ideology?

[Skanderbeg]

quote: Originally posted by Cybergod on 04-18-2001 10:25 AM Germany: Demo/Green (is it true that they have 'green' government)/unknown

Certainly not right. It is true that the "Green" party are part of the government, but in reality Germany is reigned by the Morgan-Capitalists,
running Demo/FreeMarket/Wealth


In general Germany as as SMAX faction would have:
-1 growth, +0 economy, +2 efficiency (Germans do everything well, no matter if it is good or wrong), -1 planet (eco-friendly only on paper), +0 support, -1 morale (Germans like to lament on high level), +3 police (admiration of authorities), +2 industry, +0 research, +0 probe.
starting tech Industrial base, free childrens creche in every base (Kindergardens are a German invention). +1 Talent per 5 citizens (German beer purity law )
Hidden Goal: Eliminating the Dutch faction

Analizing this, if would come to the conclusion: Demo is ok, increasing effinciency and growth, support penalty doesn't hurt much because of good industry.
Free Market is possible in general, because of +3 police, but the morale penalty and the planet rating are hurting to much. Planned or Green would be better, planned for Growth + Industry or Green for planet + Efficiency.
Wealth: Impossible together with FM because of morale, and the money You get through wealth would be lost by inefficiency or for psych. Knowledge is
better, especially in combination with green.

The consequences by running Demo/FM/Wealth can be seen everywhere. Decrease of the quality of science, drone riots against the eco-unfriendly politics, and eco-damage (mad cow disease etc), and the German Football National team is loosing to often because of bad morale

If I was the German SMAC faction leader, I would change from wealth to knowledge and from FM to Green (yeah, my prefered SE choices with nearly any faction ) to give research a boost. And after discovering singularity it would be time to planetbust to the hidden goal

[Cybergod]

My personal SE choice (if I ever needed to do do as a president or something ):

Democratic (freedom for everyone)
Green (I worry myself too much over our pettyful world)
Knowledge (I believe that we should try to ascend ourselves as a species)
now FS...

either
Cybernetic (makes life easier and higher research)
Eudaimonic (again, free thinking, ascending philosophy )

SPs that would describe my ideology would be:
1. Clinical Immortality
2. Telepathic Matrix
3. Virtual World

how about you lot?
[This message has been edited by Cybergod (edited April 19, 2001).]

[Maniac]

Ok, Sikander, I’ll bite back. The stupidities you and other people are exclaiming here are really enormous.

quote: Does anyone really think that a planned economy can hold a candle to a free market economy? A communist type government may make a primitive nation more powerful in the short run, but it is folly to think that it can improve anything for a socially and technologically advanced society.

Could you please give the reasons why you make that statement? Or actually, could you please give reasons for everything you said in your post. Examples are the only thing you used for backing up your opinion. But as anyone should know, for every example pro your opinion, there is also one that can be given contra. So please, don’t make generalizations out one example.

I suppose the reason why you said a communist economy (communism is an economical system, not a government/political type) can’t lead to a technologically advanced society is because there’s no competition between corporations which can lead to faster research. This statement is false because there IS technological competition with communist countries. The only difference is, that in economic liberal (=free market) countries, the competition exists within the country, while with communist countries, the competition is with other countries, in other words, between countries. By the way, does it for the researchers matter anything if they’re paid by some private company or by the government? No, I don’t think so. The statement that communism would unavoidably lead to a slower technological advance is bulls-h-i-t. I would even say that communist countries have a benefit over free markets. That’s because the government of a communist country has more resources it can dedicate to research than some small corporation. Unless of course you are talking about big multinationals who have a bigger income than the GNP of poor countries (!). But then I ask you: if the world has only a few large multinational companies, where’s the competition that you like so much about free markets? Is it then still a free market? Personally, I don’t think so. I think, with the current trend of economic globalization and the trend of companies fusing to become even more and more larger, we are heading towards some sort of despotism; the dictators being the corporate directors. Through commercials and control of the media, they influence you, condition you to belief what they want, ultimately leading to the disappearance of free thought. One of the things they want to promote is a consumption society, reducing you to milk cows making a small elite richer and richer.

Above I touched the point of dictatorship, and the disappearance of free thought. I think [b]that[b/], the totalitarian despotic government, not the communist economy itself, is the reason why science progress went slower in countries such as the Soviet Union and China. In those countries, if your opinions and ideas differed from those of the government you were put away on some remote place, eg a concentration camp. Ending in a great reduction of creative minds.

quote: Take a look at East and West Germany for instance. Or at North and South Korea, perhaps a better example since both were fairly primitive 50 years ago.

Again, you generalize, based on few examples. Just as there are communist countries that don’t work out well (Who knows? Perhaps because those countries leaders/government suck; ot because of communism itself.), there are quite a few economic liberal countries that suck. To be more precise: almost the entire Third World.

