view of a massively leveraged material production (full-automation), with egalitarian distribution from the same. On this *I'm* more optimistic, in that more people would be freed to do higher-level stuff, given enough stuff and free time, and that the need for competitive warfare would *lessen* as people became more personally fulfilled, from the bounty of the modern world. I think this is *already* happening, roughly since the mid-'90s.


Technology will do for the modern man as agriculture did 12k years ago. More free time! A 10 hour workweek.


Thank you -- these *are* different 'levels', and the same kind of assessment goes for Thomas Jefferson, incidentally, even though he used slaves.


I agree, no one is perfect--------killing the messenger does not alter the message.


You're more concerned with the *culture* of schooling, and I'm more concerned with the *politics* of schooling.


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That is an accurate description. I would want the same discipline of a high end prep school for the elite.
#15093410
late wrote:
Income inequality is, at root, a political problem. Equality of opportunity is, at heart, a commitment that every kid should get a good education.

A remark or statement, especially one with a moral content, that has been used too often to be interesting or thoughtful. :)
#15093416
Julian658 wrote:
I DID NOT PROOF READ
WILL DO LATER



No disagreement! And as far as I am concerned that is the strongest point in selling socialism to others.



Okay, so based on this, then, would you consider workers collective control over social production (socialism), to potentially be an improvement over capitalism?


Julian658 wrote:
100% agreement. The natural hierarchy of talent has a massive propensity to become oppressive and tyrannical if it becomes large. And that can happen in both sides of the political spectrum. I am even willing to end inheritance and allow descendants of the wealthy to start from scratch.



Well, with this you're still in the competitive 'rat race' mentality, so-to-speak. Sure, people have personal goals, and would as well, post-capitalism, but I'd like to present you with the equality-vs.-hierarchy question again -- are you open to the idea of a society that has an ethos in common of treating possessions as just being a *social* task, instead of it being a *personal* accomplishment, as through wages or wealth or social status, so that people are freed-up to do whatever it is they really *want* to do?

I'd argue that individual, personal 'natural talent' is too-often *constricted* and channeled into avenues of *exploitation*, under capitalism. Here's from my favorite political essay:



The Soul of Man under Socialism

The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes.

Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin; a great poet, like Keats; a fine critical spirit, like M. Renan; a supreme artist, like Flaubert, has been able to isolate himself, to keep himself out of reach of the clamorous claims of others, to stand ‘under the shelter of the wall,’ as Plato puts it, and so to realise the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting gain of the whole world. These, however, are exceptions. The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism – are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.

But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life – educated men who live in the East End – coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.

There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.

Under Socialism all this will, of course, be altered. There will be no people living in fetid dens and fetid rags, and bringing up unhealthy, hunger-pinched children in the midst of impossible and absolutely repulsive surroundings. The security of society will not depend, as it does now, on the state of the weather. If a frost comes we shall not have a hundred thousand men out of work, tramping about the streets in a state of disgusting misery, or whining to their neighbours for alms, or crowding round the doors of loathsome shelters to try and secure a hunch of bread and a night’s unclean lodging. Each member of the society will share in the general prosperity and happiness of the society, and if a frost comes no one will practically be anything the worse.

Upon the other hand, Socialism itself will be of value simply because it will lead to Individualism.

Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper environment. But for the full development of Life to its highest mode of perfection, something more is needed. What is needed is Individualism. If the Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first. At present, in consequence of the existence of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure. These are the poets, the philosophers, the men of science, the men of culture – in a word, the real men, the men who have realised themselves, and in whom all Humanity gains a partial realisation. Upon the other hand, there are a great many people who, having no private property of their own, and being always on the brink of sheer starvation, are compelled to do the work of beasts of burden, to do work that is quite uncongenial to them, and to which they are forced by the peremptory, unreasonable, degrading Tyranny of want. These are the poor, and amongst them there is no grace of manner, or charm of speech, or civilisation, or culture, or refinement in pleasures, or joy of life. From their collective force Humanity gains much in material prosperity. But it is only the material result that it gains, and the man who is poor is in himself absolutely of no importance. He is merely the infinitesimal atom of a force that, so far from regarding him, crushes him: indeed, prefers him crushed, as in that case he is far more obedient.

Of course, it might be said that the Individualism generated under conditions of private property is not always, or even as a rule, of a fine or wonderful type, and that the poor, if they have not culture and charm, have still many virtues. Both these statements would be quite true. The possession of private property is very often extremely demoralising, and that is, of course, one of the reasons why Socialism wants to get rid of the institution. In fact, property is really a nuisance. Some years ago people went about the country saying that property has duties. They said it so often and so tediously that, at last, the Church has begun to say it. One hears it now from every pulpit. It is perfectly true. Property not merely has duties, but has so many duties that its possession to any large extent is a bore. It involves endless claims upon one, endless attention to business, endless bother. If property had simply pleasures, we could stand it; but its duties make it unbearable. In the interest of the rich we must get rid of it. The virtues of the poor may be readily admitted, and are much to be regretted. We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town or country labourer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly-fed animal. He should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing. As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. No: a poor man who is ungrateful, unthrifty, discontented, and rebellious, is probably a real personality, and has much in him. He is at any rate a healthy protest. As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid. I can quite understand a man accepting laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance.



https://www.marxists.org/reference/arch ... /soul-man/



---


Julian658 wrote:
Yes and no. It depends! Sometimes the workers know the factory in much greater detail than a faraway supervisor. However, the factory needs to make what people actually need and that is not always easy to predict. Building a gadget that no one needs is a waste whether you have a capitalist or non-capitalist system. IN state run Cuban shops you see a lot of merchandise that the Cubans do not need. However, some bureaucrat probably thinks it is a good idea to manufacture thousands of ashtrays. As for income: IN Cuba a physician earns 28 dollars a month whereas a bartender in a tourist area can make that much in a day. So Doctors and engineers try to work as bartenders. To get that bartender job "you better have a connection" . The human condition is a "bitch". Ideally you would want a work force that works for the actual pride of working and earning their weight in society. I believe this is possible in a communist society and there is no need for wages if wealth is redundant. Why would anyone need money if everything is available? The Incas did not have currency, but they exchanged services and privileges.



