[B0ycey]

You mean everybody gets to do what they want and consume what they want? You're right, that solves everything.

Communism would solve everything @Rugoz, if it wasn't for human nature. It is the ultimate ideology that unfortunately can easily fall victim to corruption. Remember Communism is nothing different than what you see in nature (so can work). Every animal does the bare minimum required to survive and lives off the spoils that they do. Nature also mostly requires teamwork and sharing spoils too.

Nonetheless humans are too greedy for Communism to work. I doubt someone doing a high skilled job is willing to do so when someone else does a low skilled job - without getting a reward for doing so of course. Then there is the obvious problems of lack of motivation that is likely to occur without reward and the same is true for progression too.

[Tainari88]

Communism would solve everything @Rugoz, if it wasn't for human nature. It is the ultimate ideology that unfortunately can easily fall victim to corruption. Remember Communism is nothing different than what you see in nature (so can work). Every animal does the bare minimum required to survive and lives off the spoils that they do. Nature also mostly requires teamwork and sharing spoils too.

Nonetheless humans are too greedy for Communism to work. I doubt someone doing a high skilled job is willing to do so when someone else does a low skilled job - without getting a reward for doing so of course. Then there is the obvious problems of lack of motivation that is likely to occur without reward and the same is true for progression too.

That is not true B0ycey. The greed is there because it is encouraged by this system in its superstructure. If you discourage greed and make it extremely bad to practice. You give very socially pressured consequences for being greedy B0ycey? You limit it. Think about it B0ycey? I have a little six year old boy in first grade. What is it that little kids get taught in school? Please share your toys, space, food, and things. So that the whole class can improve. Wait your turn, mind your manners, say please and thank you. They encourage empathy, respect for each other, etc. It is the goal to civilizing little short human beings full of youth and inexperience. Are you going to tell me that what is taught systemically for a first grader, and is largely successful after a school year of reinforcing the value system, with consequences and rewards for the proper conduct, that somehow adults in an adult system are never going to learn? They are going to only accept shit like greed forever? Will only permit corruption forever and therefore it is no use trying to change things?

Tell me that you and others who have no faith in equality in a human society can't learn what six year old little children learn in 1st grade? Tell me...B0ycey, with a straight face, "Impossible to create a society that replaces corrupt and ugly values like Capitalist values and Greed is good--a la Gordon Gecko of Wall Street promotes all the time in this system? That a very cooperative and socially responsible system of economics, society etc. Don't even try. Adults can't learn what is taught to six year old little kids in elementary school. Too hard. Too challenging. Don't even try?" Tell me that.

I will reply to you B0ycey, "That is a total cop out from a cynical person either benefiting from the current system, and unwilling to change, or be for change. Or a person who doesn't have a vision of a better society and has given up on the human race. Homo Sapiens are the worst creatures on the planet and collectively we will do nothing but kill ourselves with incessant wars, greed, corruption and bad behavior. We are doomed!"

I don't believe it. All I have to do to hope for a better world is see the love in my little boy's eyes, and see the ones who are adults fighting for a better world every day. Who love humanity and have hope and faith and also work very hard serving others without self interest, without hatreds and petty envies, and who love and also seek truth through scientific research, through art, literature, and through a lifetime of work that is not about profit or greed and exploitation. But about service.

Either you are up to the task of fighting for equality....or you gave up on it and accept the dark side.

It is like Star Wars B0ycey, "May the Force Be With You" the force for progress, change and getting all humans to stop believing in SHIT and working on JUSTICE.

It is that simple.

Oh, I forgot to add, you think Capitalism is not rife with the most bold and obvious corruption of the worst sort? And the history of humanity is all about lots of failures before success. Right now how many people in the USA and all around the world are willing to give up on free universal health care, social security, unemployment insurance and socialist programs around for a long time and go back to rawhide capitalism and greed and Great Depression soup line kitchens for working families? How many? Obviously there is progress. Despite people like you of little faith. Lol. I am teasing you B0ycey.