How does it come that the third world’s free market economies don’t work? Actually, when you think a bit further about it, it’s quite strange that any free market works well. Cause what does free market cause? The transfer of wealth from the mass to a small elite. They do that by selling products to the mass. But those products are made by the same mass which buys them and who have to be paid. As a result, if the elite, the bourgeoisie wants to increase its wealth, it must be done by receiving more money from the masses than giving to it. This leads to a vicious circle of the mass becoming poorer and poorer. See 19th century Europe and you get what I mean. How can this circle be broken? How can you have, ànd a free market, ànd relatively welfaring people such as in the Western countries. The answer, I think, is by exploiting other countries, in this case the third world. You buy cheap resources and raw materials from them, use them as low wage workers and sell them much more expensive end products. This makes money free you can give to your own population. So actually, the problem of 19th century European free markets isn’t gone. It’s just transferred to another place. Thus, free market inherently causes there to be large sums of poor people. Sure, sure, you could say this represents the nature law of “survival of the fittest”: the best people will succeed most in the economic liberal ‘jungle’. But this theory only works if every person has the same chances to succeed in life. Reality shows us something else. Through private property children inherit the wealth of their parents and as a consequence those kids have more chances in life than others, even if those others are much more intelligent and talented than they are. A perfect example of this is the American president George W. Bush. He proved completely unsuccessful in business, nor did he show any other special talents (except charm perhaps, I don’t know); still he became president. He just managed to do that because he was supported by the corporate despots and dictators, who control most of the media and thus brainwash almost all Americans.

So in a free market, you unavoidably have a totally random distribution of wealth. Random I say, cause as said, it aren’t the ‘best’ who are richest. Thus free market is a really inefficient system, contrary to what you claimed in the following lines:

quote: While Sweden is perhaps the most socialistic economy of Western Europe, it is nonetheless it's ability to compete in a free market (and the efficiencies that creates) that allow it to function as well as it does.

Please, indulge me into some of your great insights and tell me some of those efficiencies.

To summarize, I think the policy leading to the fastest technological progress is on one side a government based on democratic and politic liberal values, such as freedom of thought,speech and press. Not freedom of religion and bearing arms though. On the other side a socialist economy, which gives everyone equal chances at the starting line. This way the nature law of “survival of the fittest” is still kept, even improved compared to economic liberalism.

BTW, just for the record: I’m not at all a communist! I’m as much against extreme-left (eg USSR) as I am against extreme-right (eg USA). I just think the present world is leaning too much to the right side of the scale. I would like to bring it in balance, some middleway, combining the “yin” of socialism and cooperation with the “yang” of free market and competition, thus combining the good sides of the two extremes This involves a little push to the left. But that doesn’t make me a communist.

I think you’re right about some of the green guys, btw. From the green guys I know, I think some/most of them are just a bunch of technophobic conservatives. They think that it really was a garden of Eden for humanity without technology, when everything was ‘pure’. Though I think the +2 Efficiency is justified, since that ‘economy’ (I would rank it under values such as Knowledge and Wealth) would do a lot of recycling, reducing waste. Completely the opposite thus of the throw-away free market economies. Another reason for reducing laissez-faire economic liberalism. If we keep that extreme economy type, we will kill ourselves. Not because of global warming (I doubt that has much to do with CO2, primarily with the sun’s magnetic activity; I can elaborate on this if anybody want), but because CFK’s -ChloreFluorCarbonites I think it’s called in English- and the resulting thinned ozon layer, combined with the release of chemicals in nature and the chopping down of rain forest.

On topic now: SMAC
Below are the SE values I give to the choices in a SMAC Earth 2005-2205 scenario I’m making. Guess what, the scenario’s about ecology, technology, opposing economic systems and such. I’m quite interested in those things if you didn’t guess that yet by now.

Totalitarian +2 Pol, +2 Sup, -2 Pro
Democratic: +2 Eff, +1 Res, -2 Pol
Fundamentalist: +2 Pro, +1 Mor, -2 Res

Free Market: +2 Eco, -3 Pla, -4 Res
Planned: +2 Gro, +2 Ind, -2 Eco
Green: +2 Pla, +2 Eff -2 Gro

Power: +2 Sup, +2 Mor, -2 Eff
Knowledge: +2 Res, +1 Eff, -2 Sup
Wealth: +1 Eco, +1 Ind, -2 Mor

Edenist: +2 Eff, +2 Res, +2 Mor, -2 Ind
Technocratic: +1 Eco, +2 Pla, +2 Ind, -3 Pol
Aristocratic: +2 Pol, +2 Pro, +2 Gro, -3 Sup

I eliminated the –2 Eff penalties from PS and Planned. They made those choices too bad compared to the others. Now they’re more equal. –2 Probe with PS cause I don’t think many people are happy being restricted in their freedom. Thus, more willing to walk over to another more liberal faction. I really think PS giving an efficiency penalty is wrong, since they just try to reduce corruption and such. Same with Planned which ought to reduce waste. I know in reality this doesn’t always prove true, but jeezes, the third world is free market and I don’t think they get the +2 Eco benefit from it. Rather the opposite.

As I said in my political discussion, I think it are the democratic-politic-liberal values that increase science progress. Also, you can’t have too much oppression, thus –2 Police. I deleted the –5 Police penalty for FM, that’s totally wrong. Gulf War, oil and such. I don’t think FMs have a smaller tendency to go to war than communists eg. So as a consequence it isn’t possible to get –5 Police until you get future societies. The whole idea of military abroad creating unhappiness is stupid anyway. You don’t have to generalize Vietnam to all wars. I didn’t see much street protests when Serbia was bombed, now did you? Also I don’t think FM per se increases science progress. Thus gave it –4 Res to counter the energy increase you get from FM. So FM only increases energy for ‘Economy’ and ‘Psych’, representing luxury goods and exploiting other countries (that explains the energy coming out of thin air).

