Likelihood of Communism

How likely was the emergence, and fall of communism?(as of 1700)


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The Sandman

Banned
Here's the two basic problems I see with communism; feel free to point out any flaws in my reasoning.

First is the information problem. Simply put, the amount of information required to be able to direct an economy in its entirety, due to the sheer number of different chaotic actions that need to be considered, is at a level far beyond our computing capacity. If you can't make accurate predictions, a planned economy fails. Badly.

The second problem is the "who does the labor?" problem. Unless you are having robots do everything, you will need at least some people to do the work to make the goods and services they are giving to other people. What, precisely, would be the compensation for the time and labor they have expended to make the items someone else is consuming? Because, as several other posters have mentioned, both of those items are inherently scarce due to simple physical fact. Where is the incentive to spend your valuable time slaving away for other people's benefit when there is absolutely no guarantee they will ever return the favor?
 

The Sandman

Banned
By the way, Leej, I think you may fundamentally misunderstand the nature of money. Money, at is core, is what you might call an exchange factor. It is a way of allowing conversion between apples and oranges, where apples are one form of labor and oranges are another. By doing this, you can have a consumer exchange the time and labor he put forward in his own job (in the form of the money he earned as a salary) for the time and labor a producer put forward to make the good or service that is being sold. More importantly, it allows indirect transfer (the work of the consumer wasn't necessarily done on behalf of the producer, which would have to be the case for exchange to occur without money), thereby allowing for the existence of economic networks beyond the level of barter.

This also means that the value of any given good or service is always going to fall somewhere between what the consumer feels his time and labor deserves and what the producer feels his time and labor deserves. Obviously, any product which required a greater amount of time and labor (and this takes into account the time required for the producer to learn how to create the object, along with all of the time and labor invested into creating his tools) would be worth more than one that required less time and labor, subject of course to the overall demand and supply available.
 

Valamyr

Banned
How can resources ever be effectively unlimited?

Unless you start breaking several laws of physics you are still bound by the basic rules of matter, energy and time.

Ideally, we can hope that technologies like solar energy or other types of so called free-energies eventually allow mankind to consider that (clean) energy is just not an issue. The day this happens you can expect the very concept of scarcity to be seriously challenged on many levels.
 
If it isn't human nature why are we all capitalists now?
Because resources are limited and labour is still necessary to an extent.
Capitalism may be part of human nature but it certainly isn't the defining part. As animals go we're pretty nice ones (not to say we're complete angels of course, the natural world is harsh). Socialism is human nature.

Because its not insignificant in local terms. There is a bit of empty land next to me. Should it be a book shop, a coffee shop, office space, warehouses and so on and so forth? How do people determine this? They ask which will provide more utility for the surrounding populace. This is usually determined through the market. People will generally pay more for what they desire more. Your system is basically the government determines all the wants and desires and builds a city to fit that plan. This can work except for the obvious fact that people's wants and desires change.
I don't see the relevance.
I'd imagine storage areas would be built in a similar way to how they tend to be in the modern world- ideally in largely insignificant areas away from city centres and places where lots of people live.

If only local resources shall be used then how does space travel end scarcity? Do you really consider that earth (and limited occupation of the surrounding bodies) could provide for all the wants the human species could ever desire?
No but then the majority of the human species (and any other sentinent species that are developed) wouldn't be here, only a few billion out of countless trillions in the galaxy.
I don't much mind whether this world will be red or green or a mixture of both. I only know what way back in this thread you implied that removing money would effectively end scarcity.
No I didn't. I said A -> B not B -> A.

and the second is the human nature issue. If everyone woke up and determined they would only consume the bare essentials then perhaps the world would provide for their desires and scarcity would be gone. I however don't believe this is human nature.

That's because the world at present is a rather divided place with some really anti-progressive elements floating about.
On a smaller scale though people do try to consume just enough.
I like milk. When I'm at my parents place I'd like to drink a pint a day but then that would leave nothing for them so I limit myself.
When I do my shopping I only buy what I think I need, I don't buy out all the ham just for the hell of it.
etc..

People want what they don't have. Once one desire is acquired they do not as a rule rest content. They set another goal and strive towards that.
Indeed, but "what you don't have" will not be defined in materialistic terms. It'll be more in terms of knowledge and recognition and excitement.

By the way, Leej, I think you may fundamentally misunderstand the nature of money. Money, at is core, is what you might call an exchange factor....
And what do I think it is?
 
The problem with the "capitalism is human nature" excuse is that human nature isn't always the most positive thing. In fact, it's proven to be quite damaging to ourselves and our environment.

Socialism, rather, says, "Wake up, shape up, and stop being a bunch of selfish cut-throats!" and tries to redefine human nature along more altruistic lines, by emphasising the necessity of the human sense of altruism, and erasing the source of greed and class conflict, by making all people equal shareholders of the community's resources.

