Calling all marxists

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Not at all. However the unworkability of Marxism is an established fact. In fact a socialist economy is doomed to failure. Why. Because people care more about their own children than that of the neighbors. And they care more about their own interests than that of other. Selfishness and egotism is genetically wired in to humans.

Any socialist economy is going to be undermined by corruption, inefficiency and incompetence.

ruveyn

People care about these things more currently, in the society we live in. Don't you think values can change, for example solidarity being a value that will go stronger, maybe even more as the rich get richer and the majority will feel disadvantaged?

To answer your question we would need a radical genetic restructuring of the human animal. What you will have at the end is something quite different from what we are now. As to solidarity, that is bullsh*t. When the pinch is on, people will always look to their own short term interests. Solidarity if a childish fairy tale. Look at the history books and see if I am not right.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 26 Apr 2012, 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

But the fact is, there are leftist socialists on this thread that are willing to argue their position, so from the point of view of you looking at it biologically, what do you claim about people who are marxist/socialist/anti-capitalist, that we're lying about our solidarity, or that we're an evolutionary minority against the majority who are trying to protect their own?

They can argue all they want. The facts of history speak loud and clear. I do not give a rat's patootie about theories and ideals. I deal with facts. Facts Rule, and only sometime do Theories Serve. Socialism has NEVER, EVER worked. Even in the Scandinavian Countries with the mixed economies it is the market portion of the economy that keeps their pot boiling. If the government ran every thing you would what was in Britain before Thatcher or even worse, what was in the Late and Unlamented Soviet Union.

Government is the worst agent you can choose to run and plan an economy.

ruveyn

I wasn't continuing the argument about whether or not it works, I asked you what the fact there are socialists says to you about human nature (which you've made some claims about).

I stated facts about human nature. The socialists are foolish idealists and only death or pain will teach them better.

ruveyn

But nature isn't foolish or good or bad, it doesn't have a plan, it's neutral. The thing is - socialists are people who have a (possibly innate) tendency to care for others - either that, or they're liars.

My father and brother just built an addition to my parents house, none of them have any training in building, none of them have worked as builders. I'm not sure what "handling bricks" constitutes, so I don't have an opinion on that specific example.

Again as I said, its a matter of supply and demand, professions with small barriers to entry, such as contracting, manual labor on farms and shoveling crap have a huge supply of labor and a relatively steady demand.

How long does it take someone to learn how to "handle bricks", how much of an education do they require, how many certifications do they need? Its supply and demand, simple as that. You can argue until you are blue in the face, but as long as supply is gigantic in comparison to demand, prices do not go up.


@Sweetleaf
I wasn't so much saying that Excel was the challenge, Excel to an economist is what a shovel is to a crap shoveler, a tool. I was more thinking of, I don't know estimating what the likely economic scenarios are 5 years into the future, then based on that and about 1000 other factors setting the economic policy of an entire country.

Also, I take huge bloody issue with the "should" of collectivism. THere are a lot of things that "should" I should have a sexy woman waiting for me in my bedroom, people should not be starving, kids should not be born with HIV, Nazism shouldn't be the world's most hated ideology and something 95% of the western world agree is evil when communism killed 10 - 20 times more people and cause 10x the suffering.

Stop discussing what "should" be and focus on "what is". In a perfect world, humans should have never-ending life spans, smaller adrenal glands and much larger frontal lobes.

It is easy to care for others when you have enough for yourself and your kin. The real test is when the pinch is on. See how many socialists remain altruistic when there is not enough for themselves and their kind.

ruveyn

Was there a problem with my wording? I wouldn't know because I don't work with that myself.

Have they built it from scratch? Again, excuse me if I'm asking the wrong question.

From my experience, I'm a non-capitalist because I come from a weaker part of society, and I've been devalued for not having my own wealth. If my example helps you any.

Where have I said anything about socialism? anarcho-communism is more of what I'm interested in, socialism requires a government from what I can tell. Also if such an economy is doomed to fail why are many countries with a more socialist system still up and running just fine? Also of course people care a bit more about those close to them than any random person they meet, that does not mean they should be an inconsiderate a** hole to random people either.

Just because you see yourself as selfish and egotistical does not mean everyone else ought to be that way as well, or that its the essence of human nature. Also it would seem our capitalistic economy is being quite undermined by corruption, ineffciency and incompetence, so all that would prove is socialism is no worse than capitalism.

Communism has never existed as a functional system other than in small communes, therefore communism did not kill anyone, besides how does an economic theory go about killing someone anyways?

Also I am not worried about what a perfect world is, like that is ever going to happen.....I can still observe the problems in society and the capitalist system, express my opinion about it and even try to change things if I would like........or I can simply see what is, accept that it is that way and be unhappy about it...that's up to me. Last I checked I am perfectly allowed to discuss what I think should be, it does not break any rules of the site.

Agreed. I think that the idea of markets is one of those "obviously correct" ideas, like the idea of democracy.

Interestingly, I sometimes feel that lefties are the true defenders of markets. It is lefties who want to "artificially" prevent cartels and monopolies from dominating potential competitors. Cartels and monopolies do not produce a vibrant economy.

Yes they built it from scratch, poured the concrete, stacked the foundation and all the carpentry, followed by the painting.

It wasn't that you were asking the wrong question, it was that I have no knowledge of what "brick handling" actually is nor how hard it is. However my argument is based on the fact that scarcity means higher price. It doesn't really matter how hard or easy manual labor is, a wage is set by the supply of able workers and the demand for those workers.



Communism cannot exist as a functional system because the ideology that it is based on is broken. However, the ideology failing to work has cost millions of people their lives. Because Marx explicitly states that a party rule has to be instituted in a transitional period, it lead to Stalin taking power, murdering millions, the Khmer Rogue murdering a whole heap of people, and that's leaving out things like famines. Famines that stemmed from the innate flaws of the system for resource management, which was also responsible for excessively inefficient central planning for production of goods.

Then there is the question nobody ever really asks in a debate about communism, how come 90% of the time when someone tried to do it on a state level it ended with the same result?

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing and expecting different results. Communism lead to authoritarian anti-human rights dictatorships in the Soviet Union, in North Korea, in Cambodia, and quite a few others. With this many attempts, shouldn't it have at least "sorta-worked" somewhere?

So like I suspected, I worded it badly. Fair enough, not my field, I can't know everything.