Que Viva La Justicia! Long Live Justice! It is what makes for a better world in the end. Not Greed, Profits or accepting static unchanging inequality. That is for people who have no true understanding or Equality. Ever.

[B0ycey]

I think you make a strong point by using children as your casing point @Tainari88 and I hope I'm wrong, but when I look at society as a whole, I only see self interest. Sure there are some good people who will go out of their way to help those in need, but there is not enough of them to create a global Communist society.

Nonetheless equality is a much more achievable goal. It's just likely to fall into a capitalist model of some form. But saying that, the top 1%s greed is creating a class gap in wealth that could easily be a catalyst in the destruction of Capitalist model that we know today and if this happens and humans can work together, there is no reason why Marx couldn't be right. I however will admit to being pessimistic here and only see Anarchy, the end of globalism and more internal (national) industrial trade whuch replicates a medieval/primitive capitalist model happening instead. Perhaps it could take the form of Socialism if we are lucky. But it would need to be ruled by an ethical leader. And that rules out Trump.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

"From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." What doesn't that solve?

One could argue that developed countries have achieved this. Needs, at least by the standards of the time this slogan was created, are covered. We also by and large pay people according to their ability.

Of course, communists want something else entirely. They want to decide what every one of us deserves and you never know what glorious future they have in store for you. It could be subsistence farming for all of us, as in the case of the Khmer Rouge, or perhaps a Great Leap Forward. How exciting the times must have been when you could end up in a mass grave tomorrow because some Communists wanted to bring about utopia.

[AFAIK]

I miss the free market days when millions of Indians starved to death because it was more profitable for Britain to export their food overseas.

The freer the market, the freer the people!

[anticlimacus]

The definition of equality is easy: Its the state of being equal. So when one talks about equality, one has to consider then the context, which could change what one wants to be equal, but not the definition. For example, I might say economic equality is everybody having the same opportunities, but could vary in outcomes. However, another might say, that economic equality is everybody having the same outcomes regardless of opportunity. Equality means the same thing in both contexts--the question is what one wants to be equal that is debatable.

[anticlimacus]

The definition of equality is easy: Its the state of being equal. So when one talks about equality, one has to consider then the context, which could change what one wants to be equal, but not the definition. For example, I might say economic equality is everybody having the same opportunities, but could vary in outcomes. However, another might say, that economic equality is everybody having the same outcomes regardless of opportunity. Equality means the same thing in both contexts--the question is what one wants to be equal that is debatable.

[Suntzu]

Folks weren't born equal. What can the government do to change that?

[Tainari88]

One could argue that developed countries have achieved this. Needs, at least by the standards of the time this slogan was created, are covered. We also by and large pay people according to their ability.

Of course, communists want something else entirely. They want to decide what every one of us deserves and you never know what glorious future they have in store for you. It could be subsistence farming for all of us, as in the case of the Khmer Rouge, or perhaps a Great Leap Forward. How exciting the times must have been when you could end up in a mass grave tomorrow because some Communists wanted to bring about utopia.

Well, the problem I see with your argument is very simple. What does capitalism decide for the majority of the world's population that lives under capitalist rule? How many people live in the nations were according to you? People are paid according to their abilities and not because they were born to underclass families? Can you truly say that capitalist nations without any socialism in them at all are doing a good job in giving people opportunities and a chance to study what they want and without being burdened with debt and obstacles?

The Phillipines has a large percentage of their population abandoning the nation and working in the Gulf states, Europe, Asia, etc because the local economy has zero to offer them. Families separated and people living by the millions outside of their home nations. Why? Kaiserscharrn? Por que? Because capitalism is perfection. It works beautifully for who? For you and your family? It is not working for my country. It is SHIT. Colonialism is SHIT. Some powerful capitalist country decides they want to invade your nation, take your resources, pay your workers slave wages, give you food stamps because the unemployment rate is high and they want to avoid a bloody revolution and nationalist sentiments.....etc etc. They offer SHIT.

