It's frustrating to deal with communists.

[Barnabas]

Originally posted by Agathon


So?

There's two sides to communism. One part is the moral dimension, which stresses the misery and inequality caused by capitalism. The second is the historical thesis that claims that capitalism will eat itself and be replaced by a communist society.

Communists with brains recognize that the second is the result of a long developmentalist process and can't be created simply because people want it now. We aren't even close to the technology we would need to make it work. That being the case, the first part still holds and anyone who is a communist should be committed to producing a stable political system that fulfills these goals as best as possible. The Nordic welfare state seems to be the optimal form of social organization to achieve that goal.

The anarchists and so on who think we should overthrow the government tomorrow have one small problem. They have no idea what to replace it with. It's the same as those people who argue that China should have a democratic revolution right now, but have no idea what to do after overthrowing the Chinese government. Or those clowns who thought it would be a good idea to overthrow the entire Iraqi political structure without any sort of plan for what was next.

I fail to see what is unreasonable about any of these beliefs.

That will never happen because the state will always be there to save capitalism from its periodical crises

[Ben Kenobi]

It isn't. That is very low. No wonder they are on strike.

I'd work as a scab for that much.

Victor Galis, are they taking applications?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
That manager that Paris Hilton hires now has a job from it. Even this worst case scenario doesn't seem very parasitic.

This reminds me of the anecdote of how 13 people of different nationalities became stranded on an island. They divided their jobs. 12 people spent their days fishing, hunting and foraging. The 13th guy, an American in the original version, had the job of eating. Every evening they would prepare a feast for the 13th guy, once he was done eating the rest could eat what was left.

A modern economist looks at this and says that the 13th guy (the professional consumer) is vital to the islands economy.




You are completely ignoring the fact that there is no need for the "heir", the money can be spent for usefull things by a goverment or (gasp) a corporation.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by OzzyKP

How would that work?

Just hire some company to monitor file sharing services and dole out the money proportionally. Of course, people may try to game the system, but pollsters are usually smart enough to correct for that, so there's no reason it would be any different in this case.

Capitalists certainly contribute more to society than people on welfare. I don't think it is quite accurate to say your objection to capitalists owning the means of production is that they make money for not working. Under communist/socialist/welfare state programs that you no doubt support there are far more people getting money for not working.

Perhaps I didn't explain myself very well. Some capitalists own capital and work at the same time. I don't really mean them. What I mean is best illustrated by the example of land (wait for the Georgists to invade the thread...). When you pay somebody rent for the land your business is located on, you aren't paying them for any work that they do. If you have a class of people who live off of rents, then you're essentially rewarding people for not working. That's what I mean when I talk about capitalists not working. Although he's sometimes less than clear about it, Marx objected to this. That's why I find it strange when small business owners complain about Marxism, when they in fact work really hard while lazy trust fund nincompoops contribute nothing to society other than drug habits.

The private ownership of land is something we put up with because it means that a land market will lead to more efficient use of land resources. As the Georgists have pointed out, there's no reason why all land can't be publicly owned (like the airwaves) and people merely pay the government to use it. Allowing private ownership of land encourages rent seeking behaviour, and that means people living off of the hard work of others while contributing no work.

The case of welfare is slightly different. In many cases we make welfare payments to those who cannot work (like the sick), or to those who do work that is unpaid (like single parents). But in many cases we simply pay people out of self interest. Nobody wants to live in a crime ridden society full of homeless people, so we basically pay people to keep them off the street. The difference in this case is that the payment promotes a social good. Everyone benefits from not having to step over homeless lunatics on the street. Nobody benefits from paying for Paris Hilton's coke habit except Paris Hilton and her drug dealer.

The investment of capital is actually an extremely important part of any economy. You can't get that factory of robots together if no one can afford to buy the robots and the land they are sitting on. Your argument of course is that the government should do that. But if there is some government manager doing that job and getting paid for it, how is he any more productive than the capitalist?

The difference is that a manager doesn't own the company. Hence, he or she is rewarded for the work that he or she does. Take the example of a public healthcare system. Everyone who works in the system is paid for the work that they do. The land on which hospitals and surgeries is owned by the state. Everyone involved in the system is actively producing value.

Now take the contrasting case of a private healthcare monopoly owned by Mr Fascist Pig esq. (he's the guy that the lefties always complain about). He isn't a health care worker, and he inherited the monopoly from his father. Unlike many monopolists, Pig is smart enough to realize that he can't charge outrageous fees, or the government will nationalize his business or some other competitor will start up. Thus, Pig's healthcare company works reasonably well and provides a decent level of service. He makes quite a tidy sum from the business and never lifts a finger himself (he hires managers and directors to do all that). In fact, there would be no appreciable difference if we swapped Mr Pig for a real pig and declared it the owner of the business.

What many societies have discovered is that there is no need for Mr Pig, at least in the healthcare system. Why have some guy sitting there watching his bank balance grow bigger when he contributes nothing?

The question is: what other areas of society would be better off using this model. The answer changes depending upon technological developments.

Most of those fat cat capitalists actually work quite hard (their kids however - like Paris Hilton - not necessarily). But they aren't doing physical labor or working on a factory floor so you discount the work they do.

I don't doubt this. My point was about the nature of capital as exploitative of labour. See the stuff about land above.

In this scenario the capitalist lives off the backs of his robots - kinda like everyone else in society. I don't see how that is any more abusive than some small family with a robot maid cooking & cleaning for them.

Why should we have the capitalist living off the back of his robots, when everyone could?

No one would want a swarm of ants washing their dishes though. Or rather, if they had a swarm of ants washing their dishes they'd try to upgrade once company X puts out a conscious version of their robot that would perform far better. Technology will continue to develop until we reach that point because there are tangible benefits to doing so.

The point about the ants was that not every entity which can accomplish a goal intelligently is conscious. In other words, there is no reason to believe that robots would exhibit consciousness in such a way as to confer rights upon them. So the question of exploitation of robots would not really arise.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
You don't need human level intelligence to wash the dishes. 70% of manufacturing can be automated without even touching chim-level AI.

Dude, the proportion of human intelligence that is just "knowing how to finely manipulate delicate objects using tools" is huge. General intelligence may not be that much harder to invent than normal tool use...

[Monk]

Re: It's frustrating to deal with communists.

'It's frustrating to deal with communists' or 'Why is so hard for many leftists to admit...' suggest this is mostly a problem among people of the left wing persuasion. My experience is that it's a general thing - there are only so many you'll encounter who are able and willing to defend their ideas in a sober way. Sad but true.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Dude, the proportion of human intelligence that is just "knowing how to finely manipulate delicate objects using tools" is huge. General intelligence may not be that much harder to invent than normal tool use...

I never said tool manipulation. But I assert a glorified dishwasher will be as good at the job as your hypothetical intelligent tool using robot. I think the same can be said of most stuff.


And even if this was the case, Chimps use tools.