Okay, cool. Would you mind taking a quick glance at the following diagram, and tell me if you agree with it in the *abstract*:


Components of Social Production

Spoiler: show
Image



I include this to say I'm not the 'heaven-for-ever-after' kind of communist -- I don't think it would automatically be gauzy bliss the day after the bourgeoisie is overthrown, but it would certainly be a fuck of a lot better than capitalism, throughout. The components in the diagram I see as being empirically *differing* social interests, but in a post-capitalist, communist-type society everyone could easily *move* through social roles of these various social components, while under *capitalism* one cannot.


---


Julian658 wrote:
As long as the talented achieve more than the less talented there will be a drive to work.



Okay, sure, that's *one* organic motivation -- I listed a bunch a few weeks ago, though maybe that was with my discussion with TTP.

So this goes to say that people / 'human nature' is driven by more than simplistic desires for sheer material accumulation / wealth.


Julian658 wrote:
The dictatorship of the proletariat will have to exist unless there is a natural culmination of capitalism into communism. If there is a revolution then you must have an authoritarian state. BTW, a good side effect of authoritarian states is the near absence of street crime.



Yeah, there would have to be a vanguardist *workers* state in the transition from capitalism to communism, and it would have to be authoritarian in order to overthrow the bourgeois ruling class. I think you already commented favorably on the brief 'vanguardism' post that I included from RevLeft. Here's a diagram as well:


[7] Syndicalism-Socialism-Communism Transition Diagram

Spoiler: show
Image



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Julian658 wrote:
I agree, but you need redundant wealth. Imagine an endless source of energy like the sun. Actually the sun only has about 4 billion years left, but let's call it endless. Because the light of the sun is overabundant everybody has access to it (rich and poor).



Well, the term 'wealth' itself is problematic because it necessarily implies 'exchange values'.

You're indicating a *non-monetary* kind of 'wealth', meaning *usable resources*, basically, which *is* more what socialism / communism is all about. With collective workers control of the factories the workers could readily produce for human need, whatever that may happen to look like.

Private accumulations wouldn't be tolerated so there would be no 'wealth', proper, but there *would* be *collective* 'wealth', namely *infrastructure* so that everyone could partake equally and egalitarian-ly.


Julian658 wrote:
Humans will need an incentive to be productive.



You just *negated* this, above:


Julian658 wrote:
As long as the talented achieve more than the less talented there will be a drive to work.



Meaning that people can certainly be motivated by *accomplishment* / achievement, in whatever field(s) they happen to be in. Off the top of my head I mentioned, in the past, 'craft', 'social leadership', 'creativity', etc.


---


Julian658 wrote:
Humans also need self worth to avoid nihilism. Capt Jean Luc Pickard said: We don't have currency anymore and there are no poor people. However, we strive to succeed in other areas.



Okay, you can head up that department, congrats. I couldn't have *less* interest in this kind of stuff.


Julian658 wrote:
IN high end societies people self regulate into doing the right thing. The Vancouver subway is automated. There are no obvious employees. And yet most people buy the fare before using the train. It would be rather easy not to pay for the ride, but most pay. The Germans are like tyhat too because they are somewhat robotic in behavior.



No, it's because the societies you've mentioned *are* high-end, or wealthy -- there's no motivation for pettiness among privileged populations because they're all doing higher-level things. Conformity there is the norm because it doesn't pay to rock the boat when life is that easy for them in that kind of society.


Julian658 wrote:
Regarding tribalism: That tendency is alive an well. I see it here in the forum; I will not mention names.



It's part of society, *everywhere* -- technically it's a *remnant* from past pastoralist societies and the pastoralist mode of production. Even though we live in the relatively more-*advanced*, *capitalist* mode of production, it's still *mixed* with past modes, and even *future* modes, like the one you just indicated, the 'high end' societies which enjoy *abundance*.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uneven_an ... evelopment


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
The thing about revolutionary politics is that it's really non-specific as to personnel. It's not about *me*, personally, nor about any *other* revolutionary, specifically. It's not a cult, it's not a religion, it's not 'new management' or any kind of capitalist ownership faction, vying for king-of-the-hill status, as we're so used to seeing historically. It's actually based on the solidarity of the *working class*, worldwide, etc.



Julian658 wrote:
That solidarity is tribal.



No, it's *not* based, ultimately, on a tribalist 'groupthink', or culture -- it's based on *class interest*, meaning better wages, better benefits, and more *control* in the workplace, and in the economy, ultimately to controlling all of social production itself by *overthrowing* the ruling class.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I mean to say that the religious-minded 'good vs. evil' narrative is *inappropriate* -- I like to think of it more *technically*, myself, as a 'needed upgrade' to society's social organization and functioning. All implied concerns from that point on are sheerly *logistical*, as in how to do the revolution and so on.



Julian658 wrote:
Agreed



Cool, good to hear.


Julian658 wrote:
It sounds great, but humans need motivation and competition. YOU cannot change thousands of years of evolution just like that. It is likely that the greediest early humans had an evolutional advantage.



Well, you're back to your biology / psychology mindset, which is where I definitely part ways from.

You should know from *psychology* that the human psyche is *quite* malleable, depending on the surrounding local (and greater) social conditions -- have you ever seen the Milgram experiment?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I'll counterpose my quick 'landscape of piles of stuff' sketch, to posit that a post-scarcity, post-capitalist society could work *nonlinearly*, without a 'blueprint', to decide what should be taken from which piles (supply chains), for what, by who, for who, and with liberated-workers then voluntarily working to replenish the piles of stuff as empirically needed.



Julian658 wrote:
I don't think it will work unless you have endless wealth. Humans are not that simple, they tend to be corrupt. It is impossible to make everybody wear a mask in my neighborhood park.



Let me put it *this* way -- a successful proletarian revolution would be based on inherent *class interest* expressing itself. It wouldn't *require* a consensus of 7+ billion. It *could* be very broad-based, and bottom-up, and *should* *ideally* be this way, but it could also be top-down, though still in the interests of the working class, through the workers-state administration, however composed.


