Define communism for dum 'ol Lancer

[MrFun]

I need to leave myself -- I am going out to the clubs.

[Velociryx]

'k...leave yourself here....you won't have wandered far by the time you return...

-=Vel=-

[Dracon II]

I haven't had time to read the later developments in this thread but I do have some thoughts to offer.

I entered this thread thinking that I would defend communism. I came out sounding like a centre-left pragmatist... so much so that I've found Velocyiryx supporting much of my argument and Kidicious disputing it. Not the outcome I was expecting.

I suppose I am a moderate. I believe that extremities of any kind should be mistrusted. That includes left extremism and right extremism. It is difficult to define what is extreme when one is looking at it from the inside, but I can't help but thinking that the incessant commodification of culture and society that has occurred during the post war period, and the extension and intensification of capitalism that has occurred since the 1970's is displaying extremist tendencies. There is currently developing in the world a global economy that exists above political and hence democratic control. The equation of commodification free markets with freedom is a problematic one, but so is central planning. Either extremities are disciplinary forces... one disciplines through direct coercion (planning), the other disciplines through a ubiquitous extension of the ebbs and flows of capital and through the dependency on constantly fighting to compete and stay afloat. Capital intensification is a stressful experience, no matter the reward, it squeezes every ounce of energy we can produce into keeping the market in growth. The sheer force of countless individuals and competing interests acting in unison constitutes a constraint on freedom. We become prisoners of circumstance and necessity even in the midst of abundance.


However, upon further meditation on the idea of a market, it occurs to me that the market is really a way of organising and distributing what its participants value. It is a way of determining and organising value. A market commodity is not determined by what it is in essence and use, but its exchange value. Therefore, a market is only as immoral or moral as the people that actively participate in it. Of course there is the problem of differential abilities to participate in the market, determined by one's relations of production (Marx) and the distribution of life chances (Weber), which suggests a highly uneven distribution of choice and benefit within and from markets, but in essence, the market itself is an amoral mechanism. If market participants valued equality/world peace/environmental sustainability enough, there would be competition among market producers to provide said values. If, as is largely the case, market participants largely see themselves as individual or familial units who wish only to ingratiate themselves, then the market will be organised around producing end products according to a profit maximising motive that can operate at the expense of both employees, the environment, and society.
The hard work then, is not in changing the market, it is changing the way people think, and the things that people value. It may be so that markets naturally incline people towards selfishness and individual egoism, but I hope that is not the case. Communism doesn't work because people don't have the maturity or perceive any incentive to make it work. A market that is sufficiently pressured by changing attitudes within its constituency could well tend towards communism by the sheer force of shifting values. Markets respond to value where it can be accrued, and that means responding to the values of consumers with the purchasing power to attain them. Changing the values of those consumers would be a major step forward.
My uncle, for example, is a completing a thesis in economics. He's combined his postgraduate economics with his undergraduate environmental science degree and is now an environmental economist. He sees his job as trying to put a dollar value on ecosystems that is not determined by their value for exploitation, but their existing aesthetic and ecological value. In this way, he's hoping to demonstrate that the value of cutting a forest down is not necessarily greater than letting it grow. I'm not exactly sure how he works it out, but a lot of his work involves putting a dollar value on people's attitudes and points of view, rather than their immediate material interests. Inconclusive results so far, but it shows promise.

And another thing... is anyone familiar with Hernando de Soto? The contemporary, 3rd world economist de Soto I mean.

[Sandman]

-=Cough=-

[Velociryx]

Dracon, I don't agree with quite everything in that post above, but it is a fine post indeed.



-=Vel=-

PS: http://www.cato.org/special/friedman/desoto/bio.html

Bio on de Soto (the Economist)

[Velociryx]

Just watched the vids on this guy, found here:

http://www.cato.org/special/friedman/desoto/desotovideo.html

-=Vel=-

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dracon II
The hard work then, is not in changing the market, it is changing the way people think, and the things that people value.

You're talking about changing the fundamental nature of man. It can't be done. People's attitudes reflect economic reality. History drives man's conciousness, not the other way around.

[Dracon II]

Originally posted by Kidicious


You're talking about changing the fundamental nature of man. It can't be done. People's attitudes reflect economic reality. History drives man's conciousness, not the other way around.

Surely its possible to broaden people's understanding of "economic realities", i.e., that there exists incredible inequality in the world, that the environment is a threatened resource, etc etc...

I was simply outlining a situation under which markets could continue to exist. The long term sustainability and benefits of markets depend on a global and long term approach to ordering individual life on an aggregate scale.

I'm so pissed off. I wrote such a long response to most of the posts between about the 10th and 14th pages of this thread and then my computer froze and I had to restart the computer. Unfortunately I'm too lazy and too tired out by a bottle of red wine to rewrite it now, if ever...

Turned out to be quite a nasty debate, didn't it?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dracon II
Surely its possible to broaden people's understanding of "economic realities", i.e., that there exists incredible inequality in the world, that the environment is a threatened resource, etc etc...

Most people see things the way that meets their own needs. They invent and devote themselves to theories that create policies which meet their own needs.

People only care about their own equality mostly. They're mostly preoccupied with keeping up with the Joneses. As long as they can do that they don't worry too much.

I was simply outlining a situation under which markets could continue to exist. The long term sustainability and benefits of markets depend on a global and long term approach to ordering individual life on an aggregate scale.