Because of this, if humanity has any hope of surviving long-term as a peaceful and united species, something which evolutionarily would aid us in being a successfully reproducing species, communism will inevitably occur.

Well I quite agree that human nature may not, in the long term, be good for the human species. I have no problem with the idea that socialists wish to change human nature for what they consider to be better. If all of humanity only went after what they needed and were content merely to live I suspect humanity as whole would be more happy, if alot less advanced. I don't however think this is the way humans work. I also disagree with the lack of freedom in such a world. A person should be able to pursue their own contentment as they see fit, it should not be enforced through what amounts to social conditioning.

Ideally, we can hope that technologies like solar energy or other types of so called free-energies eventually allow mankind to consider that (clean) energy is just not an issue. The day this happens you can expect the very concept of scarcity to be seriously challenged on many levels.

Time will ever continue to be a limiting factor thus scarcity shall remain.

Because resources are limited and labour is still necessary to an extent.
Capitalism may be part of human nature but it certainly isn't the defining part. As animals go we're pretty nice ones (not to say we're complete angels of course, the natural world is harsh). Socialism is human nature.

I suspect we just disagree. How is Socialism human nature? You cannot really state that and then just claim the fact the world isn't socialist on divisions and non-progressive elements. Well you can but it seems a weak position to take. Socialism can work on agricultural states, actually they tend to be pillaged which causes evolution into feudalism as a protective measure, but does it work for industrial states? The answer would seem to be no.

I like milk. When I'm at my parents place I'd like to drink a pint a day but then that would leave nothing for them so I limit myself.
When I do my shopping I only buy what I think I need, I don't buy out all the ham just for the hell of it.
etc..

Ofcourse, you follow a pleasure principle. I don't follow the idea that consumption is the only form this can take. I quite like milk, but even if the resources were granted to me I wouldn't enjoy drinking twenty pints of the stuff. In your case, does it not give you pleasure to ensure your parents have some milk of their own?

When you go shopping do you think only about what you need or what you want? What does a person need to live? Some bread, water and a little meat or cheese? The fact supermarkets do not provide only for people's needs would imply you are in a small minority if you do not buy some your wants. Perhaps your wants do not extend to food? Do you derive pleasure knowing that the money you save from not buying luxuries to eat and drink can be put to use elsewhere?
 
When American empire was made the age of capitalism was in full swing.

:rolleyes:

At least try to sound objective.

A 'capitalist paradise' was made out there.
But anyway, history cannot be used to extrapolate the future in such a way. We have so much now they didn't back then and if the time comes for spaceward expansion they too will have a lot more then we do.

History cannot be used to extrapolate the future, but we can examine historical cases and see what occurs within certain margins (in this case: small number of people with a huge number of comparative resources). It's called a case study.

This is especially useful for looking at human behavior because people tend to obey a sort of quantum law: we can (and often will) act differently when we know we're under observation.


C: Children are annoying as hell.
They're a full time job and really not to everyone's taste.
And B still applies here, people will still have careers and big hobbies that take up the bulk of their life.

I've got a few cousins who were raised while both parents had full-time jobs.

The fallacy you're committing with your assumption is you're extending a contemporary trend into infinite. You must look at causes, not just derivatives.

People are shrewd (no matter how much you seem to believe otherwise), they will do what is most beneficial. Everything, in essence, is a value judgment. When it is economical to have only a few children, they will do so. in the modern West, for instance, children are expensive and parents often have careers they don't want interrupted. They decide to limit the amount of children they have.

However, in older times the more children you had the more workers you had for your farm. Modern poor in America sometimes have more kids because welfare pays out for a larger family.

Now, hypothetical post-scarcity (because post-scarcity really is pretty much impossible) society. People do not need to worry about virtually any material need. You don't need to work a job, you don't need money to have a house and food, why not have a child? You may feel you don't have the time for a baby, but this is a transient feeling. What about later on when you do feel you have time?

Why, exactly, would the population decrease?

Well I'm an optimist, I tend to hope we will get a utopia rather then this distopia of trillions (even 1 trillion in the solar system is horrificly crowded)

Are you kidding? A trillion would have more than enough space in the solar system. The asteroid belt alone contains more than enough in the way of building materials to house a trillion with extreme comfort, along with the necessary support infrastructure to keep people alive.

The solar system doesn't start getting all too crowded until you start talking a lot more. There are a billion asteroids in-system larger than 100 meters. That's a ridiculous number. You could easily house thousands in each, too.

The actual causes of the trend are not due to a lack of money at all. The poorer people actually tend to be the ones that have more kids.
As education and opportunity increases birth rates fall. In such a scenario as the optimum future educational and other opportunities will be virtually limitless.

And they also spend a whole lot less on their kids and, as I pointed out earlier, they gain an advantage by having a lot of kids.

Seriously, think about a future where someone has a kid, lets him/her grow up, then has another. It's really one kid at a time, and average life-spans will probably extend into the triple digits within the century, let alone the far future.

