Question for Commies
 

bhaa haa haa okay i shouldn't be asking this kind of questions in this shithole of all places, but since there are a few self-declared Communists/Marxists here i thought i'd ask anyway and see what happens.

I've been reading a book on economics, written from a free-market / libertarian perspective. It makes very good arguments about the appalling inefficiencies of centrally controlled economies and why free markets are able to generate more prosperity for all (in a nutshell: local control of supply and demand is much more efficient than centralized planning). The problem is, I'm lacking any counterarguments for this guy's apparently brilliant demonstrations, and I always like to hear the other side.

My question is for those who repudiate monstrosities like the old dead Soviet Union, and yet remain Communist or Marxist in their ideology (Porks, etc.)-- how do you run an economy under your proposed system? No, believe it or not, this isn't trollbait.

non-centralised worker controlled means of production with no state subsidy.

you mean employee-owned businesses?

Not all reds repudiate the Soviets - Zizek, for instance, is notoriously supportive of elements of Stalinism.

I'm not that far into the red, and I'm critical of the free market/ neo-liberalism, but I think it's important to differentiate between 'the red in general' and 'specific forms of communism'. I'm part of a few socialist/ communitarian/ anarchist groups (and still a Catholic, before you ask). If we had more commies on here (most here are wet liberals or indifferent) you'd get Maoists arguing with Gramscians with orthodox Hegelian-Engelsians arguing with egalitarian Marxists [etc etc].

So the question for me isn't so much about repudiating the facts of Marxism in history - which is a different, historical-critical question - so much as asking what you understand by Marxism, who you've read, which Marxism(s) in history you're interested in.

I realise this is a bit of a case of refuting the question through complexification (negatum ad sophistum?) but I'm kind of more interested in the epistemological impasses than I am in making a general statement on things as they are, were, may have been or have been interpreted to be.

inb4 Glice is being a cunt.

Not necessarily - the co-operative movement shares ideological space with communism but isn't necessary synonymous with (or even complicit to) communism. In the same way that various 'socialised' things (health services, housing, water) are very much a part of (so-called) late capitalism in most developed (and undeveloped) countries except the US (and even then the US has plenty of co-operative and socialist-ish things on a national level).

i'm not going to reply to your previous post, but thanks for posting it anyway.

co-operative or employee-owned business in 'merica still compete in the free market-- horizon milk, king arthur flour, land-o-lakes butter, ocean spray cranberry products (all agriculture-related, hm), have to compete with all kinds of other products; co-op buildings are common in cities like new york; my food co-op has to compete with other retailers; my credit union (a financial co-op) has to compete with other credit unions and with private banks (and does so successfully); my electric co-op gets some kind of local monopoly (it's hard to switch powerlines) but it carved it out in competition with a larger privately-owned utility. still, there is a mixed economy here, just like almost everywhere else; the argument of my current read is that government intervention distorts the economy and causes inefficiencies (e.g., government lacks incentives to improve the services it provides, the minimum wage works for the employed but against the unemployed, etc.).

so, i'm not asking about the existence of these entities, or the existence of these policies-- what i'm asking about is how the economy is organized in whatever form of "redness" (to paraphrase your above term) you espouse-- in the utopian world that you envision, is there economic competition? if so, is competition regulated? how so? are there price controls? if so, who sets the prices and how?

obviously i'm not asking for a unified answer from everyone, what i'm after is a very informal survey of alternative economic models that people here consider viable-- not asking really for the Keynesian mixed economy model we all know well in late-capitalist societies, but rather, the utopian models i'm not hearing about anywhere.

You wouldn't run an economy because all products would be owned by all workers and exchange of product via money would be abolished straight away. It would be a communist system, not an economy. I suppose you're asking how all methods of production and distribution would be organised? Am I right?

nice answer! though i'd argue it would be an economy without money. but let's not get lost on semantics. alright, please tell. production and distribution--how does it work?

if the people keep the past copy'd between their ears
there will be ofcourse no modern tomorrow

the past never work
because it never was real

what people maybe still not aware of is
that the past of the human was a sort of fiction (religion), always far from nature
far from reality

if you want something modernized, bring in more IQ
then you have to go all the way

and for survival purposes keep the population bizzy with agriculture ( food basic, if needed compleet vegetarian way ) and also a medical facility would be cool

copy of evolution = food + healing if needed

Maybe i'm already pointing out something already mentioned, but a good start to get marxism - or economy in general - is to distinguish the means of production from the politics of distribution. It's also important to learn the difference between marxist theory and communism. Marx' rejected the first political program based on his idea, claiming something like "if this is Marxism, then rest assured i'm not a Marxist". As far as i know certain forms of communism aren't fair representations of Marxist theory.