The way capitalism works today it seems to me that markets are working in a way that no one wants them to. A tremendous about of resources are devoted to avoiding competition in order to maintain the rate of profit. Competition is very disruptive actually in most industries. So I don't know why we would want markets to exist the way they are now. And I'm not sure how you invision them working in the future, but I don't think that you could have "ordering individual life on an aggregate scale." Isn't that planning?

I'm so pissed off. I wrote such a long response to most of the posts between about the 10th and 14th pages of this thread and then my computer froze and I had to restart the computer. Unfortunately I'm too lazy and too tired out by a bottle of red wine to rewrite it now, if ever...

That sucks.

Turned out to be quite a nasty debate, didn't it?

As far as the exchanges between Vel and I it started out that way when Vel entered. I suppose that will be the end of debates between the two of us though.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Incentives

Incentives are very important in a capitalist system. People need incentives to save and invest. That's the way the price mechanism works. In communism that kind of incentive isn't needed. What is left is incentive to work. To me if you hire someone and tell them to complete a task they will do it. It doesn't matter what kind of system there is. They will complete the task because they need to in order to meet their own needs.

[Velociryx]

People's attitudes reflect economic reality.

Could NOT have said it better myself, Kid! This then, would explain why communism has been reduced to existing at the margins in industrialized nations, because it is so far removed FROM that reality.

Dracon: Sadly, yes it did, and for a time I lost my temper and there's more venom in my responses than I would have liked. Part of this is caused by virtue of the fact that I tend to try and respond "exponentially in kind." If someone is boorish and uncivilized, I'll be absolutely barbaric. If someone offers a word of kindness or support, I try to offer even more in return. (and, admittedly, the other part is that THIS particular topic really raises my hackles, for a number of reasons).

Like you, I am a moderate. I do not believe that the answers lie at either extreme...unfettered, unregulated capitalism can be just as damning and devastating as abolition of property rights and socialization of nearly every aspect of life (I've even heard some reds offer up the idea that at birth, children should be taken from their parents and given over as the state's responsibility to raise....a truly frightening position!)

Sadly (you and Spiffor notwithstanding), everyone here seems to be parroting/regurgitating the same-old, same-old Marxist crap that's spelled disaster in the past, while covering their collective ears and eyes to the reality that by virtue of the same ideologic approach, their own aspirations are likewise doomed (or making ANY possible excuse for the failures of the past, other than the rather obvious, "it doesn't work."

-=Vel=-

PS: What kinda wine?

[Dracon II]

hehe... el cheapo $5 wine.

(I've even heard some reds offer up the idea that at birth, children should be taken from their parents and given over as the state's responsibility to raise....a truly frightening position!)

Well, at least in australia there's a situation in which children living in intolerable family conditions are taken away by the state and relocated to foster homes. But that is replacing one family with another.

I'm not so sure about children being raised by a bureaucracy (a very impersonal and alienating prospect if you ask me).... but within small communities the collective rearing of children is not necessarily a bad idea. It's been practised in Israeli Kibbutz for quite some time now. It seems to produce more socially minded children.

I'm really tired at the moment, so I'll post more tomorrow. Good night.

[Velociryx]

Not a thing in the world wrong with the cheap stuff....gets the job done, in any case!

Agreed re: the impersonal nature of the state raising children...very alienating, tho I can understand its attraction, IF one is steeped in the marxist collectivist ideology, in which the state's (which is the ultimate and "natural" expression of the collective society) needs are placed at all times above those of the individual. It automatically engenders individual subservience TO the state at all levels (from birth to death, you are essentially the "common property" of the state machine. It reduces the individual to no more than a means to the ends OF the state (which is glossed over to mean "the greater good of society" without paying any heed to the state's inherent desire to be self-perpetuating for its OWN good, and not the "greater good of the societal whole."

I've got no problems with abused children being removed from their abusive parents and placed where care can better be given (ie, another family), and can even see a case where, on a small (tribalistic) scale, collectivism CAN be made to work (though even here, there have been difficulties).

I've said before (which usually gets an eyeroll from many of the supporters of marx) that such micro-level collectivism, however, is in no way scalable to the nation-states that exist today, much less to the global level, which is the stated desire of many, if not most marxists, and have, in past threads, written much about the particulars of why this is so (which, again, is scoffed at and/or ignored by the die-hard marxists, who are so caught up in those byzantine writings as to view any attack on them...any indication that they are perhaps off-base (and sometimes wildly so) to be a direct threat to the whole ideology....which it is, and rightly so.

Anyways, get some rest and enjoy the weekend...

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Dracon, you had asked earlier about information on DeSoto...here's another link for you, critiquing his work Interesting read:

http://www.futurecasts.com/book%20review%204-08.htm

You and Spiff might find this interesting, but I doubt seriously that many others will WANT to read a critique of Marx's work (since he's revered as essentially infallable, and thus, needs no such treatment), but if you/they *do* want to have a look, the first bit of it can be found below (with internal links to succeeding segments):

http://www.futurecasts.com/Marx,%20Capital%20(Das%20Kapital)%20%20Vol%201%20(I).htm

-=Vel=-

Edit: second link's too long...just copy and paste to your browser, and it'll get you there...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Velociryx
You and Spiff might find this interesting, but I doubt seriously that many others will WANT to read a critique of Marx's work (since he's revered as essentially infallable, and thus, needs no such treatment), but if you/they *do* want to have a look, the first bit of it can be found below (with internal links to succeeding segments):

Actually you really need to read it so you can develope an argument.

edit: After reading it, I would say that you probably wouldn't want to copy his argument. It's almost as bad as your bald assertions. He mostly makes bald assertions, but there is some logic to it. He mostly argues points that aren't very important, and leaves the important stuff alone.