On human nature-the end of capitalism-communism

[Velociryx]

This is where I diverge from GePap's line of thinking.

Society sets the broad parameters, true. It can either do little more than that (if it governs loosely) or it can be all-encompassing (if it severely and harshly restricts the movement of its individual members), but underneath the "societal hood" there are the echoes of something primative. Those (symbolic, on a certain level) loose, transient "tribal associations" which is where the one upmanship and competition occurs.

-=Vel=-
(and, if you are a counterrevolutionary, the it also occurs WITH society at large, but that's both a special case and a horse of a different color)

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Vel,

Agreed. I didn't have chance to make the point earlier but given the frame work of the laws established, man will work the loopholes at a minimum and go outside the bounds of the rules established in special circumstances.

[Velociryx]

There we go, thinking alike again!

And a good point re: dictates from society. Everybody does it. Pushes to see how far you can go....how much you can get away with (which is sorta its own "competition"), and everybody is different.

Mine is speeding. Nothing better than getting on the open road and opening it up. I do it every chance I get....only been caught by "the man" twice...

-=Vel=-

[Meldor]

Originally posted by GePap
As I expected, the capitalism-communism thread ended before I returned. If people whish to really continue it here, they can. I simply want to make one observation.

As always, people come out and say that somehow "communism is against human nature" and that since capitalism wors within human nature, it can work: and why do they say this? Becuase they believe people are greedy and violent, and since they think (even though it isn;t actually true) that in communism greed is somehow outlawed, man will revolt against it, but not against capiatlsim. In short, that capitalism allows man to wallow in his own filth and be happy, instead of trying to unnaturally hose him off.

No people say this because it has nothing to do with greed and violence. It has to do with striving to be your best and to be the best. That is what drives man. We are by nature competitive. We need to have someway in which to keep score. The system we have now (capitalism/democracy/socialism) works because it allows us to compete. It is through this competition that inovation is found. We all want to be the first to do something. Communism doesn't allow this to occur and/or stifles it.

Originally posted by GePap All of which sounds somewhat plausible until you look around you. I mean it, look. We live as far away form "human nature" as outlined above as anyone ever has.

You are grabbing to "bad" traits and making them the nature of the beast. All of mans goodness and ills come from his need to compete. That drive is what can devovle into greed and violence, but also give inovation and growth. It allows is to improve things for everyone and yet maintian individual drive.

Originally posted by GePap Man is driven by greed and violence and he can't change? If so, why have we criminalized killing for honor, killing for faith? We have criminalized slavery, usery, beating your spouse: having your servants burried alive or dead (after killinfg them) to serve you in the hear-after. We have criminalized rape, having the wife throw herself in the fires of the husbands pyre, human sacrfice, even animal sacrifice. Letting the cripples and sick babies to die from exposure has been outlawed. Blood sports, the razing of cities, the decimation of units to teach them loyalty, punishment by cutting off limbs. When we aim to kill, we even go so far as to try to do it "humanely". Even the litte things, like vicious torture of criminals, drawn and quarterings, the rack, cruxifictions, burnings at the stakes, even these things that used to draw crowds are now banned. Even against animals this is banned. We live in a culture so removed form death that most posters here would get naseaus seeing their food slaughtered and cut up in front of them, so divorced form death (an omnipresent reality of being alive) that seeing someone die is a rare event, only a bit more rare than even seeing a dead body.

Man has been able through his drive to compete, to raise the standard of living for all and to build up society. We give up certain individual rights or desires in order to maintian this society. Some of the things we give up are the more violent aspects but this doesn't reduce the need to compete. As we get better, we as individuals have more excess. Back when we were more violent, we sent the vast majority of our time just getting enough food to live on. Now we have excess and can spend part of our excess on social programs and the excess time volunteering. But, if we get to a point that we need that excess for ourselves, we will use it and not feel guilty.

Originally posted by GePap We live regimented lives, were all sorts of rules 'for our own good" abound, and many here defend them all. And yet these very same people say that man is so terrible that he can;t change and thus capitalism is the answer? Can;t change? What have we done then? Decked ourselves in silk lcothing, we fine monkeys? Is that all you think we have done?