This means in plain english that even though there are effective ways to accumulate a shitload of money, it says nothing about who gets what and what would be considered a fair distribution.

Marx proposed something along the line that those who work are pretty much the only ones that should have a saying on what to do with what is produced, in contrast to the capitalist idea of making a profit through extracting surplus value by controlling the means of production. Having written this i am not a marxist myself, so anybody affiliated with his theories may feel free to correct my crap.

As far as i know Marx' analysis of surplus value is agreed upon by capitalist theorist. I could be wrong, though.

You blend a bit like the Vietnamese, integrate certain principles of free-market capitalism and yet have strict regulation and state control of the industries more inclined towards greed. There are two fundamental flaws with both polar economic philosophies.

Pure market capitalism inevitable eats and consumes itself into pure greed, hence the gilded age of robber barons.

Pure Marxist/Socialist control of the the economy destroys all incentives for increased production, by the way, in the same similar way the feudalism did, if individual producers have not individual incentive, they will only produce as much as is asked, no more, often much less. Under feudalism, the landlord takes all the profit, so the producers had little incentive to produce anymore than was required, because any excess profit will be taken as well. Communism is similar in the economic sense, so a syncretic blend of both is needed. I say the US system is a decent model of a blend of Marxist economic policies like subsidies, regulation, and state-control of key industries, however it needs a bit MORE Marxist push in social policy because some of the negative aspects of free-marked capitalism such as greed, hording, and corruption are still highly prevalent. Essentially, our economic culture in America supports greed, and this needs to be changed more so than any of our governmental economic policies..

So again, to answer to question, Marxism works when blended with elements of free-market capitalism such as well-regulated incentive programs..

that would be between my ears the thing i would support
fair traide basic human rights on water and food and sleeping place
you can't come and ask me to work for somekinda thing i rather not support
i support no humans systems
they have created an overpopulation that is out of control for the rest of future time
destroyed alot of nature
still fighting eachother over terrotory like animals

so then i have no sleeping place and loose my identety card
left over to charity, you can think not bad, still have some food
so my natural freedom of going after water and food is still intact
and i stay alive )

you know what it is
i tell ya
the world is now our playground
the past did nothing else then building religious buildings
pyramides for example

why they didn't build luxury houses for the population so they could live comfortable?

the human awakes on the wrong foot by waking up in a hirarchy (dicatorship) of psychotic humans
each more higher and mighter then the other ( or bigger server of god)

so most of the past of humans was a sort of fiction/ psychose
it's maybe hard or easy to believe
that it now still continues
in a less psychotic volume

so the past 'thing' in not an easy one of tha humans

have the balls to say this is our time, this is our kindergarden

So the failing with pure Marxism is the assumption that the individual producers will feel "devoted to the cause," so to speak. I think it's hard for people to feel motivated for long based on altruism or ideology.

For example, very few people I knew while serving in the Air Force were super-patriots. There was some feeling of serving the common good, of course, but the higher motivations and more common motivations were job security, income, and career advancement.

Imagine you live in a flat with three other people and the cost of certain amenities is shared. We already know that everyone needs to wipe their own bottom when they go to the toilet, so you need constantly replenished stock for that purpose alone. It's not a disputable fact that other than toilet paper, only water and soap are better things to keep your bottom clean. But as you already know, the wiping of fecal matter off your arse with paper has an immediate practical functionality which makes you feel that little more comfortable after you've dumped your waste. Knowing this is an absolute truth, and not something that any ideological meandering is going to find a credible argument against, the people in the flat are aware of their duties to keep the stock of toilet paper in check in the interest of optimized communal living.