But, you got to feel good about capitalism Kaiserscharrn. It is the system that is JUST as hell isn't it? IT is not. IT SUCKS. It makes nations in Latin America and Africa and a lot of the Asian subcontinent employ child labor, breaks up families, it creates enormous instability, it makes people engage in wars over oil, water, land and it supports a two tiered system that only favors a very small minority of people. The owners of the means of production and the workers who only can sell their labor for food and basics. They never own a damn thing in those systems because their wages are so low that they can't buy anything like a house or a car or a damn thing. Why? Because they are relegated to working for 60 years just to survive and not leave a damn thing behind, so some comfortable people who LOVE CAPITALISM can say how great their own system is versus the system of capitalism absent of any real socialism to try to protect the underclass in most of the nations who are not developed.

The wealthy nations sneer at the nations of Africa, Latin America and many in Asia and say, "Shitholes. Third World. Pieces of Garbage." But the "Garbage" people occupy lands rich in minerals, oil, diamonds, arable land for agriculture, cheap labor that produces cell phones, televisions, furniture, toys, food, etc and etc...that the 'wealthy' nations use and discard and consume over and over again. They take the wealth out of us and then want to say how we FAILED.

I have news for you Kaiser, with the climate changes coming? We are all vulnerable, having an unequal system that wastes resources, doesn't allow working people to have security, stability or education is a system that will have to be kicked in the ass and discarded. When the planet gets contaminated to the point of no return? The only way out of the mess is going to be to stop the waste. The waste of resources, the waste of humanity, the waste...Period.

And it won't matter how many stupid versions of failed Communism in which there was no real communism because most of the states you cite were in early states of state capitalism and never in late stages of Communism. Impossible. Communism requires some very advanced human behavior to even have a shot at success. The biggest ones is getting rid of the 3 culprits of bullshit that capitalism requires in order to perpetuate itself---Greed, Selfishness and Ignorance. And not by the majority of humble workers and ordinary people. No. Just some extremely tiny group. Most people are never going to be millionaires in their lifetimes. The vast majority of the 7 billion or so or more humans are not going to in control of much money or property.

The Great Capitalist System doesn't solve many problems for the vast majority. It just pressures poor people into exploitative relationships. It makes them fearful of change. It holds them hostage and forces them to give up very important things in life. What are those things? Freedoms. Of Choice. Of Education. Of staying in your home culture and homeland. Having to leave to find work. Even crossing borders illegally to the nations who have pittance jobs because your nation can't even give you a stupid low wage shit job to survive with. The economy is so dysfunctional under it that you got to travel far to find some strange place that has some 'opportunity' that magically capitalism did not give you in your own capitalist version of the world.

Mexico is capitalist. Why is the USA capitalist but has a lot more socialism in it than Mexico does? Underdevelopment. Why are some nations underdeveloped and others are not. I have heard every stupid, racist, shitty argument out there....even had one guy tell me that somehow Kaiser, that white people have a magic gene that makes money more attracted to them. That Black people and Latin American people were inferior because of our genes and that is why money is not part of our destiny.

It gets to the point of stupidity. It is very systemic and scientific. You have power relationships at play. Every society has inbuilt power relationships. From families with husbands and wives, adults versus children. Churches, from priests vs. nuns, cardinals vs The Pope, the Imam vs the low level Muslim etc, males vs females, president vs. senators, mayor of a city vs council member of the city council, principal at a school versus teachers. Big brother vs little brother or sister, etc. Almost every human relationship known to human kind has power built into that relationship. Marxism deals with that. Acknowledge power relationships and deal with class conflict. If you don't? You won't get equality and you won't be able to deal with meeting the needs of the entire whole society. Just meeting the needs of a small minority and ignoring the needs of the vast majority. That is why you hear the Communists say Kaiser, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat". What does that mean? A communist acknowledges that the ones on top in a bourgeois society that is capitalist based economic structure and a capitalist superstructure Kaiser, should be serving the needs of the workers. Not the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are a tiny and relatively unmoving and powerful group, along with the elite in a society who consolidate their power and refuse to share their 'toys, their money, their power positions." Commies don't believe that these groups give up power without enormous pressure and threats and even bloody and violent revolutions. Because history demonstrates they don't. They (the elite and the comfortable class of elitists and bourgeoisie folk) will find ways of manipulating their power positions to serve their own interests first, second and last. Not the needs of the proletariat whom they ultimately LIVE OFF OF LIKE LEECHES. They are leeches, they consume hundreds of times what others have to work for in entire lifetimes in one month or one year. They do so for decades. No one needs ten homes and 80 billion dollars to survive and thrive. They do it because they CAN. It is about power at that point. The sharing their wealth with the underclass is not for them. Then they wonder when the Communists in history come looking for their fucking heads to put in on bloody pike? Why? Didn't the pro capitalist callous, greedy, ignorant and useless leech elite realize that their failure to cope with the needs of MILLIONS of proletariats was going to have historical consequences someday down the line? Or did they think unbalanced power relationships were going to remain the same forever Kaiser? Did they believe that lie?