We have through a market driven competition lifted the standard of living in a lot of countries to such levels that people like us can spend a lot of time debating the motives of nits.

Originally posted by GePap People who say this are like guys playing monopoly and talking about how ruthless they are by how they play, when in fact if they were ruthless they would attempt to grab the board and beat the other players senseless with it. We are so rthless in fact, that instead of deciding who is boos by seeing who's boot is on whose throat, we decide to compete by seeing who can amass the most trinkets, numbers on a spreadsheet, and little pieces of paper with ink drawings on them, and make all these rules to force people to play the game nicely, isntead of just going out and killing and raping for it like "the good old days".

Violence was an end to a means which as individuals is no longer needed and is disruptive to society as a whole. It has reached a point were it became a detriment to farthe competition. Therefore it became something that we no longer tolerated. We have become more refined in our competition. We compete on a different level. When it got to the point that anarchy couldn't advance our standard of living and people found them could get farther with a govenment, we had them. When we found that feudalism no longer worked best it was gone, same with monarchy. But every step of the way the standard of living was increased by competition and social graces were introduced to foster that. If we could maitain the tech level we have now and still rape and pillage, we would still be doing it. We can't so we gave it up. we accept the rules to get more from them and better our chances at the competition.

Originally posted by GePap People say that the modern system thrives on rugged individualism, yet it is the in name of the individual that we make all these rules about how one can treat each other. history has lasted 6000 years, and for basically 5600 of them slavery was normal. An every day thing. The Hebrwes were slaves, and when they set up thier state they had slaves. Everyone had slave, the birthplace of democracy was chuck full of them, so was the Republic of Rome. Some philosophers went as far as to explain why slavery was utterly normal and a basic part of mankind. And yet, in the very name of individual, we took the "right" of anyone being a master to anyone else. Something that had been since the beginning of civ now was gone, just right then and there.

Slavery, as any system of labor died when it became more expensive to keep the slaves than the system produced. The only areas that slavery was ever any good was the raw indutries. Things like food and mining could be done with slaves. Other things that were done with slaves could not produce enough excess to offset the losses of the system. The industrial revolution got rid of slavery not altruism.

Things will get better as we have more time and resources extra to devote to those social "ills".

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Just one quick observation

Why is it that is seems every time we have discussion around communism suicide gets brought up. Is it a Freudian association or what?

[Velociryx]

:hmm: I honestly don't know. Given the rate of vodka addiction in at least one former communist enclave, one would imagine that the suicide rate was nudged higher there because of it.....

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Violence was an end to a means which as individuals is no longer needed and is disruptive to society as a whole. It has reached a point were it became a detriment to farthe competition.

Further competition in what sense? certainly not at the level of individual actors, where violence would mena a lot of competition. At the level of society, certainly this is true. The agrument against violence as an inhibitor of competitoon works only at the system level,. not at the level of the components. If you think that only component level thinking matters, then this makes little sense.

And a good point re: dictates from society. Everybody does it. Pushes to see how far you can go....how much you can get away with (which is sorta its own "competition"), and everybody is different.

Speeding is a very lowe level thing. It is like a kid who might sneak a cookie here or there when mom said no cockies before dinner. That is hardly the same as buring the house down, which is alos breaking the rules, but which much greater signifcance and consequences. How many people push so far that they go from taking cookies (speeding, smoking where they shouldn;t) to burning the house down? And in general, do we not assume there to be somehting inherently wrog with those that do go far? (hence calling mass murderes animals, or monsters, when in fact they are human beings)

Society sets the broad parameters, true. It can either do little more than that (if it governs loosely) or it can be all-encompassing (if it severely and harshly restricts the movement of its individual members), but underneath the "societal hood" there are the echoes of something primative. Those (symbolic, on a certain level) loose, transient "tribal associations" which is where the one upmanship and competition occurs.

What you fail t show is that this primative one upsmanship has anything to do with capitalism. Look at stone age peoples (who do exist), they live in very tighyl regimented societies, were competition does exist, but also alongside cooperation (which is as common, perhaps more), and the competition is not all about greed either, but pride.

Capitalism is an economic system. The pooint of it is to most efficiently channel scare resources, so that with the same you get more wealth than before. To it, individualism is only one tool, not the point, as some of you seem to think. hen individualism serves its interests, it is fostered. Where it does not, it is crushed.