You could say that this is the tail-end of a much bigger picture, and you'd be right. Central and local bodies would make sure that this practice would be kept in check in the flat, but without the mind-boggling burocracy and method used by a government which serves profit-making policies. Also, as Marxism is tightly-knit with materialism and ''theory and practice'' foundations, it means that production and distribution would take their definitive shape in a communist system, after the actual revolution asserted the dicatorship of the proletariat. Capitalism didn't always have the same ''look'' when it first started, after all.

i don't need a leader or a system or a god or a president or a king or a pope
to take water and food ??????????

it are just peoples ly'ing themselfs to death that they are going to help you

maybe next time better with the next generation < stay optimistic ( in the year 2200 maybe lol )

Not just Marxism, ALL fascist (I use the term most literally in the sense of authoritarianism blended with patriotic nationalism) economic systems have this same flaw. The Catholic and Byzantine Church succeeded in controlling the Eurasian economy for some centuries, however inevitably folks just stopped buying into the idea, and hence forth the Crusades (more financially motivated by jealousy of the Byzantine Empire and the Arabs than religious fanaticism) and then the subsequent and more impacting Reformation (which was also more financially motivated by Dutch corporate interests than religious fanaticism)...

What happened in all these instances of rebellion was that while people often remained religiously Catholic or Christian, it was socioeconomic policies that they militantly rejected...

History seems conclusive on this fact, that human beings will only buy into any philosophical system if they receive economic incentives, and when these dry up and even reverse to disincentives, folks often reject and rebel.

This is why inherently all economic movements seem to fail, but of course they do not, they just fail as attempts at monolythic systems, but individual nuances that are successful tend to get integrated into whatever is the current system, as pan-humanistic culture tends to be readily able to adopt new strategies for success..

lol@"tail end"

okay, but

- what if one roommate uses too much ass paper and the others have to use crumpled notebooks? how is that regulated?
- where do you get the ass paper in the first place? do the roommates make it themselves or do they get it at some sort of supplier?
- what if i don't like the current asspaper because my rose button needs softer tissue. do it take it up with the mayor of the city or do i start a petition or is there a choice?

my question i guess is how you deal with scarcity-- the fact that there's not enough of everything to go around in the amounts that everyone wants. in a market economy, that's regulated by prices--you get premium "tissue", you get the cheap asspaper, you get old newspapers if you can't afford that, and if people start to buy more than there is available the prices go up until demand stabilizes or production goes up to meet demand. what about in this system?

what is this greed you speak of and how do you determine what qualifies as it and what doesn't? and how do you guaranteed that the state is not greedy itself, e.g. demanding bribes and kickbacks and the employment of family members?

Greed must regulated in the abstract, hence both individual and governmental greed will dissipate. Greed means to consume more than one actually needs at the direct expense of someone else. It is to rob another person of their economic incentive and keep it for one's self.

I don't have a magic bullet to end greed, but it must start at a grass-roots cultural level, because of course the definition is on a sliding scale.

Further you point out a fundamental flaw in any economic model, that human nature is inherently hungry and this is in conflict with the same inherent human nature to work in social groups.

...

To oversimplify: Some nations/leaders support inequal power as a mean for distribution. Others prefer democracy. Then there are those who use the first under the pretence that they represent the latter... But you knew that already, right? ...Right?

Oversimplified: liberal market theories claims that rose button issues will spontaneously be expressed through increased market demands. Recent theories focus on controlling decision making. In other words, the purpose is to convince you that you have rose button issues regardless of the matters at hand...

Again oversimplified: Demands are not determined by supply according to Marxist theory. As Marx famously put it: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

In reality these theories has a different meaning, though... Where i live these things are controlled under what's called a mixed economy. Remember that we are discussing oversimplifying theories. Reality is more complex and nuanced.

But greed is FUN!

"..fun fun fun till daddy took the t-bird away.."

but porks, i'm not understanding how this production is organized, what makes it work, or how it deals with scarcities.

- what if one roommate uses too much ass paper and the others have to use crumpled notebooks? how is that regulated?
It's free.

my experience with free things is that people abuse them. what's keeping users of free asspaper from taking so much there isn't enough to go around? also, even without abuse or waste, if people use unrestricted asspaper, there will be corresponding restrictions elsewhere: eg, less wood pulp (or whatever resource) available for other uses like printer paper, or magazines, or postcards. or less transportation available for goods other than asspaper-- say, mattresses have to stay longer in storage because the trucks are busy delivering asspaper. how is the demand for resources regulated between competing demands? who decides how much wood pulp goes into each product? who decides where the trucks will make deliveries today?

A communist society is not one where people stop producing. It just means, again, that everyone owns what's needed and is produced. And it's most definitely not an anarchic system.

okay, let's say that we all own beachfront lodgings collectively.and there's not enough beachfront for everybody who wants it. in a market economy, price determines who gets to have the beachfront (whether it be purchased or rented). how do you decide in communism who gets the beachfront lodgings?

