Price Gouging - Fair and balanced, or unfair

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
But I thought people were to be paid for the effort they put into their labor...

... or was it paid based on the value of their labor?

And what's the difference (in terms of your theory) between thinking and labor, then, if both have a value to society, and both paid for?

EDIT: as others have said, moot. Major @ Kid; I take back what I said earlier.

Thinking doesn't exploit labor it contributes to it. Communists aren't against thinking it's the sensless class transfer of wealth that we oppose.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Flubber
Wouldn't it be so much betetr to offer VEL a fair price for his invention absed on the impact it would have on industry?

I answered this one right?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


Well if you live in that addon universe, you can simply make everyone exstatically happy and achieve the same result sans planned.

But such "golden ages" usually require the allocation of resources toward luxuries instead of science or the economy

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Velociryx
It's not taking the tool that he built though. It's paying someone else to build another one.

Yep. But without my cooperation in giving the prototype up, you'll have to take it (ie - exploit me....you know, the thing you despise. But then someone said once that we all become what we despise).

Why wouldn't you cooperate?

[Kuciwalker]

A whim?

He thought maybe he could hold out for more, given that it was he who invented the device?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Flubber
hmmm but people are paid for their effort, not their output right?? So my work is thinking and I think hard all day but don't create any tangible product all day. My co-worker comes up with two brilliant ideas during an early round of golf, browses poly all day and leaves early-- who gets paid more? who measures it ??

There's no incentives possible for this type of work. Incentives only work for production.

Originally posted by Flubber
Also real life

This is not an entirely far-out point-- I'm a lawyer and get paid an hourly rate ( not busy today -- no project to bill until my meeting later ). But sometimes when drafting a complex 100 page agreement, I get so involved that I am thinking about it morning, noon and night-- I've had major flashes of insight while playing hockey, or while gardening .... ObviouslyNOT actively working. Now .. . I grab my dictaphone and will bill the client for the time it takes to specify and expand the idea but I don't bill for the night I spent tossing and turning mulling over the problem . . . the bottom line for me is that the client must be pleased with the overall product at the price I charge . .. If he's not, I probably lose the client. Its the free market at work and like the result. How does all this fit in with your planners?

Planning can't really compensate people for ideas they come up with after work.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Why wouldn't you cooperate?

What incentive does he have to cooperate?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
I would be the first to admit that it would be a better world if my job didn't exist. But I think of a communist system and figure that a "planner" in that system looks an awful lot like me... instead of analyzing claims, they analyze production data or somesuch and make some sort of determination (build more of widget A, less of C). Isn't that work?

-Arrian

Yeah. Your basic job is analyst. We need your skill. There will be work for you.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Solomwi


What incentive does he have to cooperate?

Probably the greatest incentive would be recognition.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Well I thouht about it for awhile. I thought about giving incentive or reward for innovation. Then I thought about how that would work out. The problem that I saw is the increase in supply that innovation creates. Planners would have two options. One, they could drop the price of the good, or two, they could displace workers. Of course, they could do a mixture of both. Then I realized that giving incentive for innovation is not as good as originally thought. The more innovation in the economy the more nightmares that are created in planning. Admittedly, even though this problem exists in capitalism, in communism it's worse. In the long run innovation is good for both, but the tendency will always be to keep innovation to a minimum in a planned economy. So, any incentive for innovation will have to be small if any.

You've started out with the assumption that innovation is good, realized it is actually "bad" because it causes temporary instability (in capitalism; in a planned system, you basically say it's a major headache to deal with), and then you say you must have only a "small incentive" so you don't have too much innovation.

The problem, here, is that for the rest of us the assumption that innovation is good still holds, with the instability actually being a boon. Innovation actually always results in both lowered prices AND displaced workers, resulting in more people having the good (or more of the good) and more people free to work on completely NEW products.

Communism of course does much better with higher technology, and slow rate of innovation. That is, communism is better as a future economy.

Innovation isn't necessarily technological - it can simply be thinking of a more efficient way to perform a task. A trivial example would be realizing that you could hit windows-e to open Windows Explorer rather than start->programs->windows explorer. A better one would be simply better management techniques.

[Kidlicious]

I think I'm caught up now.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Three, there would have to be a ceiling on salaries.

Then your most productive people will have no reason to compete with each other.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I think I'm caught up now.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
You've started out with the assumption that innovation is good, realized it is actually "bad" because it causes temporary instability (in capitalism; in a planned system, you basically say it's a major headache to deal with), and then you say you must have only a "small incentive" so you don't have too much innovation.

It's good, but yes too much too fast is problematic, even in capitalist system.

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The problem, here, is that for the rest of us the assumption that innovation is good still holds, with the instability actually being a boon. Innovation actually always results in both lowered prices AND displaced workers, resulting in more people having the good (or more of the good) and more people free to work on completely NEW products.

When will those new jobs for creating new products come out? You really can't say.

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Communism of course does much better with higher technology, and slow rate of innovation. That is, communism is better as a future economy.

Innovation isn't necessarily technological - it can simply be thinking of a more efficient way to perform a task. A trivial example would be realizing that you could hit windows-e to open Windows Explorer rather than start->programs->windows explorer. A better one would be simply better management techniques.

Right.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Probably the greatest incentive would be recognition.

Which he can also get by being the greatest widget-maker of all time, with no one the wiser as to how he did it. Also, recognition is worth little without the money, and consequently hot cars and fast chicks, that accompany it.

Seriously, recognition is some small incentive, but by itself isn't much, and won't be enough to get the level of cooperation you need for the system to work, especially if he isn't a fan of the system.