Julian658 wrote:
If we have redundant wealth I think that can be somewhat mitigated. In fact the trend is going in that direction. The rich do not get the treatment they used to get in medieval times or even the 1920s.



Well, it's taken a *lot* to build the 'second superpower' global populist mass consensus that we have today that is anti-NATO and anti-warfare. A lot has been lost along the way in tending to these efforts, namely the bullshit from the U.S. (Bush's 'WMDs' in Iraq, etc.), and lives lost in other countries to U.S. imperialism / militarism.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I do share the *hope* that capitalism's emergent technologies will *empower* everyone in humanity -- and it already has, of course -- but I don't think that it will *guarantee* an 'escape', and full non-participation for everyone, from capitalist economy.



Julian658 wrote:
I am nearly certain it will, but I will be dead by them.



Really! May I ask how many years you think it will take for universal humane comfort to be technologically enabled and affordable, as the crow flies?


Julian658 wrote:
Technology will do for the modern man as agriculture did 12k years ago. More free time! A 10 hour workweek.



Yeah, I'm holding out for flying cars, myself. (grin)


Julian658 wrote:
I agree, no one is perfect--------killing the messenger does not alter the message.


Julian658 wrote:
That is an accurate description. I would want the same discipline of a high end prep school for the elite.



Okay, take care, later.
#15093417
Julian658 wrote:
A remark or statement, especially one with a moral content, that has been used too often to be interesting or thoughtful.



Which is simply a way of saying you don't have anything to say.

You keep getting shit wrong, and you keep trying to speak as if you were an authority.

We know better.
#15093537
ckaihatsu wrote:Okay, so based on this, then, would you consider workers collective control over social production (socialism), to potentially be an improvement over capitalism?


It is an improvement. But, the main hurdle is the removal of self interest. Adam Smith old saying is true:

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." This has always been why we have excess goods in capitalist nations.

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. This is so true when you compare government services with services provided by the private sector.


However he was aware of the evils of capitalism;

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience



Well, with this you're still in the competitive 'rat race' mentality, so-to-speak. Sure, people have personal goals, and would as well, post-capitalism, but I'd like to present you with the equality-vs.-hierarchy question again -- are you open to the idea of a society that has an ethos in common of treating possessions as just being a *social* task, instead of it being a *personal* accomplishment, as through wages or wealth or social status, so that people are freed-up to do whatever it is they really *want* to do?


It is possible to get there, but it would require a change in culture and customs. But, yeah, it would be great. Having to constantly swim to keep the head above water gets old. But, this has been the story of the animal kingdom since day one. I will not mention the need for abundance of wealth again.

I'd argue that individual, personal 'natural talent' is too-often *constricted* and channeled into avenues of *exploitation*, under capitalism. Here's from my favorite political essay:


True! Very few in the world get to have a job they enjoy 24/7 for a lifetime. Middle of the pack professional golfers come to a point where they hate to be away from home week after week. And all they have to do is play golf. Touring musicians get sick of the road when all they have to do is play the songs that made them famous. Any job can become alienating, but much more so for those that are low end workers.


Okay, cool. Would you mind taking a quick glance at the following diagram, and tell me if you agree with it in the *abstract*:


Adam Smith agrees with you. The diagram is correct as of today. This is subject to change. We are in unknown territory. IN the old days there was a potential job for everyone. A man with a blue collar mind would plow the fields next to a man who could have been an astrophysicist. However, this is at a time when 97% of the world was very poor. Jobs are disappearing. There no more people needed to run the elevators. When you call an office you always get automation to direct your call. I can now see a massive proliferation of restaurants that will operate with no waiters in the Corona era. In other words we are heading into a future where only the talented ones will have meaningful jobs.

From your article:
The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism – are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.


Ayn Rand agrees, that is a paradox.

Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper environment. But for the full development of Life to its highest mode of perfection, something more is needed. What is needed is Individualism.


Agreed

As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.

Agreed






I include this to say I'm not the 'heaven-for-ever-after' kind of communist -- I don't think it would automatically be gauzy bliss the day after the bourgeoisie is overthrown, but it would certainly be a fuck of a lot better than capitalism, throughout. The components in the diagram I see as being empirically *differing* social interests, but in a post-capitalist, communist-type society everyone could easily *move* through social roles of these various social components, while under *capitalism* one cannot.

Remains to be seen. In that system I may lose what I have.

So this goes to say that people / 'human nature' is driven by more than simplistic desires for sheer material accumulation / wealth.


From a biological standpoint we are driven to spread DNA. Women are naturally attracted to men that can provide. Not all men get to mate whereas a few men get to mate a lot.


Yeah, there would have to be a vanguardist *workers* state in the transition from capitalism to communism, and it would have to be authoritarian in order to overthrow the bourgeois ruling class. I think you already commented favorably on the brief 'vanguardism' post that I included from RevLeft. Here's a diagram as well:

OK, at least you admit that. Other socialists in the forum evade the subject. OK, I saw the arrow.



Well, the term 'wealth' itself is problematic because it necessarily implies 'exchange values'.


You're indicating a *non-monetary* kind of 'wealth', meaning *usable resources*, basically, which *is* more what socialism / communism is all about. With collective workers control of the factories the workers could readily produce for human need, whatever that may happen to look like.


I cannot imagine a society where there are no exchanges. How is that possible? There would have to be some source of endless wealth. You keep saying wealth is not needed. Call it what you want to call it but societies need a source of some sort of energy (a figure of speech) to thrive. You cannot create wealth or energy out of nothing. Ultimately wealth is the product of labor and innovation. Wealth grows exponentially when many benefit from an invention. Wealth can also be defined as natural resources, but these create nothing on their own. MAN is needed for the final product.

Private accumulations wouldn't be tolerated so there would be no 'wealth', proper, but there *would* be *collective* 'wealth', namely *infrastructure* so that everyone could partake equally and egalitarian-ly.

Norway owns about 40% of oil which means this is owned by the citizens. However, the system is administered by capitalists.