Changed +1 to +2 Ind with Planned, because it’s more difficult to have a pop boom before future societies, leading to +2 Gro being fairly useless. Thus needed to make the choice more attractive.

The –2 Industry penalty of Power was a real killer which made this choice very unattrative to most people. Thus the change to –2 Eff, representing money going to the military. You can more easily counter this Efficiency penalty than the Industry one.

Knowledge has now –2 Support: more resources going to research.

I won’t explain the future societies. This post is already long enough. I’m getting seriously bored and you probably as well if you kept reading till the end. BTW, comments about my SE modifications are always welcome. Are some unbalanced?

Well, in case you did read till the end, thanks for ‘listening’!

M@ni@c

[SPasmofiT]

I'm very happy to see that I'm not the only one here still thinking about politics and other economical systems.
Comming from an ex-communist country, I can tell you that we got screwed pretty bad: in the '80ies people here we're practically starving (in Europe!), so in the '89 we followed the international trend with a nice televised revolution.
But unlike our western neibourghs we are still on the road to democracy and a prosperous free market. The people aren't happy, and we exchange political parties at each election.

The point I was trying to make is that not all systems work well everywhere and that it takes time to switch systems and create a local democratic/free-market culture (some people still try to use their trick-the-system tactics).

On the other hand, these days you're pretty much get assaulted if you ask for a Marx book in your local library... Some people here think that communism has failled (it has, for us anyway) and that democracy has failled also... pretty strange sittuation, if you ask me ;-)
[This message has been edited by SPasmofiT (edited April 20, 2001).]

[RGE]

I think the main problem with communism is that it relies on a lot of people working towards a common goal. Since most people like freedom, this means that a lot of people have to be forced to work towards this goal, which leads to people being unhappy and not giving 100%. This leads to people taking less initiatives, which results in inefficiency as people don't find as many areas to exploit for profits. And this is just the economic side of it. In order to force people to adhere to the economic vision of the government, the government has to use non-democratic methods, much like a corporation. Right?

Free markets on the other hand relies heavily upon people following their desires and instincts to work or take risks for profit, which are very powerful sources of personal energy. People looking out for themselves find a lot more niches to exploit for profits, which means that the economy is expanding by itself, without the need for a government to provide inspiration.

In the end I'd rather be poor and free than twice as wealthy with a government that tells me where to live and where to work. Only if I was starving or homeless might I consider communism to be better than freedom, but chances are that if things were that bad, I'd rather be dead. Hence "better dead than red"

RGE

[Alinestra Covelia]

Okay, the way I see it, here are a few proposed SMAC socially engineered societies:

China: Police State politics, with the military wings playing an important role in establishing party and domestic stability. Planned economics remain dominant (as the NPC recently met for its tenth five-year plan meeting), but with a slow progression towards Free Market which may or may not eventually result in a complete change. What has not yet been achieved economically, however, has been achieved in terms of values, with a Wealth orientated leadership starting with Deng Xiaoping and carried on by Jiang Zemin. However, the premier appears to be influenced by party hawks who wish for a return to the Power doctrines of rulership, and who have been influential in the handling of the recent Spy Plane crisis. Police State/Planned/Wealth: +2 to Support, Police, Growth, Industry; +1 Economy; -2 Morale; -4 Efficiency

America: Democratic politics, with the leadership open to review by the voting citizens every four years, and the personal lives of government administrators under close watch by the media. The economy is the world's most successful Free Market economy, although recent efforts have been made to regulate this with respect to ecological concerns (Green). Values, however are changeable and tend to differ between successive presidents, usually between the paradigms of Wealth and occasionally Knowledge, since the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War signalled a respite from the need of Power. As for a future society, the most likely scenario appears to be a Eudaimonic one, but this is likely to be very far off still. Democratic/Free Market/Wealth: +3 Economy; +2 Efficiency, Growth; +1 Industry; -2 Morale, Support; -3 Planet; -5 Police

Great Britain: Democratic politics, with the leadership held in general distrust and parody by the media and most citizens. The economy is a moderately successful Free Market economy, with the military unrest easily solved by the cutbacks in military spending (and surrender of most overseas colonies and interests). Many people, including moralizing newspaper editors, argue that there are no longer any Values whatsoever in this society, except perhaps Wealth and/or extreme drunkenness in the vicinity of clubs.

[Sikander]

M@ni@c,

"The stupidities you and other people are exclaiming here are really enormous.

quote: Does anyone really think that a planned economy can hold a candle to a free market economy? A communist type government may make a primitive nation more powerful in the short run, but it is folly to think that it can improve anything for a socially and technologically advanced society.

Could you please give the reasons why you make that statement? Or actually, could you please give reasons for everything you said in your post. Examples are the only thing you used for backing up your opinion. But as anyone should know, for every example pro your opinion, there is also one that can be given contra. So please, don’t make generalizations out one example."

There are not enough examples of Planned economies known to me to be considered a statistically valid sample. However, every example of a planned economy known to me has been outperformed by free market economies operating in the same historical time frame. While anecdotal evidence is considered slim evidence, it is never the less evidence. Thus I will bet on a horse who has won both the races he has participated in instead of a horse that has lost both of his races. While his dominance cannot be considered 'proved', statistically he is still a much better bet. You haven't supported a single one of your arguments with any evidence at all. I don't doubt that someone would be willing to offer an example counter to mine, but until they do there is not much I can say.