[Velociryx]

Yes, speeding is a very low level thing, and because of that, it is quite illustrative of one of the points I was trying to make. The strength of social bonds varies from society to society. Here, our society governs loosely. I can speed and get away with it for the most part. I would think twice if the penalty for speeding was death. I might still, but not on a whim, surely.

In the same vein, yes, violent competiton on the individual level was the order of the day for much of our pre-history. If you had a good looking cave woman, and I (from a neighboring tribe) wanted her, I'd sneak over to your tribe's camp in the middle of the night, beat the hell out of you and drag her off by the hair to MY cave.

Big dogs shove little dogs out of the way to eat first. The big dog gets the best. The little dog gets what's left, and unless society specifically prohibits that kind of action (with the threat of strict enforcement and harsh penalty) that's what you get.

Capitalism is a means of preserving the sense of competition, but leaving out the bloodshed. Now I can come over and buy your cave woman for six sheepskins of grain, or whathaveyou. If you don't want to sell, I can keep raising the price and dangling such attractive lures in front of you, playing on your sense of greed and desire until you cannot resist. The end result is the same from my perspective. I still get the woman. The difference is, instead of beating you up, I traded something I had extra of. Healthier for you, better for the system as a whole. (yes, Vel just outlined a stone age slave trade. I don't advocate it, so nobody bother to get your panties in a wad )

As to your comment re: mass murderers....that sounds like your own social conditioning at work. If there were loose societal bonds and scant punishments governing the taking of life, and if that's the system you grew up in, nobody would call them monsters at all. (in our case, yes. They're monsters).

Re: primitive one upmanship as it equates to capitalism. It (the sense of competition) has existed long before capitalism (obviously). The problem with primitive versions of competition is that it tended to be extremely unhealthy, both on an individual level (if you kill me, my health has surely taken a turn for the worse), and to the state (hard to keep a state of any kind intact if your people are running about helter-skelter killing each other unchecked). Barter economies were a good start at abstracting such conflicts in the sense that the beginnings of competition can be born here (I offer you six bags of grain for your woman, but Og offers you eight), but the problem here is with valuation. What if you didn't NEED any more grain? In that case, I could offer you fifty bags, but the person who offered you two chickens still wins, cos you NEED chickens....don't need grain.

So currency was a big step up from that. Now prices could be standardized, and that made bargaining even more vibrant than ever.

It can fairly be said that although "capitalism" as a codified set of rules didn't exist until recently, the mechanisms and ingredients that make it up are far older, and have been driving the abstraction of conflict for millenia.

It is, however, more difficult to make the case that these ingredients drive warfare itself. Marketeers don't profit by killing their customers, however, if a marketeer is also a meglomaniac and a control freak, he may spy yonder resource and simply wish to control it himself. In any case, and whatever the motiviations, the "capitalism causes war" arguments are weak indeed.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

How odd it would be, btw (a total aside) if our society treated speeders as "monsters" and let killers go with a slap on the wrist (if anything). And it could have happened that way (admittedly, the chances are astronomically low, but.... )

-=Vel=-

[Meldor]

Originally posted by GePap Further competition in what sense? certainly not at the level of individual actors, where violence would mena a lot of competition. At the level of society, certainly this is true. The agrument against violence as an inhibitor of competitoon works only at the system level,. not at the level of the components. If you think that only component level thinking matters, then this makes little sense.

But as individuals you have the desire to pass on to your offspring the fruits of your labors. Something that is strickly forbidden in a communist structure. It is this desire and motivation that brings about the overall changes. You pass on to the offspring a better starting point, a higher level. Violence and the resulting chaos and anarchy don't allow you to pass on that added production to the children. We compete even in death.

Originally posted by GePap Speeding is a very lowe level thing. It is like a kid who might sneak a cookie here or there when mom said no cockies before dinner. That is hardly the same as buring the house down, which is alos breaking the rules, but which much greater signifcance and consequences. How many people push so far that they go from taking cookies (speeding, smoking where they shouldn;t) to burning the house down? And in general, do we not assume there to be somehting inherently wrog with those that do go far? (hence calling mass murderes animals, or monsters, when in fact they are human beings)

But low level speeding is not generally a threat to your family. Mass murders are a threat to you and your family. Therefore we do collectively rid ourselves of the threat. It is also a threat to the peace and well being, the ability to keep the society from degenerating to a point where it isn't able to support the current and enhanced standard of living.