Meaning that people can certainly be motivated by *accomplishment* / achievement, in whatever field(s) they happen to be in. Off the top of my head I mentioned, in the past, 'craft', 'social leadership', 'creativity', etc.


Clearly needed.



No, it's *not* based, ultimately, on a tribalist 'groupthink', or culture -- it's based on *class interest*, meaning better wages, better benefits, and more *control* in the workplace, and in the economy, ultimately to controlling all of social production itself by *overthrowing* the ruling class.


OK,
BTW, this is how the democrats lost to Trump. They forgot the workers.

You should know from *psychology* that the human psyche is *quite* malleable, depending on the surrounding local (and greater) social conditions -- have you ever seen the Milgram experiment?


Yes, this is how the Germans followed Hitler. Man is a beast. This also explains how Castro sent men to the Paredón to be shot.


Let me put it *this* way -- a successful proletarian revolution would be based on inherent *class interest* expressing itself. It wouldn't *require* a consensus of 7+ billion. It *could* be very broad-based, and bottom-up, and *should* *ideally* be this way, but it could also be top-down, though still in the interests of the working class, through the workers-state administration, however composed.


How about the white collar people?



Really! May I ask how many years you think it will take for universal humane comfort to be technologically enabled and affordable, as the crow flies?

I say 2-300 years. Assuming no Nuclear war or being hit by an asteroid
#15093545
Julian658 wrote:..... Adam Smith old saying is true:

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." This has always been why we have excess goods in capitalist nations.


To tie this back to the actual topic, this explains why capitalism will not fix climate change.

It is not in the interests of capitalists to do so.

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. This is so true when you compare government services with services provided by the private sector.


Public healthcare,.

Military.

Public utilities.

Environmental protection.

All these things work better under government.
#15093547
Pants-of-dog wrote:To tie this back to the actual topic, this explains why capitalism will not fix climate change.

It is not in the interests of capitalists to do so.



In the most sinister sense, if climate change renders nobody (or not enough people / money / capital / power ...) to profit off from, then it's a different matter.
#15093551
Pants-of-dog wrote:To tie this back to the actual topic, this explains why capitalism will not fix climate change.

It is not in the interests of capitalists to do so.


You are 100% correct POD. Climate change will only be solved when there is a demand by the public and when there is an opportunity to make money by the private sector. When that happens the problem will be solved.



Public healthcare,.

Military.

Public utilities.

Environmental protection.


It is best to administer the health care by private doctors. They in turn can bill the government. A 100% public system may not work that well. The Swiss health Insurance system is a good one. Basic insurance for all and then those that can afford can add more. The basic obligatory insurance system is not allowed to make a profit. IN America we should have a basic Medicare Plan for all.

Yes, government is important for those basic functions. We are in agreement.
#15093555
Julian658 wrote:You are 100% correct POD. Climate change will only be solved when there is a demand by the public and when there is an opportunity to make money by the private sector. When that happens the problem will be solved.


There is a demand.

No one is doing anything about this demand because they cannot make money off it.

So we keep killing people and the planet. This is a failure of capitalism.
#15093558
Pants-of-dog wrote:So we keep killing people and the planet.


In some sense these two can be mutually exclusive. For example, killing greedy people can be said as saving the planet (as long as this does not make others greedy)
#15093564
ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, so based on this, then, would you consider workers collective control over social production (socialism), to potentially be an improvement over capitalism?



Julian658 wrote:
It is an improvement. But, the main hurdle is the removal of self interest. Adam Smith old saying is true:

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." This has always been why we have excess goods in capitalist nations.



Okay, but I think we've covered this already -- remember this -- ?


Julian658 wrote:
As long as the talented achieve more than the less talented there will be a drive to work.



This is *non-monetary* motivation, as in a new scientific discovery, or a new kind of technology made into a tool for consumers, post-capitalism.

I think it's a *misnomer* and a *stereotype* that there would be no self-interest, post-capitalism -- again, as long as there's a 'critical mass' of involvement / work for the common good, by voluntary liberated laborers, then the communist gift economy would be viable. Perhaps the common-good workweek would be 10 hours for most everyone, at factory-type work roles, until full automation could be implemented, with the rest of the week being for personal interests, including the more-specialized, *artisanal*-type local projects that you favor.

'Excess goods' in advanced capitalist nations is due to the capitalist economic dynamic of *overproduction*.



In economics, overproduction, oversupply, excess of supply or glut refers to excess of supply over demand of products being offered to the market. This leads to lower prices and/or unsold goods along with the possibility of unemployment.



Overproduction is often attributed as due to previous overinvestment – creation of excess productive capacity, which must then either lie idle (or under capacity), which is unprofitable, or produce an excess supply.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overproduction



(Look at *oil* prices, currently.)


---


Julian658 wrote:
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. This is so true when you compare government services with services provided by the private sector.



Oh, you're not addressing / following-up with what I wrote, and now you're *reverting* to your pro-capitalism platitudes.

The reason why government-type social services are so inadequate is simply due to their being *underfunded*, and competed-against by private-sector interests, as with corporate lobbying.

Are you *against* corporations and corporate lobbying, as you've indicated previously?


Julian658 wrote:
However he was aware of the evils of capitalism;

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience



Okay, I appreciate the even-handedness.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Well, with this you're still in the competitive 'rat race' mentality, so-to-speak. Sure, people have personal goals, and would as well, post-capitalism, but I'd like to present you with the equality-vs.-hierarchy question again -- are you open to the idea of a society that has an ethos in common of treating possessions as just being a *social* task, instead of it being a *personal* accomplishment, as through wages or wealth or social status, so that people are freed-up to do whatever it is they really *want* to do?



Julian658 wrote:
It is possible to get there, but it would require a change in culture and customs. But, yeah, it would be great. Having to constantly swim to keep the head above water gets old. But, this has been the story of the animal kingdom since day one. I will not mention the need for abundance of wealth again.