"I suppose the reason why you said a communist economy (communism is an economical system, not a government/political type) can’t lead to a technologically advanced society is because there’s no competition between corporations which can lead to faster research."

I never said that, nor do I necessarily believe what you think I believe when you misquoted me. In the U.S. the federal government is responsible for funding most of the 'pure science' research. Corporations fund a majority of the 'applied science' research. The advantage lies not in who pays the scientists, but in the fact that the economy produces enough resources so that they are paid well enough to attract large numbers (and not just from the U.S.), and are given the resources necessary to do their work. The intellectual freedoms guaranteed by our constitution not only eases their burden by eliminating a high percentage of duplicated efforts, but also act as an attractive force to draw scientists from other less free countries. The combination of these forces has made not only the U.S. a technological powerhouse, but almost every other Western nation a technological powerhouse as well. Compare the scientific achievements of the Netherlands or Belgium in the last 500 years in relation to India or China (which are just getting into gear scientifically). Both India and China are huge countries, and both have a tradition of intellectual achievement which stretches back far longer than the existence of any Western nation. Yet their achievements in the realm of the sciences have been blown away by relatively tiny countries who have had the advantages of wealth and intellectual freedom. This will not continue in this century btw, if current trends continue.


"..communism is an economical system, not a government/political type.."

Again we disagree, at least to some extent. Communism IMO is a state religion. It is not an economic system because it's economic theories have never been implemented or tested successfully. The cornucopia predicted by an equitable distribution of wealth has never materialized. Instead of a new system of economics, those coutries ruled by Communists have utilized a very old economic system (the command economy, aka planned) or a newer hybrid free market / socialist system. Thus Communist economics is a faith based excercise, more akin to religion than economics. Slaughter your first born and the Lord will provide (Soviet and Chinese communism anyway).


"The statement that communism would unavoidably lead to a slower technological advance is bulls-h-i-t."

Hey you said it, not me. I wouldn't completely disagree with the statement though, only it's absolutist proportions.


"I would even say that communist countries have a benefit over free markets. That’s because the government of a communist country has more resources it can dedicate to research than some small corporation. Unless of course you are talking about big multinationals who have a bigger income than the GNP of poor countries (!)."

Your opinion is based upon a number of faulty premises. The first one is that corporations are entirely responsible for research, which is grossly incorrect not only in the U.S. but every other Western nation I can think of. Secondly, you assume that a Communist country has more resources which it can apparantly command it's people to utilize on behalf of this or that project. Though a Soviet style government may be able to command where a higher percentage of it's GDP is spent, it's people are so much less efficient (including it's scientists) that it's GDP is an embarassing fraction of what a functional free market system can produce. Try running 100% labs with Police State and Planned (and you are not Yang).

I gotta go now, but will respond to the rest of your post (where we agree a lot more) later. Ciao.

[johndmuller]

M@ni@c/Sikander,

I can't resist getting drawn into some of this Marx vs Morgan stuff.

It seems that underlying the discussion so far is the notion that we have the US as the paradigm of a free market country and the USSR (and possibly China [People's Republic of]) as the paradigm for the planned economy. Comparing the US & the USSR is definitely NOT the same as comparing free market & planned economy; neither side really lives up to its ideal form. On the US side, there is plenty of government interference in the economy, anti-trust regs, occasional price controls, pro and con labor regulations, Alan Greenspan, government subsidies to name a few. On the USSR side, we had a heavy dose of Police State (which is a separate setting) which no doubt had some side effects, politically motivated planning (i.e. the projections have to sound good rather than be actually real), serious distribution problems, a bit of a class system (party member or not) and other problems I'm sure. There might well be better examples of both sides, but I doubt that any pure ones exist.

On the theoretical side, it seems to me that a planned economy has GOT to be more efficient than a free market one because, in THEORY at least, you can figure out in advance all the trial and error gyrations that a free market would make to zero in on the best way to do things. A free market is about (people and/or companies) zooming out of control whenever possible and until something stops them. Aside from the question of whether or not permanent monopolies would occur without some countervailing forces like governments, unions, boycots, etc., if we assumed equilibrium would always form at an economically optimal point there would still be all that wasted whatever while companies were shooting each other down and trying out bad busimess models.

In the real world, we have a (absolute) shortage of omniscient planners and neither our industrialists nor our high officials are morally perfect. Hunter-gatherism, barbarism, despotism, feudalism, monarchy, various religionisms, and (sort-of) capitalism have all been tried out pretty well. Communism/socialism has been sort-of tried out too, but I don't know whether it has been too intermingled with unrelated features. I'm not sure about whether pure planned economy and pure capitalism have been really tried. We do think we know that some kind of Democracy-limited Caoitalism works better than Police-state limited Communism, but with very limited data; if the Cuban missle crisis had gone a different way, I might be saying just the reverse.

You know how they say that the political spectrum is more like a circle, where the far right and the far left are pretty similar; well, if we all had really good computers and economic models, both Communists and Capitalists would probably make the same economic decisions.
[This message has been edited by johndmuller (edited April 20, 2001).]

[Tenchusatsu]

quote: Originally posted by Sikander on 04-20-2001 09:16 AM Communism IMO is a state religion. It is not an economic system because it's economic theories have never been implemented or tested successfully.

