Apolyton Communist Party meeting: What is to be done?

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Azazel

How can the best be rewarded and the mediocre punished? Isn't utopia, like HG Wells said, the death of science and initiative, and the beginning of a long evolutionary slide back to the trees?

If you're mediocre, your payment will be mediocre. If you're good, your pay will be good, if you're brilliant, not only your pay will be great, you will be famous too. If you're bad, you will be fired. But your kids will still get educated, and you'll get healthcare too. But you will be dirt poor.

you're allowing for ecnomic desparity that will inevitably lead to socio/ecnomic classes and variances to power. all equality is dependent on all the other ones. you cannot truly be socially equal without being economically and politically equal. you can mix those up any way you want to, although " you cannot truly be economic w/o being politically / socially equally" is a bit unfounded, but you get the point.

i understand what you are advocating, it's another system, but i don't think thats the point of this thread as per Monk's original post.

[SlowwHand]

[JohnT]

[Voice from the back, shouting harshly]
The fact is, what y'all are peddling is just another oppressive religion. And who's buying? Have we spent the past 400 years trying to shake the more oppressive chains of Christianity just to take up the shackles of the Communists?

Listening to y'all is akin to listening to a bunch of priests babble about Aquinas and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Quotes such as this one

The average person couldn't hope to decipher one of Marx's works in a million years.

does little to enhance your appeal in the real world. So go ahead and use the internet as your monastary, parsing words until they can no longer be parsed, in languages increasingly disconnected from the world outside: we'll be out here living our lives, changing, growing, evolving.

[/Voice from the back being dragged off to an ally for some of that good ol' Communist "brotherhood and equality".]

[Az]

you're allowing for ecnomic desparity that will inevitably lead to socio/ecnomic classes and variances to power.

My goal here is not that everyone will live the same. I don't believe that this is feasible in large-scale economic systems, not to say countries, superstates, or a OWG.

My goal here is the goal of utilitarianism. That the most people will be the most happy for the most time.

I generally believe that if all people get an equal shot at life, and in the same time will be rewarded for their hardwork/inventiveness, and that no people will starve to death, or die from an uncurable desease, my goal is achieved.

What is your goal?

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Azazel


My goal here is not that everyone will live the same. I don't believe that this is feasible in large-scale economic systems, not to say countries, superstates, or a OWG.

My goal here is the goal of utilitarianism. That the most people will be the most happy for the most time.

I generally believe that if all people get an equal shot at life, and in the same time will be rewarded for their hardwork/inventiveness, and that no people will starve to death, or die from an uncurable desease, my goal is achieved.

What is your goal?

my goal is that everyone born in a society and willing to better it will be granted everything the socciety can possibly offer them, and that no willing citizen will be left out in the cold.

and when you allow for economic desparity, you take away the equal shot at life. being born to a rich white family gives you many more oppurtunities than if you were born in a poverty striken minority family with 8 siblings.

if you're willing to work for society, to do whatever you can to advance it, you should be given everything society would give anyone else just like you.

edit: off to class, back @ 3 or so.

[Az]

and when you allow for economic desparity, you take away the equal shot at life. being born to a rich white family gives you many more oppurtunities than if you were born in a poverty striken minority family with 8 siblings.

Not when personal fortune is taken after death, and everyone has free education.

"Class" won't be carried through the generations.

[Seeker]

Re: different kind of slavery.

One of my adult students is a factory owner. His firm manufactured steel filters, spoons, and other low tech steel stuff. We've had alot of discussions on the 'race to the bottom' effect.

Basically, in a manufacturing business cost is the first and last consideration. He could not competitively make filters in Korea because the workers demanded higher wages. He could not compete with Chinese production on the basis of quality or speed, because price is the most important thing.

Now, he is relocating to Viet Nam because Korea is no longer economical. They (the common people)want him there. They love foreign investment. He is going to pay the workers a lot less than nike, but it's still a very high wage by Vietnamese standards.

Even in Korea, workers come from Pakistan and Indonesia, and Western china, to work for a wage that a Korean would starve on....they save this, because it's 10x what they make back home, when they return with 750 dollars saved up, they are very rich in local terms.

That's why I don't buy the evil industry argument. Yes, the company will pay the lowest it can, but for most that is a very good wage.

Imagine the situation WITHOUT the evil corporation. No job. A very desperate, primitive, subsistence situation.

I think people get attracted by this romantic notion of native cultures living in harmony with nature that never existed, and fail to realize that a few years of working at, by Western standards, 'slave' wages can drastically improve peoples circumstances.

The problems of industry are caused by these stupid nation states hanging around, preventing harmonized global safety, environmental, and other regs, and by trade barriers and subsidies, NOT by factories paying low wages.

[Shi Huangdi]

at this thread

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by UberKruX




you're allowing for ecnomic desparity that will inevitably lead to socio/ecnomic classes and variances to power. all equality is dependent on all the other ones. you cannot truly be socially equal without being economically and politically equal. you can mix those up any way you want to, although " you cannot truly be economic w/o being politically / socially equally" is a bit unfounded, but you get the point.

i understand what you are advocating, it's another system, but i don't think thats the point of this thread as per Monk's original post.

Reward for hard work will not cause creation of classes like we have them in capitalism. With capitalism people are members of the higher class for no other reason except their parents are rich or they play good basketball. People should be rewarded for their hardwork. But I'm not saying they should be paid 500 times the average worker, like some CEOs do today.

[Az]

Seeker: I somewhat agree, I am not having any of those romantic notions. I simply don't believe that it is fair that for some reason a person in Vietnam should be paid less than a person in Korea, if all other criteria are the same.

[DuncanK]

The thing is that Marxism is about giving workers back what they are earning. If you don't pay someone for working hard than you aren't much better than the capitalists.

That being said I don't think people should be paid for their inventions unless its their normal job. Now if an individual has shown a talent for coming up with inventions then this should be his normal job.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
at this thread

I agree. I especially loved Stefu's contribution.

[Az]

yeah, that WAS funny.

[DuncanK]

As far as the purpose of this thread, which is to discuss ways that we can speed up the evolution of society, well we can't. Nothing we do can change the pace. Capitalism will fail economically. We will never convince a critical mass of people that capitalism is inferior until it becomes obvious, and then it they will be eager for the knowledge.

[DinoDoc]

BTW, you people do realize that one definition of insanity is doing the samething over and over expecting a different result. How many times does communism have to fail in order for the point to be made to you?