I'll argue -- on a finer point -- that all that would be needed would be a *paradigm shift* in how *production* gets done. Once the 'base' (material basis of productivity) is overhauled, then the 'superstructure' (culture and customs) will follow-suit, as well. It's for this reason that I'm *not* a Maoist / Stalinist, because revolutionaries *shouldn't* be chasing after cultural matters. Revolutionize how social production get done and the rest will fall into place.

Thanks for acknowledging the present-day material capacity for *abundance* -- at this point in material development *no one* should have to struggle to keep one's head above water, when society today is more than capable of producing for everyone's needs. Anything after that would be more *discretionary*, and so could be more *specialized*. Some have even theorized that the *market mechanism* could be retained for this post-capitalist, specialized / discretionary domain of goods and services, but I personally don't agree since I'd like to see all market exchanges *abolished*, regardless. Nonetheless I did make a diagram for this other position even though I don't agree with it:


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

Spoiler: show
Image



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I'd argue that individual, personal 'natural talent' is too-often *constricted* and channeled into avenues of *exploitation*, under capitalism. Here's from my favorite political essay:



Julian658 wrote:
True! Very few in the world get to have a job they enjoy 24/7 for a lifetime. Middle of the pack professional golfers come to a point where they hate to be away from home week after week. And all they have to do is play golf. Touring musicians get sick of the road when all they have to do is play the songs that made them famous. Any job can become alienating, but much more so for those that are low end workers.



Agreed -- I'll ask you to *consider* the following:


Alienation of the worker

Alienation of the worker from the act of production

Alienation of the worker from their Gattungswesen (species-essence)

Alienation of the worker from other workers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_ ... alienation


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, cool. Would you mind taking a quick glance at the following diagram, and tell me if you agree with it in the *abstract*:



Julian658 wrote:
Adam Smith agrees with you. The diagram is correct as of today. This is subject to change. We are in unknown territory. IN the old days there was a potential job for everyone. A man with a blue collar mind would plow the fields next to a man who could have been an astrophysicist. However, this is at a time when 97% of the world was very poor. Jobs are disappearing. There no more people needed to run the elevators. When you call an office you always get automation to direct your call. I can now see a massive proliferation of restaurants that will operate with no waiters in the Corona era. In other words we are heading into a future where only the talented ones will have meaningful jobs.



Well, regarding this part, I would say that the factor of *low pay* is more significant than the factor of 'talent', though maybe *both* -- H1B immigrant workers immediately comes to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa


Julian658 wrote:
From your article:


Ayn Rand agrees, that is a paradox.



Agreed


Agreed



Cool, good -- I thought that essay was up-your-alley, and that it would speak to you.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I include this to say I'm not the 'heaven-for-ever-after' kind of communist -- I don't think it would automatically be gauzy bliss the day after the bourgeoisie is overthrown, but it would certainly be a fuck of a lot better than capitalism, throughout. The components in the diagram I see as being empirically *differing* social interests, but in a post-capitalist, communist-type society everyone could easily *move* through social roles of these various social components, while under *capitalism* one cannot.



Julian658 wrote:
Remains to be seen. In that system I may lose what I have.



Oh, so perhaps your main reservation about workers-of-the-world socialism is *personal*. That's certainly *understandable*, and all I can say is the reiteration that as long as there's a *critical mass* of voluntary involvement, things will be just fine for *everyone* in the communist gift economy.


---


Julian658 wrote:
From a biological standpoint we are driven to spread DNA. Women are naturally attracted to men that can provide. Not all men get to mate whereas a few men get to mate a lot.



Okay -- if you want to focus on this particular aspect / level, that's fine, though I happen to think of it as being rather 'low-level' myself. (And, yes, since you *didn't* ask I *do* have a diagram for this, as well.) (heh) (There's 'Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs', again.)


[12] G.U.T.S.U.C.

Spoiler: show
Image



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Yeah, there would have to be a vanguardist *workers* state in the transition from capitalism to communism, and it would have to be authoritarian in order to overthrow the bourgeois ruling class. I think you already commented favorably on the brief 'vanguardism' post that I included from RevLeft. Here's a diagram as well:



Julian658 wrote:
OK, at least you admit that. Other socialists in the forum evade the subject. OK, I saw the arrow.



I guess I see it as *unavoidable* since the proletariat's vanguard would *necessarily* have to be centralized and hegemonic, in order to defeat the bourgeoisie.


Julian658 wrote:
I cannot imagine a society where there are no exchanges. How is that possible? There would have to be some source of endless wealth. You keep saying wealth is not needed. Call it what you want to call it but societies need a source of some sort of energy (a figure of speech) to thrive. You cannot create wealth or energy out of nothing. Ultimately wealth is the product of labor and innovation. Wealth grows exponentially when many benefit from an invention. Wealth can also be defined as natural resources, but these create nothing on their own. MAN is needed for the final product.



Yes, okay, I understand.

One small thing: Can you use the term 'exchange values' (as distinct from *use* values), instead of 'wealth', for this usage, for the sake of the discussion?

To *clarify*, I'll maintain that, post-capitalism / post-commodity-production, exchange values / exchanges / currency / money / finance would definitely *not* be needed, *because* a collectivized workplace / factory could simply pre-determine who the consumers will be, exactly, *before* production even gets going -- once the products are manufactured they could then be *directly distributed* from the point of production (without any intermediary exchanges), to those individuals, thereby obviating any need for currency, exchanges, or investment speculation of any sort.

If wealth / exchange values are ultimately the product of labor and innovation / initiative / 'dead labor' / infrastructure / raw materials, then this latter factor can simply be *collectivized*, and co-administered by the liberated-workers involved in any specific *project*, over such *local* productive assets (factories, equipment, resources, etc.) -- see my 'labor credits' illustration.


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

Spoiler: show
Image


https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... ost2889338


---


Julian658 wrote:
Norway owns about 40% of oil which means this is owned by the citizens. However, the system is administered by capitalists.



Right -- so you're indicating a *nationalization* of a particular natural resource, but private *finance* is still used for its extraction and commodification.

Imagine this 'nationalization' of oil being extended to *all* natural resources, then additionally to all productive infrastructure (factories, etc.), and then to all *employment* / labor, as well.