Actually, the way I see it, Communism is a combination of Planned economics and a personality cult. Almost every major Communism of the 20th century had their revolutionary "visionaries" to be praised, such as Marx and Lenin in the former Soviet Union, Mao Tse Tung in China, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, and Kim Il Sung in North Korea. These personality cults serve as a substitute for the profit motive, a powerful force in a Free Market, but eliminated in Planned economies. This also explains why communistic governments stifled free expression of religion, since they were seen as threats to these personality cults.

If you want to look at Planned economics without the personality cults, look at Socialism instead.

[Cybergod]

I come from a war-torn country Yugoslavia, if you'll call it that within few months, after elections in Montenegro. We had a centuries-old monarchy until 2nd world war, until a bunch of people moved to our provinces and defended exceedingly well against Nazis. They then took all the credit for it and chucked out our king and royal family to establish a socialist government. For 50 years we played the middle card, neither too westerly nor too easterly. We even had neighbours look upon us with admiration at our wellfare. The thing was that the main guy, Tito, succesfully balanced the tensions between the main 2 countries withing the federation (Serbia & Croatia) and used force to gain a higher workforce but not the violent way the russian communist leaders did. It all seemed to go well until this main guy died. Tensions turned to flames and the break up of Yugoslavia (wars in both Croatia and Bosnia). A communist (Milosevic) seized a chance in Serbia to gain total control and become a self-styled conqueror/dictator. My people were given lower and lower wages, were forced to work under tight police control, coruption was at its peak, media was controlled, people were 'liquidated' because they expressed their opinion, our oposition leaders were played upon until the 5th October 2000. But before that we had NATO bomb us, kill tens of thousands of my people under bombs, destroy homes, factories and hospitals (these are the things they don't show you on BBC or CNN or whatever you watch), claiming they were stopping a humanitarian disaster. Then we finally got rid of him and were left with a small country in Europe, with a wealth of a 3rd world country, war-torn and with its future not yet decided.

We are now hopefully heading for a FM, democratic, law-abiding future. Let's see how far we go.

I myself plan to go back either next year or within 4 years time. There I plan to go to a robotics and cybernetics school (its a different education system there) and maybe start my own business someday in the future, when economy has stabilised .

I also wish to remind everyone of one other thing. You CANNOT compare real life with SMAC or any Civ game. Real world is just outside your window (if you have one) and NOT on your computer screen. The real world is not in your TV screen, it is biased. "Read in between the lines", my mother taught me during the communist government since we all knew that everything we watched on TV or saw in newspapers was a lie. Both my parents had to work for most of the day to provide enouth income to support our family. Now we had moved to UK where we had enjoyed a fairly happy life for 4 years, a life where we could have a freedom of speech. Just value that my friends, the freedom.

[Sikander]

M@ni@c,

"But then I ask you: if the world has only a few large multinational companies, where’s the competition that you like so much about free markets? Is it then still a free market? Personally, I don’t think so. I think, with the current trend of economic globalization and the trend of companies fusing to become even more and more larger, we are heading towards some sort of despotism; the dictators being the corporate directors."

While I too share some of these fears, I do not do so to the extent that you do. Notice that I used the term 'regulated free market' twice in my original post. The regulation is there to keep monopolies from forming. Trans-national entities will be a good deal harder to regulate, especially as powers which have traditionally been the pervue of states are instead handed over to multi-lateral entities like the WTO. I don't fear corporate dictatorship particularly though, as states still retain a monopoly on the use of force within their borders.


"Above I touched the point of dictatorship, and the disappearance of free thought. I think [b]that[b/], the totalitarian despotic government, not the communist economy itself, is the reason why science progress went slower in countries such as the Soviet Union and China. In those countries, if your opinions and ideas differed from those of the government you were put away on some remote place, eg a concentration camp. Ending in a great reduction of creative minds."

I agree that this was a large factor in the Soviet style states. I also think that the economic inefficiency played a large role as well.


"Again, you generalize, based on few examples. Just as there are communist countries that don’t work out well (Who knows? Perhaps because those countries leaders/government suck; ot because of communism itself.), there are quite a few economic liberal countries that suck. To be more precise: almost the entire Third World."

Well, none of the communist countries work well IMO. My supposition was that no advanced country (socially and technologicaly) would work better with a communist system. There are no examples I can think of where such a country has purposefully chosen to utilize a communist system, though several fairly advanced countries (I used the example of East Germany) have had communism imposed upon them from the outside. Their performance has been pitiful in relation to their cousins across the border in West Germany.

I agree that many states are not capable of running a liberal political and free market style system. I even stated in my original post that some of these type of states have actually functioned better under a communist system than they had under a previous archaic Empire / Monarchy / Dictatorships. Many of these states are located in the third world.

One reason why so many third world states do not function under liberal political and economic systems is that they do not have the cultural infrastructure to do so. Elected governments require educated populations to function efficiently. Free market economic systems require a respect for the law, which in turn requires a degree of national identity. Most of the states in Africa are merely colonial satraps rather than nations. Clan loyalty is more important than national identity, which makes administration of national laws problematic. It is difficult to find people who can fairly administer the law when the state is rent with various ethnic / clan / and language groups. The advantage of a communist system for these states is that communist systems wherever an example of them can be found have all been strongly nationalistic. This is no panacea for multi-ethnic states as the breakup of the Soviet Union shows, but it can begin the process of establishing a national identity and a fear if not respect for the law. It is interesting to note that many of the nations states of East Asia have managed to erect thriving capitalist style economies. I think that one reason for this is that these societies had a fairly strong national sense before imperialism. The idea of the nation was therefore already a part of their cultural infrastructure.


