If your country were to become communist...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

no one has told me if ipods, cars, and guitar amps would disappear from society if it became communist because they are wants and not needs.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Communism is the economic system of the future. Capitalism is an exhaustive economic system. It has to burn itself out. That's all I really have time for tonight. Tomorrow is my last final, so I'm going to study a bit for it now.

He complains that you've made baseless assertions, and you respond with more baseless assertions?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
He complains that you've made baseless assertions, and you respond with more baseless assertions?

Well he is a Communist

[Az]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
no one has told me if ipods, cars, and guitar amps would disappear from society if it became communist because they are wants and not needs.

Maybe because we're not sure yet? Personally, my opinion is that personal music players are great. The manufacturing facilities are there, why not?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Master Zen
It better not be an economics final...

No I passed all of those already. Maybe you didn't pass your History of Economic Thought final though. If you have your old text you can read some Marxist theory so that I don't have to repeat it.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
no one has told me if ipods, cars, and guitar amps would disappear from society if it became communist because they are wants and not needs.

Of course. All the faclities are there already. The best thing to do is imitate the way things are done already, and make slow changes.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Not in those words, but it's the implication from your asserting that if Morocco can't afford to pay the doctors what they would get in Spain, tough luck for Morocco.

Not exactly. It would only be in very extreme situations where Morocco would not be able to afford any doctors. For the majority of cases, they would just be able to afford less doctors than Spain.

Regarding the production of food, however, I actually do agree with you that a pure market system is not appropriate. While with many products, if you can't afford a particular good then you turn to inferior goods as a substitute (like if you have no doctors, you turn to whoever in the village knows the most about medicine), food as a whole does not have a substitute. If you have a good season, much food is produced and the abundance of competition for this resourse pushes prices down. Everyone can afford food (assuming the country has some sort of safety net). If you have a bad season, market forces ration food out according to wealth, meaning people who have less money can't get as much or any food. Obviously, this is a bad situation.

Fortunately, most major industrialised countries feel the same as I do, in that they provide subsidies to farmers so that supply of food is always above the equilibrium level. As a side-benefit, the direct cost people pay for food is lower than otherwise. Of course, the subsidies are also payed for by the population, but thems the breaks. While this is less efficient than pure market forces, the period of adjustment where supply is lower than demand is too costly in human terms to ignore. Starvation and death versus higher government expenditure, not such a hard decision.

[Skanky Burns]

To answer the original question though, there is no reason why a contracted period of service can not be part of the education package, such that the state pays for your education and expenses and you pay the state back by working for them for a set period of time. I can't see this working for primary and secondary education though, as people go through this education before being old enough to make valid legal contracts.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Of course. All the faclities are there already. The best thing to do is imitate the way things are done already, and make slow changes.

So you are saying that there would be no iPods because they are wants and not needs despite the fact that production of iPods tremendously benefits society and doesn't really harm it?

[Spiffor]

MZ:

For having seen similar threads in the past, I believe I can see where this one is going: Kidicious will progressively explain the economic system he envisions. I'd like to point out in advance that every Commie on this board has a different opinion on the specifics (well, Odin and I appear to be in agreement on most things, but that's about it and we're socialists rather than commies anyway).

So, I'd like to tell in advance that you can't generalize anything said by a particular poster to "you commies". I think it'll be tempting at some point, but it'll be unaccurate.

[Az]

It's not just commies that are that way, either. Everyone has somewhat different ideas on society and policies.

[Spiffor]

Yup.

Ask our capitalists (everybody from St Leo to David Floyd) what their ideal society would look like, and you'll have very different pictures.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
For having seen similar threads in the past, I believe I can see where this one is going: Kidicious will progressively explain the economic system he envisions.

Sort of.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Master Zen
So you are saying that there would be no iPods because they are wants and not needs despite the fact that production of iPods tremendously benefits society and doesn't really harm it?

No. You guys keep saying that. Che already made it clear, and I just did, that that's just ridiculous. Needs will be met first, but that doesn't mean that wants wont be met.

[Master Zen]

Considering how many people are employed by building iPods, you don't consider that a "need" for those people?