Also, instead of being constrained to the borders / boundaries of *one* country, such 'nationalization' could be expanded to an *international* / intercontinental scope so that the administration of all this stuff is *centralized*, potentially up to a fully *global* scale.


Emergent Central Planning

Spoiler: show
Image



Finally, instead of being in the hands of some kind of caste-like, class-like specialized standing bureaucratic-elitist administration, the world's productive assets, resources, and labor are all dynamically *co-administered*, on-the-fly, by those liberated-laborers who are actively at work, at their workplaces, collectively. This would be workers-of-the-world socialism.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Meaning that people can certainly be motivated by *accomplishment* / achievement, in whatever field(s) they happen to be in. Off the top of my head I mentioned, in the past, 'craft', 'social leadership', 'creativity', etc.



Julian658 wrote:
Clearly needed.



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
No, it's *not* based, ultimately, on a tribalist 'groupthink', or culture -- it's based on *class interest*, meaning better wages, better benefits, and more *control* in the workplace, and in the economy, ultimately to controlling all of social production itself by *overthrowing* the ruling class.



Julian658 wrote:
OK,
BTW, this is how the democrats lost to Trump. They forgot the workers.



True.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
You should know from *psychology* that the human psyche is *quite* malleable, depending on the surrounding local (and greater) social conditions -- have you ever seen the Milgram experiment?



Julian658 wrote:
Yes, this is how the Germans followed Hitler. Man is a beast. This also explains how Castro sent men to the Paredón to be shot.



Maybe we could call it 'nationalist authoritarianism'.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Let me put it *this* way -- a successful proletarian revolution would be based on inherent *class interest* expressing itself. It wouldn't *require* a consensus of 7+ billion. It *could* be very broad-based, and bottom-up, and *should* *ideally* be this way, but it could also be top-down, though still in the interests of the working class, through the workers-state administration, however composed.



Julian658 wrote:
How about the white collar people?



The working class is composed of blue-collar (physical), pink-collar (service), and white-collar (office) types of work roles, though many white-collar types of work are directly in the service of *private ownership*, as with management and private-sector bureaucracies -- 'overhead', basically -- and so are actually *not* producing commodities, and so are *not* proletarian.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Really! May I ask how many years you think it will take for universal humane comfort to be technologically enabled and affordable, as the crow flies?



Julian658 wrote:
I say 2-300 years. Assuming no Nuclear war or being hit by an asteroid



Wow, really -- that long, you think.

I agree that the most realistic barrier comes from the threat of inter-imperialist *warfare*, as you're indicating, which is *always* a detriment to social historical progress (as, again, in Russia, in 1917-1918).

Optimistically I think we might see 3D printing become *large-scale* -- actually it *is*, already, and can print entire homes within its expanse -- but maybe it needs to be more 'roboticized' so that it's more flexible, self-mobile, and able to fabricate *anything* humanely needed ('general purpose'). On *this* trajectory I'd say 10-20 years, barring social setbacks.
#15093801
ckaihatsu wrote:
This is *non-monetary* motivation, as in a new scientific discovery, or a new kind of technology made into a tool for consumers, post-capitalism.

I think it's a *misnomer* and a *stereotype* that there would be no self-interest, post-capitalism -- again, as long as there's a 'critical mass' of involvement / work for the common good, by voluntary liberated laborers, then the communist gift economy would be viable. Perhaps the common-good workweek would be 10 hours for most everyone, at factory-type work roles, until full automation could be implemented, with the rest of the week being for personal interests, including the more-specialized, *artisanal*-type local projects that you favor.





That is fine! There is an old saying that says communism works if all involved "want to be communists". That is why the imposition of the system, the removal of profit motive, and the suppression of civil liberties causes communism to fail. Furthermore, it has to be stated over and over sgsin that communism needs a system of endless wealth and we are not there yet. Once we get there communism happens naturally.

'Excess goods' in advanced capitalist nations is due to the capitalist economic dynamic of *overproduction*.


Which often leads to very cheap products or sometimes free products. You have no idea how incredibly sophisticated your i-phone is? And that i-phone is expensive, however, due to competition a lesser phone can be had for free and distributed to the homeless and the poor.

(Look at *oil* prices, currently.)


That is the beauty of capitalism. When the demand is low or the supply is high the prices drop. That supply and demand are great tools to run an economy in an efficient manner. A fla in the system is that some in need (demand) do not have the means of acquisition. And this is the customer base ofr socialism. The issue is why some people remain poor while living in wealthy capitalist nations? What is the true reason of poverty among those that live in a wealthy nation?


The reason why government-type social services are so inadequate is simply due to their being *underfunded*, and competed-against by private-sector interests, as with corporate lobbying.


Montana spends 11,348 USD per pupil in public education with an average ASAT 1196
Washington DC spends 19,159 USD per pupil with average ASAT scores 950, the lowest in the nation.

If you talk to a typical pink liberal they will say the DC schools are underfunded. Yeah, right. The issue is poverty and lack of adequate parents. BTW, private parochial Catholic schools spend much less per pupil that public schools with better results.

That is why I preach military type schools with strict discipline.

This same principle applies to any other service provided by the government.










Alienation of the worker

Alienation of the worker from the act of production

Alienation of the worker from their Gattungswesen (species-essence)

Alienation of the worker from other workers


A job that causes joy 24/7 is rare. Perhaps a self employed/mom and pop shop.

Well, regarding this part, I would say that the factor of *low pay* is more significant than the factor of 'talent', though maybe *both* -- H1B immigrant workers immediately comes to mind.



Before Corona, there were plenty of jobs and lack of qualified applicants. The system is one that requires constant adaptation and retweaking. IN a socialist economy everybody is guaranteed to have employment. No need to swim to keep the head above water. The drive to get better goes away. I used to believe it was highly unfair that humans had to work for a living, but the opposite "getting something for nothing" may be destructive.



We have the capacity to give a nice free home to each homeless person in the world. However, they would also need maintenance and maid service. Many homeless are nihilistic and mentally ill. Many are strung out on drugs which is common in affluent free nations.