"How does it come that the third world’s free market economies don’t work? Actually, when you think a bit further about it, it’s quite strange that any free market works well. Cause what does free market cause? The transfer of wealth from the mass to a small elite.They do that by selling products to the mass. But those products are made by the same mass which buys them and who have to be paid. As a result, if the elite, the bourgeoisie wants to increase its wealth, it must be done by receiving more money from the masses than giving to it. This leads to a vicious circle of the mass becoming poorer and poorer."

You may well believe this, but it is communist doctrine not capitalist, and seems to bear no relation to the facts. Do you really believe that there is a fixed amount of wealth and that all economic questions are based upon it's distribution? Wealth is created in a market system by increasing the productivity of workers through competition. How that wealth is distributed can vary, but successful systems remain that way by distributing the wealth widely. Just as wide access to capital will help an entire economy by putting resources where they can do the most good, on an individual level the same economies also hold true. Thus a well paid worker can afford to feed his children properly, buy tools to improve his productivity, and education to improve his efficiency as well as that of his children.

Unsuccessful market systems of the type you describe fail because they are usually based in societies which already have a long tradition of economic and political disparity. There are numerous examples, especially in the third world (El Salvador). Political and economic power are concentrated in the upper classes, and those classes expend a lot of energy keeping it that way. This is a good deal less efficient for the reasons noted above, though there is evidence that this can / will change over time. A good example would be England, where a monarchist / elitist system has been replaced by degrees with a republican / egalitarian market system.

The United States is a good example of a nation which not only allows class mobility, but prides itself on it. My parents both grew up dirt poor on farms, but they were able to attend college and obtain advanced degrees. They are doing well, though not in a dynastic sense. This class mobility works in reverse as well. Most if not all fortunes are squandered eventually, or so diluted by the march of generations that they are no longer significant within 100 years. There is no nobility here, you must be productive in the long run. In absolute terms your supposition that the poor are becoming poorer is just plain wrong. It may happen for short periods, but there is a mountain of evidence that everyone in a market economy becomes richer in the long run. This is not only a phenomonon in the U.S., but is obvious in every western country. Read a book about life 100 years ago and compare that to the present.


"How can you have, ànd a free market, ànd relatively welfaring people such as in the Western countries. The answer, I think, is by exploiting other countries, in this case the third world. You buy cheap resources and raw materials from them, use them as low wage workers and sell them much more expensive end products. This makes money free you can give to your own population. So actually, the problem of 19th century European free markets isn’t gone. It’s just transferred to another place. Thus, free market inherently causes there to be large sums of poor people. Sure, sure, you could say this represents the nature law of “survival of the fittest”: the best people will succeed most in the economic liberal ‘jungle’. But this theory only works if every person has the same chances to succeed in life. Reality shows us something else. Through private property children inherit the wealth of their parents and as a consequence those kids have more chances in life than others, even if those others are much more intelligent and talented than they are."

Contact with the west has been at best a mixed bag for the rest of the world. In some places thriving civilizations were purposefully destroyed in order for imperialists to exploit the land and people. In others contact with the west was beneficial in real terms, regardless of the intentions of the imperial powers. With the end of colonialism, economic relations continued even though political relations were altered. Why would a country continue to maintain economic relations if the outcome were as you described above? Because that is not what happens.

These former colonies could close their borders if they chose, and live within their own means. But it is more lucrative to trade. Building a complex economy and industrializing is no simple task, it can take a long time depending on what sort of starting situation a country finds itself in. Trade with western countries allows the purchase of items which the local economy never produced previously, and would not be able to produce any time soon. Tools and knowledge are just two of the critical products that the developed world sells which help these economies raise their efficiency. This can be a slow process, but there are numerous examples of nations which are making great strides toward modernization through trade. In the western hemisphere alone Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile have all witnessed a sharp increase in GDP in the last generation.

It is the nations which choose not, or cannot do this which lag behind. The U.S. buys a lot of oil from Mexico, and buys a lot of products produced in factories in Mexico which were built with U.S. capital, just as the U.S. industrialized with European capital in the last century. The Mexicans are not getting poorer, they are getting richer just as the U.S. did when it went from resource extraction to the production of finished goods. A state which is being exploited in the manner you describe would become a cesspool of misery, and such nations do exist to be sure. But these states are more often than not those with very little cultural capital, and poor in resources as well. They have very little to offer other economies, and thus are left behind.

As for your supposition that a free market economy randomly assigns wealth, nothing could be further from the truth. These systems allow people of modest means to raise their standard of living significantly if they have the talent and drive to do so. Would you prefer an aristocracy, where everyone is born into a caste that they can never rise from? Or communism, where standards of living are equalized at a low level for the masses, while a lucky few are allowed to prosper through political connections? Free market economies create more wealth because people have the means and the incentive to do so. Even though this wealth is not evenly distributed (and no economic system does this, even communist systems) the abundance allows more opportunity for a person to improve his lot.


