[IntelCore]

Hello! I apologize if this has been asked before, a quick search did not provide any clear answers.

I have always been a happy capitalist, and everything I know about communism comes from other capitalists, such as standard economics professors. I never actually heard the communist perspective on this, I just assumed that there was no response to them, which is a bit presumptuous.

I'm sorry if my understanding of communism is totally wrong, rendering the questions meaningless. I'd especially love answers that are either short or well summed up and very clear/concise. I assume that there are standard answers here, as this probably comes up in debates some times.

1. What are the incentives to work hard, innovate and invest resources under communism?

2. How can you ensure that resources are used by whoever needs them the most? (In a market system, higher prices for scare resources means people will not squander them. If e.g SLR cameras cost a certain sum, it will ensure that people only people who need them such as photographers will buy them, while most people will spend their money on other stuff. Obviously, this is irrelevant in a communist system which still uses money)

3. Related: How do you know when a resource is more scarce and should be replaced? (In a market system, this is typically regulated automatically. If e.g. steel becomes more scarce and difficult to extract, the price will increase, and people will perhaps begin to use aluminium instead. How can a communist system ensure that all these resources are used effectively, and replace ineffective products or resources with more effective ones? There must be millions of products out there to keep track on)

Also, have any communist country successfully resolved these issues?

Thank you very much

[Someone5]

Hello! I apologize if this has been asked before, a quick search did not provide any clear answers.

I have always been a happy capitalist, and everything I know about communism comes from other capitalists, such as standard economics professors. I never actually heard the communist perspective on this, I just assumed that there was no response to them, which is a bit presumptuous.

Indeed, there is quite a lot of comment from communists. It would be helpful if, before anyone goes too deep into this, if you would describe what you think of as a communist society? If you're coming from the perspective of dedicated capitalists, it is very likely that you will be imagining one thing while people are actually talking about something very different.

1. What are the incentives to work hard, innovate and invest resources under communism?

Personal motivation; work because you feel it necessary or important or enjoyable. There seems to be a sort of presupposition among capitalists that work has to be inherently unpleasant, that you have to force people to work. I--speaking for myself, obviously, not 'communism'--think that's probably a consequence of capitalism itself, which alienates people from their labor and forces them to act only for the interests of another (the person who owns the place they work at). To be perfectly honest, there is no systemic answer to that question. It will always be up to the individual to motivate themselves to work. Ultimately the capitalist proposition of "work or starve" creates only a very minimal level of participation. It doesn't convince people to work hard or innovate as much as they can, instead prompting them to 'work enough not to get fired' or 'innovate just enough'.

Why act under communism? Because--for whatever personal motivation--you want to act. Maybe you think it's your duty. Maybe you really enjoy doing it. Maybe you just don't want to live in a cesspit. Maybe there's a social agreement among you and your peers that everyone takes a turn doing some unpleasant things so they can avoid other unpleasant things. That might well extend to society as a whole--but perhaps not. The point is that it is done voluntarily, so 'we' do not need to arrange external motivations for action (like the 'work or starve' motivation of capitalism).

2. How can you ensure that resources are used by whoever needs them the most?

You can't. No system does that. Capitalism doesn't, feudalism didn't, socialism probably won't either. The problem lies in assessing "most". The capitalist answer is to just rely on the judgments of elites to make the call about what's important and not. Socialism would probably rely on some sort of social consensus about that. But ultimately everyone's got a different way of judging what's most important, and ultimately you can't make everyone maximally happy about the division of resources. But democratic consensus is certainly going to bring us closer to that goal than elite domination ever will.

(In a market system, higher prices for scare resources means people will not squander them. If e.g SLR cameras cost a certain sum, it will ensure that people only people who need them such as photographers will buy them, while most people will spend their money on other stuff. Obviously, this is irrelevant in a communist system which still uses money)

That's obviously not true, since products and services also exist as expensive status symbols. Are you saying that a luxury car is only bought by the people who won't squander them? That a luxury car used to haul one executive around is the absolute best use of that vehicle? In a market system, higher prices for scarce resources mean that people without a lot of money will use only the resources they need, while the people with lots of money are free to compete for everything else. And they certainly squander quite a lot of money.

I can tell you from personal experience that wealthy people will throw money down the toilet all the time--rich people wasting their money on stuff they don't use is how camera shops stay in business. Professional photographers don't even remotely constitute the sort of market that would float anything but a tiny niche served by a handful of businesses. If the only people who bought expensive cameras were people who wouldn't squander them, the price would triple.

3. Related: How do you know when a resource is more scarce and should be replaced?

Are stocks of that item, or available time of services diminished? Are they on a trajectory to be depleted? If trends continue as they are, or can be predicted in the near future, will shortages follow? It's pretty easy to determine what needs to be made if you can figure out how much you have of things and how likely you are to need more. Prices don't actually do a good job of reflecting that; they try to combine too much data into a single inadequate figure.

For example, if I suddenly need a thousand tons of steel, it doesn't much matter if the price is $140/ton or $700/ton (because I can pass that price down to my customers, since obviously all steel goods will be more expensive). What actually matters is whether there is a thousand tons of steel even available for me to buy right now. Prices tell me nothing about that. And if I do have that kind of inventory information, it's possible to put together a better understanding of supply and demand than price can offer anyway. That's to say nothing of the other pricing considerations of non-commodities. Commodities are comparatively simple and operate much more along the lines that economists suggest. Finished goods, on the other hand, are priced in part based on what they cost to make, in part based on what profit people want to make from them, and in part based on the market segment you're trying to hit.

(In a market system, this is typically regulated automatically. If e.g. steel becomes more scarce and difficult to extract, the price will increase, and people will perhaps begin to use aluminium instead.

Possibly, but the same decisions can be made by looking at inventories. Price isn't actually essential there.

How can a communist system ensure that all these resources are used effectively, and replace ineffective products or resources with more effective ones? There must be millions of products out there to keep track on)

How do you think actual corporations do it--by use of extensive data processing and huge pools of labor devoted to nothing but making those decisions.

Also, have any communist country successfully resolved these issues?

There haven't been any, so no.

[Decky]

There haven't been any, so no.

Cut his some slack, when he says communist country he obviosly means socialist country. So answer as if that is what he said and explain the mistake.

For the record Communist = ClasslesS stateless society; there haS never been a country like that in human history.

[AFAIK]

Price systems are a method of rationing by wealth. They don't ask the question, "People are hungry, how do we feed them?" They ask, "People are hungry, how do we profit?"

The London congestion charge fails to ensure that roads are available to the most needy, it ensures they are available to the most wealthy. This is why it allows multiple exemptions and still fails.

Organ transplants are rationed by medical panels, not wealth.