IN summary:
1. We are not there yet. Communism will only work if all want to be communists and if there is redundant wealth. It is a gradual process.
2. Will people become more nihilistic in a communist society?
#15093819
ckaihatsu wrote:
This is *non-monetary* motivation, as in a new scientific discovery, or a new kind of technology made into a tool for consumers, post-capitalism.

I think it's a *misnomer* and a *stereotype* that there would be no self-interest, post-capitalism -- again, as long as there's a 'critical mass' of involvement / work for the common good, by voluntary liberated laborers, then the communist gift economy would be viable. Perhaps the common-good workweek would be 10 hours for most everyone, at factory-type work roles, until full automation could be implemented, with the rest of the week being for personal interests, including the more-specialized, *artisanal*-type local projects that you favor.



Julian658 wrote:
That is fine! There is an old saying that says communism works if all involved "want to be communists". That is why the imposition of the system, the removal of profit motive, and the suppression of civil liberties causes communism to fail. Furthermore, it has to be stated over and over sgsin that communism needs a system of endless wealth and we are not there yet. Once we get there communism happens naturally.



You *say* that a communist gift economy would be 'fine', but then you're immediately chipping-away at it, and your statements show you to actually want to *restore* capitalism.

I think you're *not understanding*, Julian, that the economics of capitalism versus communism are *mutually antagonistic*. For any given product produced, for example, will that product go to a consumer based on *money* or will it go to a consumer based on their *need* for it -- ? It can't be *both*.

Also, you're not acknowledging that communism doesn't *require* wealth / money / exchange values -- it's less complex and unwieldy *without* a monetary system, by using pre-planning / centralized planning.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
'Excess goods' in advanced capitalist nations is due to the capitalist economic dynamic of *overproduction*.



Julian658 wrote:
Which often leads to very cheap products or sometimes free products. You have no idea how incredibly sophisticated your i-phone is? And that i-phone is expensive, however, due to competition a lesser phone can be had for free and distributed to the homeless and the poor.



Yeah, but you're ignoring the colossal amounts of *waste*, due to capitalism's endemic dynamic of overproduction:


Anarchy of capitalist food production exposed as dairy farmers ordered to dump milk

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... k-a06.html


---


Julian658 wrote:
That is the beauty of capitalism. When the demand is low or the supply is high the prices drop. That supply and demand are great tools to run an economy in an efficient manner. A fla in the system is that some in need (demand) do not have the means of acquisition. And this is the customer base ofr socialism. The issue is why some people remain poor while living in wealthy capitalist nations? What is the true reason of poverty among those that live in a wealthy nation?



Your triumphalist sentiment is *misplaced* -- why should capitalism need government *bailouts*, and what do you think of these bailouts that happen whenever the market *crashes*?

Instead of government bailing-out this middleman mechanism of 'the markets', why doesn't the government just *ask* what people need, and then coordinate production to fulfill these human needs *directly*? It would basically be Stalinism -- an *improvement* over capitalism's chaos -- until the workers can take control of their workplaces themselves.


Political Spectrum, Simplified

Spoiler: show
Image



---


Julian658 wrote:
Montana spends 11,348 USD per pupil in public education with an average ASAT 1196
Washington DC spends 19,159 USD per pupil with average ASAT scores 950, the lowest in the nation.

If you talk to a typical pink liberal they will say the DC schools are underfunded. Yeah, right. The issue is poverty and lack of adequate parents. BTW, private parochial Catholic schools spend much less per pupil that public schools with better results.

That is why I preach military type schools with strict discipline.

This same principle applies to any other service provided by the government.



Why is the government *skimping* on education spending compared to *military* spending? Shouldn't the military get the existing *education* budget, and education get the existing *military* budget?

Your advocacy of an ultra-nationalist *culture* for the schools is incorrect. It just winds up promoting militarism.


---


Julian658 wrote:
Any job can become alienating,



ckaihatsu wrote:
Alienation of the worker

Alienation of the worker from the act of production

Alienation of the worker from their Gattungswesen (species-essence)

Alienation of the worker from other workers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_ ... alienation



Julian658 wrote:
A job that causes joy 24/7 is rare. Perhaps a self employed/mom and pop shop.



You mentioned how all work is *alienating*, which is a Marxist concept, and now you don't want to *follow-up* on this topic at all?


---


Julian658 wrote:
Before Corona, there were plenty of jobs and lack of qualified applicants. The system is one that requires constant adaptation and retweaking. IN a socialist economy everybody is guaranteed to have employment. No need to swim to keep the head above water. The drive to get better goes away. I used to believe it was highly unfair that humans had to work for a living, but the opposite "getting something for nothing" may be destructive.



What is an economy *for*, Julian?

It's to fulfill *demands*, for material goods and services.

You're too concerned with 'middleman'-type logistical metrics, like 'employment', and 'drive' / motivation, and moralism, and 'meritocracy', when, in the end, what counts is whether people are getting what they need or not -- why else have an economy at all?

- Jobs would not even be *necessary*, if society can get to *full automation*, with the products of such going to those who *need* the stuff. The point of socialism isn't some contrived 'full employment', it's about making social production work for those who organically need the products and services from it.

- You've already admitted that there are *other* human motivations to work besides sheer monetary compensation.

- People *don't* all have to work for a living. Just look at the wealthy -- *they* don't produce *any* commodities, and yet they live off of the productive labor of *others*, because of their privileged ownership of capital.

- We *constantly* get 'something for nothing', even back in hunter-gatherer, pre-class-division days, just by *foraging*, and the most-dispossessed, homeless-type people do this today. Why shouldn't nature's bounty be open to *everyone*, instead of locked away, by the parcel, in private accumulations / private property? Ditto for productive goods (factories / workplaces).

In a *post*-class context if people want something *new* to be produced they would have full, proportionate access to the means of mass industrial production, to *make* such a thing, even if they couldn't rouse sufficient social participation for it to be done with *others*. So, worst-case, it would have to be d.i.y. -- best-case there *would* be sufficient voluntary involvement, and the mass production of this new thing could then benefit *many* who may happen to have a common need for it. (And all without having to pay 'bribes' / profits to private ownership for activation of the same on proprietary equipment.)