What I do know is that I hate death, war and destruction. And Capitalism is not solving the problem. The Capitalists are just following what is dictated by the eocnomic system. Keep working people always in insecurity, keep them without investments in education, health and housing, keep them in stress and keep them on their knees in order to hang on to their wealth, their toys and more than that....THEIR POWER. And that is where they bring on their own destruction. Those who refuse to share power with the 'inferiors' are destined to get their ass kicked by the supposed 'inferiors'. You see it with the Third Reich, with the Russian Tsars and the peasant Communist Bolsheviks, with WWI and WWII, and every major problem. The Nazis did their best trying to exterminate the Jews as a cultural group. ALl they did was piss them off enough to go and found Israel and get aggressive as hell in defending their concept of Jewish nationhood.
Zionism came about for many reasons but it was also through the experience of the Holocaust.

Why can't the inferiors just accept their place in life and not challenge the elitists Kaiser? Why can't they just accept the system as it is? Would you if you were an 'inferior' and had to struggle mightily?

Can you answer that one for me Kaiser?

[Unperson-K]

Folks weren't born equal. What can the government do to change that?

A lot, as it turns out. Providing housing, healthcare, education, and market place regulations can go a long to partially remedying the bad hand that nature deals out. As does affirmative action.

[Zagadka]

Folks weren't born equal. What can the government do to change that?

It can't. It can ensure fairly close opportunity to them, though, as Kirillov said.

[Suntzu]

A lot, as it turns out. Providing housing, healthcare, education, and market place regulations can go a long to partially remedying the bad hand that nature deals out. As does affirmative action.

Since governments don't produce wealth, where does it get the resources to provide housing, healthcare and education. Isn't affirmative action just code for giving preference to certain classes of individuals\?

[Rugoz]

@Tainari88

Let's assume the following "utopia":

- 100% inheritance taxation and equal access to education (hence more or less equal starting conditions).
- Workers are paid according to their labor productivity. Perfect markets respectively perfect central planning is assumed (to what extent workers deserve the return on their savings/investment due to consumption postponement and risk neutrality is an open question).
- Public goods (in the economic sense) are financed with a non-distributive lump-sum tax.

Most people would consider the above utopia to be fair, in the sense that people get from the economy what they contribute. Would inequality in such a society be lower than what we have today? I'm not sure.
Redistribution through taxation is quite extensive, at least in Europe. People with low labor productivity, such as disabled people, would be fucked, given lump-sum taxation and a total lack of transfers.

To me the question of "economic fairness" is completely irrelevant beyond the question of economic efficiency. The "lack of exploitation" according to Marx is not a sufficient criteria for a utility-maximizing society (hint: I'm a utilitarian).

[AFAIK]

Are you talking about equality of opportunity (good) or equality of outcome (bad)?

Neither, you get equality of consideration.

For example, people in a developed society such as the USA or Britain need a telephone. A subsistence farmer in, say, Chad probably doesn't. The point, however, is that different people have different needs - the needs of someone with a physical disability are going to be different from the needs of someone who is able-bodied, and if more resources have to be expended on the disabled person to meet their needs, then so be it.