The theoretical basis for the triumph of communism

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Yer not keepin' up with the times.

http://demographymatters.blogspot.co...-shortage.html

It's gonna get a lot worse when their boomers start retiring.

Yes, because China = Earth.

Originally posted by Kidicious
There aren't any people in Montana and Siberia. Who's going to do the work?

You said there is somehow a scarcity of land, so I offered those as examples disproving that. There's no scarcity of land until all usable land has been put to its maximum use, and yet there's plenty of land out there that remains totally idle.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Kidicious


So what?! Falling or stagnant profits means falling asset prices. I don't have to tell you what that means do I?

Enlighten me. That is, supposing I even accept your premise that building an entirely new energy infrastructure from scratch to replace the 20th-century one would create less profit than those being created today, which I don't to begin with.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Darius871
Yes, because China = Earth.

What is going to make up for a decreasing labor force in China? I'm sorry, but it's a certainty that the world's labor force is going to be in decline within 30 or 40 years.

You said there is somehow a scarcity of land, so I offered those as examples disproving that. There's no scarcity of land until all usable land has been put to its maximum use, and yet there's plenty of land out there that remains totally idle.

What are you going to do? Transport hindu's from India to Montana?

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Kidicious
What is going to make up for a decreasing labor force in China? I'm sorry, but it's a certainty that the world's labor force is going to be in decline within 30 or 40 years.

Are you telling me there isn't still significant unemployment or underemployment in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and even a good portion of India? Or that greater agricultural mechanization in some areas wouldn't quickly put plenty of family farmers out of work, just as it did in proto-industrial Europe? It'll be a looooong time before you see there being more work than able bodies.

Originally posted by Kidicious
What are you going to do? Transport hindu's from India to Montana?

That brings up an important point: land scarcity is inherently localized, unlike globally fungible commodities like energy or labor. Ergo, problems with local land scarcity couldn't be the source of a global economic collapse like energy or labor possibly could.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Darius871


Enlighten me. That is, supposing I even accept your premise that building an entirely new energy infrastructure from scratch to replace the 20th-century one would create less profit than those being created today, which I don't to begin with.

The only way you can generate more profit from the energy sector is if costs go down, or sales and/or prices go up. Right now prices are high because there are no profitable alternatives. When profitable alternatives are developed prices for oil will fall hard. The price for the new alternative will also have to be lower than the price of oil at it's peak.

As far as sales go that depends on the economy. If populations are shrinking sales will shrink.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Right now prices are high because there are no profitable alternatives. When profitable alternatives are developed prices for oil will fall hard.

*shakes head*

No, oil prices are not high "because there are no profitable alternatives." Oil prices are increasing because oil resources are dwindling (or more accurately, the cheapest sources of oil are dwindling, leaving only ones more costly to tap), regardless of what alternatives exist.

The alternatives are already there, with their basic mechanics already understood, but oil prices haven't yet reached the height necessary for these alternatives to be profitable. When oil prices reach such a point that some, most, or all alternatives become relatively cheap, then they would come online. They wouldn't develop to such an extent as to lower oil prices, because that would defeat the incentive to develop them in the first place. It would be a gradual process with growth so commensurate to the decline in economically recoverable oil that it wouldn't be able to cause a decline in oil prices. Equilibrium is the simplest word to describe it.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Darius871
Are you telling me there isn't still significant unemployment or underemployment in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and even a good portion of India? Or that greater agricultural mechanization in some areas wouldn't quickly put plenty of family farmers out of work, just as it did in proto-industrial Europe? It'll be a looooong time before you see there being more work than able bodies.

It's like a train building up a head of steam. All of the increase in profit that is generated (each year the increase is more) has to be used to exploit more resources. The only thing that can delay it is a economic crisis that cuts off the growth in profit but isn't severe enough to cause the whole system to collapse.

That brings up an important point: land scarcity is inherently localized, unlike globally fungible commodities like energy or labor. Ergo, problems with local land scarcity couldn't be the source of a global economic collapse like energy or labor possibly could.