Julian658 wrote:
We have the capacity to give a nice free home to each homeless person in the world. However, they would also need maintenance and maid service. Many homeless are nihilistic and mentally ill. Many are strung out on drugs which is common in affluent free nations.

IN summary:
1. We are not there yet. Communism will only work if all want to be communists and if there is redundant wealth. It is a gradual process.



Goddamit, Julian, the *capacity* for a humane society is *already here*, and you've just *acknowledged* as much by saying that we have the capacity to give a nice free home to each homeless person in the world. Why are you then repeating that there needs to be 'redundant wealth'? This is *contradictory*.

Any individual life-path problems can be addressed with kind, humane *medical*-type social care.

We don't have the *luxury* of time to wait and see if the world will just automatically be ushered-into a socialist-type society. Wouldn't it be more practical to *end military spending* so as to ensure that no further nationalist destructiveness is enabled, as a prerequisite?

Not everyone in the world will *want* to be a communist, and we don't have the luxury of time to wait around to see if *that* happens, or not -- my political line is 'Don't be a counterrevolutionary.'


Julian658 wrote:
2. Will people become more nihilistic in a communist society?



Do you want to kick things off on this one?
#15093855
ckaihatsu wrote:You *say* that a communist gift economy would be 'fine', but then you're immediately chipping-away at it, and your statements show you to actually want to *restore* capitalism.



We are going around in circles and (as always) I have issues with the feasibility of your proposal. Marx made a brilliant diagnosis, but no one knows what is the most effective therapy. The Utopic last stage of communism sounds very much like a metaphysical state. This is a bit like talking to Plato who believed that an ideal state should be built under the principles of justice. In his opinion, justice assumes that, firstly, the interests of the whole (state) are more important and higher than the interests of the individual. Plato was also an elitist that believed only smart people should rule for the good of society. And lastly, he had this concept of beauty and perfection (see below);

Image

When I hear you describe communism you are incredibly Platonic. You are having a romantic interest with a near impossibility. And that is the root of my hesitancy. It truly sounds too good to be true. The imperfection of capitalism is so obvious that many seek an alternative, particularly those that have an open to experience personality. You keep saying there is no need for wealth. And that is a stumbling block for me. The only way wealth is not an issue is when wealth becomes redundant.

Yeah, but you're ignoring the colossal amounts of *waste*, due to capitalism's endemic dynamic of overproduction:


Like American farmers throwing away crops, milks, and even killing pigs because there is simply too much food. IN fact, one of the penalties of living in a wealthy capitalist nation is the abundance of food. Everyday i have to struggle by not indulging in overeating. AT the office the kitchen is packed with food 24/7 and my wife loves to cook.

You are platonic in your view. You are stuck in the green circle:
Image

Also, you're not acknowledging that communism doesn't *require* wealth / money / exchange values -- it's less complex and unwieldy *without* a monetary system, by using pre-planning / centralized planning.


It lacks the demands of the market and centralized planning is limited and unidirectional. Very little room to think out of the box. The planners are not vested in the system so they procrastinate and plan poorly. Why dedicate time and effort?

Instead of government bailing-out this middleman mechanism of 'the markets', why doesn't the government just *ask* what people need, and then coordinate production to fulfill these human needs *directly*? It would basically be Stalinism -- an *improvement* over capitalism's chaos -- until the workers can take control of their workplaces themselves.


Stalin killed or sent farm owners to Siberia and took over farming. The immediate effects of forced collectivization were reduced grain output and almost halved livestock numbers, thus creating major famines throughout the USSR. The implementation of the Utopia is rather difficult.

Why is the government *skimping* on education spending compared to *military* spending? Shouldn't the military get the existing *education* budget, and education get the existing *military* budget?

Your advocacy of an ultra-nationalist *culture* for the schools is incorrect. It just winds up promoting militarism.


You need to look up the Kansas City school experiment of the 1990s. IN some instances they spent 40k per student and GOT ZERO in return. It is not the money. Ché Guevara taught peasants how to read under a tree in the forest. What education needs is strict discipline and not wishy washy pink liberalism.

You mentioned how all work is *alienating*, which is a Marxist concept, and now you don't want to *follow-up* on this topic at all?


Even a King or a Queen get bored. It is human nature. The other side of the coin is doing NOTHING and getting something in return. Is that any better?

What is an economy *for*, Julian?

It's to fulfill *demands*, for material goods and services.

You're too concerned with 'middleman'-type logistical metrics, like 'employment', and 'drive' / motivation, and moralism, and 'meritocracy', when, in the end, what counts is whether people are getting what they need or not -- why else have an economy at all?

- Jobs would not even be *necessary*, if society can get to *full automation*, with the products of such going to those who *need* the stuff. The point of socialism isn't some contrived 'full employment', it's about making social production work for those who organically need the products and services from it.

- You've already admitted that there are *other* human motivations to work besides sheer monetary compensation.

- People *don't* all have to work for a living. Just look at the wealthy -- *they* don't produce *any* commodities, and yet they live off of the productive labor of *others*, because of their privileged ownership of capital.

- We *constantly* get 'something for nothing', even back in hunter-gatherer, pre-class-division days, just by *foraging*, and the most-dispossessed, homeless-type people do this today. Why shouldn't nature's bounty be open to *everyone*, instead of locked away, by the parcel, in private accumulations / private property? Ditto for productive goods (factories / workplaces).

In a *post*-class context if people want something *new* to be produced they would have full, proportionate access to the means of mass industrial production, to *make* such a thing, even if they couldn't rouse sufficient social participation for it to be done with *others*. So, worst-case, it would have to be d.i.y. -- best-case there *would* be sufficient voluntary involvement, and the mass production of this new thing could then benefit *many* who may happen to have a common need for it. (And all without having to pay 'bribes' / profits to private ownership for activation of the same on proprietary equipment.)


I do not disagree. We will get there one day, but it will take some time. Or maybe much less than 200 years. IN this era changes developed from decade to decade rather than from century to century (as in the old days).
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