You would be living in a system where the finest of the finest is available to you for free. That's the whole point.

but the finest of the finest always comes at the cost of something else. the finest of asspapers comes at the cost of the finest postcards. the finest steak uses resources that could have produced the finest goat cheese. how can you have the finest of everything all the time?

my question i guess is how you deal with scarcity-- the fact that there's not enough of everything to go around in the amounts that everyone wants. in a market economy, that's regulated by prices--you get premium "tissue", you get the cheap asspaper, you get old newspapers if you can't afford that, and if people start to buy more than there is available the prices go up until demand stabilizes or production goes up to meet demand. what about in this system?

We don't deal well with abundance of product already. I can't see humanity not being able to cope with supply when mass unemployment would be totally inexistent. The proletariat is the most numerous (and ever-growing) class there ever was.

there is an argument that the current abundance of product is due to the efficiencies produced by the incentives of capitalism. previous socialist economies have had to deal with bread lines, lack of soap, lack of toothpaste, etc., not because of lack of natural resources but because of gross inefficiencies in the system.

how does your system guarantee a high level of production? if i already own everything, and have access to all i want, then why would i even want to work? why would anyone want to work in the first place?

@mcdude - yes, i live in a mixed economy and am familiar with that. i'm not asking about liberal social democracies, but rather, utopian alternatives to (also utopian) free market theories. the book im reading presents a 100% rosy view of free markets-- i'm looking for a non-Keynesian alternative viewpoint just to fuck w/ the book's author. because the fucker is convincing me of everything he says, and it's a little scary, ha ha ha.

the veiled point you're making about consumer manipulation through advertising: we're not all imbeciles. people can see through marketing gimmicks and seek good return for their money. which is why pet rocks are no longer sold.

you're asking to police the mind and the desires of people. that's spooky.

consuming more than we actually need: here we are, typing at computers we don't "need" in leisure time outside work. should we jail ourselves? all kinds of work come from people wanting more than they actually need-- cars, haircuts, clothing, musical instruments, books, art-- nobody "needs' them but we want them. is that greed? who decides what is enough?

robbing-- that's a different story. though it's been culturally acceptable in some times and places.

human nature IS hungry. you've never heard a baby cry for breastmilk? we're all fucking hungry. and yes, we collaborate in groups, but that doesn't take away the fact that hunger is very very fucking real.

poor little tyke.

weird story from this book i'm reading: price controls and trade barries cause famines, allowing "greedy" merchants charge what they want during famines actually increases supply of food and prevents hunger. i'll quote you the page later if you care to hear about it. the fucker is blowing my mind.

ps- that's a disturbing photo but it lacks an appropriate argument

You can twist anything into any theory. I don't mean you, I mean people who twist theories... .

you know what i think
because people don't stop the overpopulation
i have see no other way for childeren to stop dy'n before age 5

who is responsible?
1.the parents that make the child
1.a parents that have no food for themself and make 3 to 5 to 10 childeren

the place they live give no food for the natural food chain
it's not that the natural food chain is going to follow the needs of 1 specie in particular
when there are more people > more food is need to be produced

again if the people are informed with media that there is no food or medical help available
that they accept the reality around them and make no child

the reality is when it is too late
you have 5 doctors to rescue 100 childeren
and 10 childeren can survive that day

prevention is the best way to go
instead of sending doctors and food for a short time

the people of haiti haven't seen much from all that money
where is their money
what for a system is that
and other places in africa they send food
the people get only 40% of the food
the rest of the food get stolen by the poor 'thieves' who sell it again to the poor for money

did you send food or did you created an underground economy of tha poor?

you see these are all dubble things
the dubble bad luck of the poor people who are already in a weaker state

you don't have to look for fair play

europe were i live is also dubble old vs modern

90 of 100 childeren dy'n
i want to say make no childeren
like i would like to say
- stop killing whales
- stop cutting down the amazone forest
- stop tests on animals
- stop weapon factories
- stop nucliar facilities

Meh. Babies are disposable. Hell, they're not even real people until, like, 8 years old.

Like motherfuckers. But how is that relevant to our discussion?

LOL

disposable? you sound like mister death himself
you are probably high on cafeine is that true?

Hey, learn to spell and use proper English grammar and correct punctuation, and then I might talk to you.

how there
someone is getting serious lol

just makes me go whaa...?

my spelling? what's next my skin color?