And for the record- Any idea of fixing earth's population troubles with space colonization is a bit silly, a 'scant few millions' is really a best case scenario for people we can initially get out there. The rest will have to be made on site.

What?

When fully developed our solar system will no doubt house dozens of trillions. We have so much space we would literally spend decades or centuries figuring out what to do with it.

Yep, I've heard of that. A thread on that where the initial discussion against me on this thread comes from.
I've never read the books but from all I can gather the Cultureverse seems to be exactly the kind of thing I am proposing here.


Well then, I'm sorry to tell you but the Culture includes a lot of physically impossible stuff to make its situation possible (hence the sci-fi thing). The Grid (their well of infinite energy), field technology (generic manipulatable force fields), superpower AIs the size of a truck, and a few other things which are essentially fantasy technology.

Effective post-scarcity situations can arise, but it's still finite resources and it usually has to be planned (ie. it's not actual post-scarcity, it's just one is put into a specially designed set of margins in which one cannot experience scarcity, but there are still limits). It's certainly not going to happen just because we start developing the solar system.
 
:rolleyes:

At least try to sound objective.
You disagree on that? :eek:


History cannot be used to extrapolate the future, but we can examine historical cases and see what occurs within certain margins (in this case: small number of people with a huge number of comparative resources). It's called a case study.

This is especially useful for looking at human behavior because people tend to obey a sort of quantum law: we can (and often will) act differently when we know we're under observation.
Only to a absolutely tiny degree.
Claiming to study history to learn about the future- its just making excuses for studying history as some don't feel secure enough in knowledge for knowledge's sake.


I've got a few cousins who were raised while both parents had full-time jobs.

The fallacy you're committing with your assumption is you're extending a contemporary trend into infinite. You must look at causes, not just derivatives.
As are you.
People are shrewd (no matter how much you seem to believe otherwise), they will do what is most beneficial. Everything, in essence, is a value judgment. When it is economical to have only a few children, they will do so. in the modern West, for instance, children are expensive and parents often have careers they don't want interrupted. They decide to limit the amount of children they have.
People would still have careers here. Children really do tie you down a lot.
There are a lot more reasons then finance for people in the west not having kids- it is quite a painful process I'm told and having to give up 20 years of your life...Its really not something people would want to do too much.


Now, hypothetical post-scarcity (because post-scarcity really is pretty much impossible) society
No it isn't. The only possibility is whether we will expand into space or die here on Earth, once we're out there post-scarcity is highly likely.

People do not need to worry about virtually any material need. You don't need to work a job, you don't need money to have a house and food, why not have a child? You may feel you don't have the time for a baby, but this is a transient feeling. What about later on when you do feel you have time?
I'm not saying people won't have kids, I just don't see them breeding like rabbits because they've got nothing better to do.

Why, exactly, would the population decrease?
Most estimates say it will start to decrease towards the end of this century.
China's one child policy and over-abundance of males will really start to show itself and general increased standards of living in other poor countries will mean they will also have less kids.


Are you kidding? A trillion would have more than enough space in the solar system. The asteroid belt alone contains more than enough in the way of building materials to house a trillion with extreme comfort, along with the necessary support infrastructure to keep people alive.
Even if we're using short scale I don't think so there.
There may be enough physical space for trillions but resources? Naa, its not enough to make them somewhere to live, you need a lot of spare resources to last them for centuries to come.


And they also spend a whole lot less on their kids and, as I pointed out earlier, they gain an advantage by having a lot of kids.
And? What does this prove? I'm well aware of this, just because there's a reason in between poor -> lots of kids it doesn't change it.

Seriously, think about a future where someone has a kid, lets him/her grow up, then has another. It's really one kid at a time, and average life-spans will probably extend into the triple digits within the century, let alone the far future.
Yeah I agree on the huge lifespans.
Letting kids grow up then having another though...I'd think only some very freaky people would do that. Most would likely have only one or two family periods in their life when they have nice normal sized families when 4 is seen as a little crazy (and/or Irish :p)


We have so much space we would literally spend decades or centuries figuring out what to do with it.
Exactly my point.


Well then, I'm sorry to tell you but the Culture includes a lot of physically impossible stuff to make its situation possible (hence the sci-fi thing). The Grid (their well of infinite energy), field technology (generic manipulatable force fields), superpower AIs the size of a truck, and a few other things which are essentially fantasy technology.
AIs are not.
I don't know what the others coudl be but I don't see them as being so necessary, energy need not be literally 'infinite'.

Effective post-scarcity situations can arise, but it's still finite resources and it usually has to be planned (ie. it's not actual post-scarcity, it's just one is put into a specially designed set of margins in which one cannot experience scarcity, but there are still limits). It's certainly not going to happen just because we start developing the solar system.
I agree, when we're just developing the solar system we will likely still be in the socialist era. Unless it takes over 500 years to get out to other stars it wil llikely be once we get inter-stellar that communism becomes the dominant government form.
 
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