Originally posted by GePap What you fail t show is that this primative one upsmanship has anything to do with capitalism. Look at stone age peoples (who do exist), they live in very tighyl regimented societies, were competition does exist, but also alongside cooperation (which is as common, perhaps more), and the competition is not all about greed either, but pride.

I disagree, point to any "stone age" society today, for instance the natives of Fiji Island. Why didn't these people, with the strong communal spirit advance faster than the outside world. They were islolted on an island and the competing societies were eliminated. Their system got rid of a lot of the incentive to compete at anything. Fishing was shared, etc. By your thought they should be more advance than we are, but they aren't. Becasue there is no reason for them to improve an what they have.

Originally posted by GePap Capitalism is an economic system. The pooint of it is to most efficiently channel scare resources, so that with the same you get more wealth than before. To it, individualism is only one tool, not the point, as some of you seem to think. hen individualism serves its interests, it is fostered. Where it does not, it is crushed.

And communism is also an economic system as well. It's purpose is the same as that for capitalism, to get the resources and good to where they are needed. Were they differ is in the reasons and rewards for getting it done in the best way. Capitalism has it and communism doesn't. It doens't crush what is not optimum, it simple makes it obsolete, like the soviet System.

[Velociryx]

More on the whole “evolution away from communal societies” debate:

Che, I’ve been thinking about this over lunch, and I realized that there was more to say on the topic. I get what you are saying, but would put forth the notion that you’re focusing too much on any single society.

As our primitive tribal, communities grew more numerous, the ones that grew larger first, achieved important strategic advantages over their relatively smaller neighbors. They had more specialists (more hunters, gatherers, bead makers, or whathaveyou), which increased their trade position with the smaller tribes and made them of greater importance. They had more warriors to send into battle, making it more likely they would win any conflict that arose.

But something else happened, too.

The communal society works well and good when it is small enough so that all members know each other, and more specifically when “the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.” There is a certain amount of self-reinforcement that occurs in these small communal groups. Everyone has a sense of importance IN the group. A feeling that “my task is critical for our success.” And since everybody knows what everyone should be doing, there’s indirect pressure (in the form of group expectation) to perform. Thus, everything gets done, and everyone shares in the tribe’s progress.

But as populations grow, that is no longer the case. The glue that keeps the communal society together begins to come undone. Not everybody knows everyone, and the chief cannot watch over his children at all times. The peer pressure to see to the survival of the troop weakens in the face of a growing pool of specialized labor (oh, it won’t kill us if I don’t make beads today), and so this is done.

Before long, the tribe suffers from a kind of paralysis, and something needs to be done IMMEDIATELY to rectify the situation, or the paralysis will utterly destroy the tribal unit.

And something was.

The Chief (or Medicine Man, or someone) recognizes this growing paralysis as an opportunity for personal power, steps in and grabs the reins for himself (with a sufficient number of his buddies as backup, promising them a high place in the new order), and the tribe is powerless to prevent such an act from occurring. The new chief (with his trusted lieutenants at the head of the tribe’s warriors), rules by decree and breaks the paralysis, and the promise of advancement in this new system for faithful service to the chief is the impetus for growth, and compared to the communal system, the growth in productivity that this change brings about is phenomenal).

All stop. At this point, the evolution away from the communal society has begun.

The neighboring tribes (still communally based) are now at an even greater strategic disadvantage. The centrally controlled, feudalistic chief has a more productive, more innovative, more organized population behind him, and if the other tribes do not follow suit, they will invariably lose their ability to choose when they are absorbed by the tribe with the strategic advantage.

Thus, there IS no difference between the system breaking down, and the system evolving into something more effective. They are a micro and macro look at the same phenomenon.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Meldor
But as individuals you have the desire to pass on to your offspring the fruits of your labors. Something that is strickly forbidden in a communist structure. It is this desire and motivation that brings about the overall changes. You pass on to the offspring a better starting point, a higher level. Violence and the resulting chaos and anarchy don't allow you to pass on that added production to the children. We compete even in death.