"Please, indulge me into some of your great insights and tell me some of those efficiencies." (regarding Sweden)

Well I can for instance buy a Saab here in the U.S. if I want to. This is a high level industrial product, which indicates that though Sweden has very high taxes, it is still efficient enough to produce a product that people want at a price that is competitive with those of manufacturers in Japan, Germany, France, the U.S., Italy etc. I cannot however purchase a Russian made car because the inefficiency of the Russian industrial economy is such that they cannot produce a product of sufficient quality and low price. This may change as Fiat and other companies from western free market countries teach the Russians how to maximize their efficiency. Sweden needs no such assistance because it has been a competitive manufacturer for many years, because it's products have had to compete in the world marketplace all that time. Russian products had monopoly access to the Russian marketplace, and are obsolete in comparison. No competition = low quality and high cost. You seem to be aware of that fact when the monopoly is located in a free market country, why is it a difficult concept when it occurs in a planned economy?


"To summarize, I think the policy leading to the fastest technological progress is on one side a government based on democratic and politic liberal values, such as freedom of thought,speech and press. Not freedom of religion and bearing arms though. On the other side a socialist economy, which gives everyone equal chances at the starting line. This way the nature law of “survival of the fittest” is still kept, even improved compared to economic liberalism."

These are very common values even here in the U.S. Certainly the extreme right would agree with your feelings about freedom of religion. I do agree that equality of opportunity is a good goal (and one which most in the U.S. agree with). The problem comes at the margins. Even if the government could wave a wand and perfectly and constantly redistribute wealth and opportunity so that everyone could be assured of a fair start, nature has other ideas. Some people are intelligent, while others are not. Some are willing to work hard and innovate, while others are lazy or lack imagination. In a system which constantly redistributes wealth the intelligent hard working innovaters lose their incentive to do so. Why keep working hard when all you do is distributed to others? Even if you were allowed to keep 50% of the wealth you create, but the inheritance tax is 100% why would people work once they had created enough for themselves? They can't pass anything to their children, so why bother? Thus the economy at large loses the productive person's income, and the government loses it's 50%. And the cost in bureacracy to run such a system is very high. The closer you come to that goal of absolute equality of opportunity, the poorer everyone becomes. This is the reason for the ultimate failure of communism as an economic system. Achieving anything like an absolute equality of opportunity costs more and more each step you take, just as accelerating an object becomes more and more expensive as one approaches the speed of light. Absolute equality of opportunity will result in no opportunity for anyone. Reasonable people can and do differ on where the line should be drawn, but very few are so foolish to think that anything like an absolutist position on the matter is worth the cost.

We do agree about many of the Greens. Some are reasonable, but their platform is unrealistic in terms of both science and politics. Interesting to hear that you have doubts about some of the science behind the global warming theories. I am no expert on the matter, though I do think that reducing air pollutants is probably a good idea regardless of whether the theories are correct or not. In my town is located the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is a large government research agency. I noticed that some of the cars in their parking lot have bumper stickers which say, "Global Warming? Show me the Science!" It sounds like there are still many scientists who are not in agreement with the most popular theories.

[Clear Skies]

It is a sad fact that no '-isms' exist in our society any more, at least not in British society.
Actually, I tell a lie. Pragmatism pervades all. People are out for what they can get, with no regard for others.
I realise this is a massive, sweeping generalisation, but unfortunately it is mostly true. This sounds like incredible pessimism, but it is not completely unfounded.
"In a time where there are no ideologies to rise up against the masters, we breed stronger masters for ourselves to protect ourselves from the unknown ideologies of others."

[Maniac]

RGE:

quote: I think the main problem with communism is that it relies on a lot of people working towards a common goal. Since most people like freedom, this means that a lot of people have to be forced to work towards this goal, which leads to people being unhappy and not giving 100%. This leads to people taking less initiatives, which results in inefficiency as people don't find as many areas to exploit for profits.

Indeed. One of the reasons I am against extreme-left communism (That means I will be playing the devil’s advocate sometimes. Not everything I write I really believe as my own personal philosophy. I just want to show free market isn’t as good as you seem to claim.). Though I think this problem can easily be solved by paying people according to how good they do their job, and according to what job they do. This will make sure people still try to do their best to get higher up. And if you give people, through democracy, a voice in what will be the common goal, and not let it be decided by some totalitarian party, the problem of less initiatives will be solved as well. Thus, no need for non-democratic methods.

quote: In order to force people to adhere to the economic vision of the government, the government has to use non-democratic methods, much like a corporation. Right?

In that case, the only difference between communism and free market would be that in communism the cage is visible, in free market not.

quote: Free markets on the other hand relies heavily upon people following their desires and instincts to work or take risks for profit, which are very powerful sources of personal energy. People looking out for themselves find a lot more niches to exploit for profits, which means that the economy is expanding by itself, without the need for a government to provide inspiration.

Yes, but that’s just a problem with a too extreme economic liberalism. People don’t think one second about the common good, nor do they think about longterm effects. One of the consequences this has lead to in the modern world, is the ecological damage, and the inequal division of wealth, leading to inefficient use of the human potential (read my part about “survival of the fittest” in my previous post). So, though I am actually in favour of free market, I think it must be held in check by a whole bunch of rules and regulations to protect the environment and the unlucky starting at the bottom of the social ladder. And I think these exist too little in the present world. I wonder, do you all agree with me on this point or are you really in favour of an absolute extreme-right laissez-faire economic liberal free market? (Jee, a lot of names for the same beast, isn’t it? )


Sikander:

quote: There are not enough examples of Planned economies known to me to be considered a statistically valid sample. However, every example of a planned economy known to me has been outperformed by free market economies operating in the same historical time frame.