That's correct. But in the past it was more important.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Darius871


*shakes head*

No, oil prices are not high "because there are no profitable alternatives." Oil prices are increasing because oil resources are dwindling (or more accurately, the cheapest sources of oil are dwindling, leaving only ones more costly to tap), regardless of what alternatives exist.

The alternatives are already there, with their basic mechanics already understood, but oil prices haven't yet reached the height necessary for these alternatives to be profitable. When oil prices reach such a point that some, most, or all alternatives become relatively cheap, then they would come online. They wouldn't develop to such an extent as to lower oil prices, because that would defeat the incentive to develop them in the first place. It would be a gradual process with growth so commensurate to the decline in economically recoverable oil that it wouldn't be able to cause a decline in oil prices. Equilibrium is the simplest word to describe it.

That's impossible to know. We're talking about future technology. What happened to the price of coal when oil became dominant? I'm sure it went down.

Edit: This is the earliest prices I can find. Coal production was in decline in the US until 1959 or 60'. You can see some price decline.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by onodera
As I've said in one of my previous posts, planned economy has to scale up to meet the varied demands of modern people (100 chumbawambas cannot manufacture PCs) and large-scale planned economy needs sufficient computing power.
I doubt you could support the economy of EU with a modern supercomputer. You need something more powerful.
And yeah, obliterating the concepts of fashion and luxury will help.

What about a more communitarian solution? Marx envisioned everyone fulfilling their full potential, what about our PC's fulfilling their full potential? Ever heard of SETI home? On the scale of the EU there are probably 600 or more million computers, and they are replaced every 2-5 years- what if all of those PC's replaced system idle process with "state planing process"? and what if the state bought off the old PC's to use them in its own computer banks? After they cease to contribute more than they cost to support the state can donate them to less well off countries.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by rmsharpe
And just how many of those computers were manufactured in Cuba or another state with a similar ideology? Over 400 of those computers were donated by U.S. NGOs, not some success of Cuban central planning.

So maybe I should correct myself; non-market economies will adapt to new technology, they just don't have to be at all responsible for creating any of it.

These where produced by Iskra in the 1980's unfortunately the company was brought down by a well organized US effort and an willingness of the party to use its resources to compete in that region.

[Heraclitus]

Re: Re: The theoretical basis for the triumph of communism

Originally posted by Comrade Snuggles


None, but that isn't communism, and I'm under no obligation to defend your mischaracterization.

So you are droping the dictatorship of the proletariat? But isn't that some kind of socialism rather than communism?



Isn't it accepted that all democracies devolve into plutocracies?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Darius,

One thing that I think you are missing is that the middle class will never accept living like the working class, not for very long anyway. When the capitalist system crashes it's the middle class that will be demanding change.

But the middle class is fast vanishing.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Darius871


100 years ago even personal automobiles were a distant dream, and today we have computers the size of a pack of gum that would have been the size of the Pentagon 40 years ago. 100 years ago bacterial infections were virtually untreatable, and today decoding of the human genome is already in the rearview mirror. We're talking about a level of development that is still exponential versus a level of class consciousness that's remained stagnant for one and a half years, if not in decline. I'm betting on the cheetah and you're betting on the sloth.

Again, I know capitalism's fading into obsolescence with a whimper won't be as "fun" as a blaze of glorious revolution, but history isn't there for our personal amusement. It's just another deterministic set of cogs just like everything else.

If you presuppose exponential development you are neglecting something very important, the explosive combination of capitalism + genetic engineering + cybernetics. It has the potential to create a new caste system, a dystopian future where the rich are not only prettier and healthier but also smarter. Combine this with the possibility of manipulating the working classes DNA without them even knowing it and you get a dim view of the future.

And even if that doesn't happen exponential progress leads to a technological singularity not socialism.

[Meticulous Man]

Don't you people think Communism is kind of getting old? I mean, the only people to call themselves Communists here in Finland are either teens who read about Communism in their history textbooks or populistic whackjobs that used to be financed by the USSR. I think all kinds of "communism" and "socialism" are definitely on their way out. What the future holds will be something entirely different.

[BeBMan]

I'm usually against simple communism=religion comparisons, but there are striking parallels.