That is actually not true. For a great deal of time estate law was different than it was now. For example, in the Middle Ages, only the oldest son got anything, every other offspring either lived on the dole of the oldest, who legally owned it all, or they made their own fortunes, or they died. The notion of passing on to the kids was not common, specially since the likelyhood was that there was nothing to leave for the kids anyway, and kids were an economic aid, sionce you needed them out on the farm, so in a sense what you made was also what they made. Examine stone age peoples; there are no estates whatsoever. For most of human existance there has been no surplus, so the notion of "passing on to the kids" is not a basic human motivator. In fact, while you wanted your offspring to grow to full term and reproducvtive age, after that you wanted them out, since they might be a drain on resources needed for the next generation of kids you plan to have.

But low level speeding is not generally a threat to your family. Mass murders are a threat to you and your family. Therefore we do collectively rid ourselves of the threat. It is also a threat to the peace and well being, the ability to keep the society from degenerating to a point where it isn't able to support the current and enhanced standard of living.

So it is the safety of the whole that matters, not the needs of any indvdual when it ocxmes to crime, no?

I disagree, point to any "stone age" society today, for instance the natives of Fiji Island. Why didn't these people, with the strong communal spirit advance faster than the outside world. They were islolted on an island and the competing societies were eliminated. Their system got rid of a lot of the incentive to compete at anything. Fishing was shared, etc. By your thought they should be more advance than we are, but they aren't. Becasue there is no reason for them to improve an what they have.

I have never said anything of the such whatsoever. The reason they have not advanced is not that they don't compete. How would comeptition help them at all? Being isolated and without refrigeration, ctacghing lots more fish is a waste of energy. What can't be eaten will be wasted, since they can't possibly trade it, if they are sufficiently isolated. At their economic level competition is counterproductive, not helpfull at all, since none of them have enough capital to get labor saving devices nor enough to hire fellows, and as I said, any surplus is wasted, and hence the manpower to get it was also a waste.

And communism is also an economic system as well. It's purpose is the same as that for capitalism, to get the resources and good to where they are needed. Were they differ is in the reasons and rewards for getting it done in the best way. Capitalism has it and communism doesn't. It doens't crush what is not optimum, it simple makes it obsolete, like the soviet System.

Actually, the aim of communism is NOT the maximizing of efficiency to max out the output of wealth. Marx himself states that capitalism is the best system in doing so. The aim of communism is to end the alienattion of man in modern society. It is utopian, not merely utalitarian like capitalism, and the final aims is a mankind free to do whatever they want beyond the economic struggle.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Suicide is normally associated with severe depression wherein brain chemistry is altered dramatically. The onset of which is normally due to a feeling of failure and low levels of self worth.

Suicide is often caused by economic conditions, principally job loss. We have been through this, and I have already shown the statistics.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by GePap


As UR said, plenty of people volunteer. Beyond that, ask yourself: would you do nothing if you were not paid? Just sit around the house and do, what exactly?

And conversely, if all your basic needs were met, period, what would there be to "work" for? Why toil and labor (have we frogttent he egative connotaions of the word?) Why not just PLAY?

As Diss said, people only volunteer for things they are passionate about. Thats all well and good if we have people passionate about cars (salesmen, mechanics), planes (pilots), and trians (train engineers), but i dont know many people who are passionate about fish processing... do you? Janitorial work? There are an endless amount of menial jobs that must be done (or our society wouldnt work), but people only do them for money.

Because if you had more money, you could play more! With bigger and better toys than hte guy next door. You could have a lot more fun with a state of the art computer than you could with a run of the mill, governemnt built crap machine. As the Soviet Union demonstarted, people may not totally need incentive to do all jobs, but they do need incentive to do jobs WELL. Im sure true craftsmenship would become even more rare in a communist society than in a corporate-squeeze-out-every-penny-you-can society, but i have nothing to back this up, just speculation.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Okay, those are the strongest motivators.

Now how do we design a systems around them?

hmm... perhaps we could sit someone down in fornt of a data entry machine and yell "your mama's so fat" jokes at him all day... should motivate him nice and good