Comparing eg China and Russia with European and American free markets is a bit unfair, I think. Cause the free markets started with a headstart from previous centuries, while Russia and China had almost to begin from zero concerning industry and such. More fair would be to compare them with the Third World free markets, and then I think Russia & China come out much better.

quote: You haven't supported a single one of your arguments with any evidence at all.

Well, I suppose we just have a different style of discussion. I’m kind of an abstract theoretician, while I guess you are more for concrete examples and evidence.

quote: "I suppose the reason why you said a communist economy (communism is an economical system, not a government/political type) can’t lead to a technologically advanced society is because there’s no competition between corporations which can lead to faster research." I never said that, nor do I necessarily believe what you think I believe when you misquoted me.

You said this:

quote: A communist type government may make a primitive nation more powerful in the short run, but it is folly to think that it can improve anything for a socially and technologically advanced society.

So what did you mean? That communism can be good for a primitive nation, but not for one that is already technologically advanced? If so, please give me the reasons for that statement; cause I don’t see any.

quote: In the U.S. the federal government is responsible for funding most of the 'pure science' research. Corporations fund a majority of the 'applied science' research.

Aha, that proves my point that there doesn’t necessarily have to be a difference in scientific progress between communism and economic liberalism! And btw, a lot of that applied science is really useless. Take Viagra for example. The money spent to research that could better be used for diseases like aids, malaria, ebola, and so on. But no, these are primarily 3d world diseases, so there’s no market to sell those products to.

quote: The advantage lies not in who pays the scientists, but in the fact that the economy produces enough resources so that they are paid well enough to attract large numbers (and not just from the U.S.), and are given the resources necessary to do their work.

This can also be done in a left economy. Read my post to RGE.

quote: The intellectual freedoms guaranteed by our constitution not only eases their burden by eliminating a high percentage of duplicated efforts, but also act as an attractive force to draw scientists from other less free countries.

I think you’re confusing communism with totalitarianism here again. Read my post to RGE why I think these two are mutually exclusive.

quote: Compare the scientific achievements of the Netherlands or Belgium in the last 500 years in relation to India or China (which are just getting into gear scientifically). Both India and China are huge countries, and both have a tradition of intellectual achievement which stretches back far longer than the existence of any Western nation. Yet their achievements in the realm of the sciences have been blown away by relatively tiny countries who have had the advantages of wealth and intellectual freedom. This will not continue in this century btw, if current trends continue.

Well, I’m from Belgium, and the last 500 years we were kind of continuously oppressed by Spanish, Austrians, French, Dutch and Germans. As a result there wasn’t a lot of intellectual freedom. We are also just getting into gear. You are right about my northern neighbours the Dutch though.

What’s the reason for the Chinese and Indians having done less scientific progress the last 500 years?
In China, it’s because the rulers of that time simply forbid certain technologies. So ,around 1500, there was a sudden stop of most scientific progress. And because China was kind of isolated, there wasn’t some more advanced nation in the neighbourhood that could threaten with a stronger and more advanced army and force China to take up science again.
In India, it was because of the rigid caste system. If you were born below on the social ladder, you had to stay there for the rest of your life.

Translated in nowaday terms, China was a bit totalitarian and had no competition from other countries. So indeed, as you said btw, intellectual freedom, or in other words: politic liberalism, is what matters, not the degree of economic liberalism.
In the case of India, the problem was people didn’t have equal chances. They couldn’t get up, even if they were brilliant. I think this proves my point equal chances, in other words socialism, helps a society advance.

Here the problem with giving concrete examples examples as evidence shows up again. That problem is you can draw different conclusions out of the same data. Out of the China/India/Netherlands example, I draw the conclusion intellectual freedom, while others might argue the capitalism of the Netherlands was most deciding. Therefore, I deem rational theories as evidence higher than concrete examples.

quote: Communism IMO is a state religion.

My definition of a religion is a philosophy that contains metaphysical elements or believes in a higher order. I don’t think this is the case with communism. It’s just a philosophy as any other. You think it’s a religion because it’s based on faith. But any philosophy is based on faith. Except perhaps Descartes with his “eternal doubt” (although there you also believe you have to doubt everything). Btw, economic liberalism is also based on faith. Don’t many people unconditionally believe free market will lead to prosperity?

I think I’ve already answered on the issues you touch in the rest of your post, ie government paying research and inefficient workers with communism. See above, I’d say then.

BTW, I’m really glad I can discuss about this topic with you guys. In real life, I can count the people, who are even willing to discuss just a minute about politics, economy or philosophy, on my one hand. Makes me sometimes wonder if everybody is capable of deciding what course of action the government should follow. But that’s another discussion (which I’m willing to do! ).

I guess there will be lots of other posts to respond to when I post this one. So, I’ll write you again, I guess.

M@ni@c

[knowhow2]

Please ..... haven't this thread being turned into a OT thread?

Well....


edt: never mind me.... I just keep myself out of here.... sorry for this disrubtion



[This message has been edited by knowhow2 (edited April 22, 2001).]

[Maniac]

Further comments will follow in the weekend.