The inventor has no incentive to innovate if he has little to gain from it. If he were able to mass produce the tool and rent it out to the total population he can become wealthy. He will also have an incentive to produce the tool as efficiently as possible to maximize his profit. By not allowing the inventor to have ownership over his invention, you are discouraging innovation.
Also, if somebody is able to make their cotton picking 100 pieces of cotton more efficient than the inventor would sell it to them. If one was only 19 pieces of cottom more efficient it would cost more to provide the tool for him than the use he would get from it. If a second individual was able to mass produce the tool cheaper, than everybody would buy from him. With the government tho, there is no self correction mechanism if the tool is being produced inefficiently…
Land has value. In order to own land one must create and give up sufficient value. You can’t just take things… Also, I’m sure the Amish would accept you if you show that you can be useful… You wouldn’t have to pay for the land in such a case.
If you don’t like the Amish, than I am afraid you are going to have to work, creating value, and save up so you can buy your own piece of land. Stealing it just wouldn’t be right…
That way you can live in socialism and I can live in capitalism. And best of all, I would be free. Everybody wins?
On a side note. Please respond to the above already ^^
I guess you didn’t read what I said to UPF - fair enough, it wasn’t in direct response to you and I don’t blame you for not keeping up with everything I write, there’s just SO MUCH that you don’t seem to know that I’m having to explain to you, that you need to know in order to have an informed opinion on the whole Capitalist/Socialist thing…
Here:
Whenever anyone’s trying to set up Socialism beside Capitalism, it’s either turned the same country into a mixed economy that can’t work because of the Capitalism part, or it’s been in a separate country that capitalist nations have waged war with in order to prevent Socialism from ever getting off the ground.
When they try they just seem to turn into Totalitarian dictatorships, without the international support that Capitalism currently relies on to maintain its current (lack of) efficiency. Without international support today, you’re pretty stuffed. But at least more and more people are rightly getting pissed off with Capitalism.
So no, as much as I’d like to play a capitalist society off against a Socialist one - to prove my point - capitalists never seem to allow this to happen.
It’s a shame, right? But at least once Socialism manages to get off the ground, narrow minded uneducated capitalists will realise their folly and be nice and free to change to an even freer society than Capitalism.
No capitalist is stopping you from rounding up your buddies, buying a cheap piece of land (Midwest and Canada have very cheap land) and living in a society where you share the fruits of your labor… Or as I mentioned earlier, ask the Amish if you can join their society. They will welcome hard working new comers. How is it fair that you want to force me to live within your system which I believe to be inefficient and unfair?
I guess inventions didn’t exist before Capitalism then?
I’m pretty sure those Chinese who seem to have invented everything didn’t have any incentive to invent everything they invented because they’ve only just turned a bit Capitalist…
If you were the inventing type, you’d realise that profit incentive has nothing to do with the inspiration that just seems to hit you seemingly randomly - as opposed to any time someone waves a dollar bill in front of your face…
You would know that your invention is yours, whatever monetary distribution and copyright laws say - and so would others.
We know that pre-Capitalist Leonardo da Vinci made all his inventions and artworks and so did he.
And stop with this “with the government” bullshit - we aren’t talking about mixed economy governments or Totalitarian States!!!
How many times do I have to tell you this!!! We are NOT talking about that, we are talking about Socialism and Communism
Workers know whether something is inefficient far better than any price mechanism, because there are right there on the front line of all work and able to communicate far better than percentages.
They have no reason to hide their inventions from competitors, they cooperate. All inefficiency is completely public to all workers, with anyone able to take the credit for pointing it out and rectifying it, earning whatever other workers of the same economic class (THEY are the government, not some corrupt removed rich clowns) vote to reward them with through direct democracy.
Ok Svetty, now you’re just repeating points I’ve already refuted.
Either get with the program or I’m done trying to explain things to you.
If I invent something and don’t want to give it up to everybody… That goes against your system! How will you force me to give it up if not for the government?
I won’t. Nor will anyone. You just won’t have anything to gain from keeping it to yourself, and everything to gain from sharing it… I don’t think you’re ever going to understand this until you see it. There’s nothing about Socialism or Communism that forces you to share it.
Already argued this one.
[quote="Svettypoo"]
But do you know what the difference between you and the Amish is?
The Amish are willing to give up the luxuries produced by capitalism.
The Amish don’t believe in taking what isn’t theirs.
[/quote]
So am I. Except I won’t have to if the change is Socialist.
Nor do Socialists and Communists. (I’ve explained why Capitalists do).
All Capitalists are stopping me from doing this. Anything that isn’t Capitalist and challenges the supremacy of the current elite minority who get richer under Capitalism gets attacked before it can get off the ground. See history.
The Amish are harmless. They’re just a bunch of ascetic reactionary Christians who continue to fail to escape the modern Capitalist world. The American Amish, for example, have had to pay off the land they had to buy - land that was forcefully seized by the immigrants who established Capitalism in America. Without that, they would have just lived off the land without charge like the pre-colonial native Americans did.
It’s not “pure” Capitalism that continually pesters them with taxes and laws about education, road safety and whatnot, but Capitalism has never been able to survive without government (inherent class antagonism etc.). And they certainly do pay taxes, despite not benefiting from any of them, just not Social Security ones anymore.
Please stop asking me to repeat myself - I don’t like repeating myself either. It’s really important that you go away, learn about what you’re talking about, and then come back here to talk about it. We’re getting nowhere while you’re stuck in your narrow uninformed mindset.
I won’t force you to. Me and my Socialist pals will just revolutionise the State to be run by workers, establish the supremacy of a worker economy and you are “free” to not join in if you don’t want to. Sound familiar? It should do - that’s what Capitalists did 200 years ago.
I’ve already told you that Socialism beside Capitalism either means a mixed economy or Capitalism waging war on anything that doesn’t, at base, bow down to Capitalism. Not good enough.
Besides, once you have seen what Socialism ACTUALLY is, and once you’ve finished eating your words, you’ll realise all your fuss was for nothing and it’s actually much better. See ya then!
Communism means that individuals can’t control the means of production. If I keep it for myself and sell it to other people I can get filthy rich. = the current system. What if my invention was a factory and everybody wanted to work in it because we would all be better off since we are producing 3 times as much… even if I am also getting filthy rich. Your communist pals wont like that one also. How is communism different than capitalism if individuals can own the means of production and get rich that way??
Hypothetically, if you and your pals bought a piece of land in the US where you could share the fruits of your labor, and didn’t have to pay any taxes. Would that satisfy you?
It’s just those bored with their plasma tvs, wines, coffees, playstations, and spectator sports. Plus a couple of misfits who rebel against authority for no other reason other than it being there.
I know these people because I used to be a leftist; not only that, I’ve been working and researching amongst them for 8 years.
If communisim doesn’t need universal love to glue it together, then what does glue it together?
Of course it needs universal love as an ideal to perpetuate it. Yet, no one is going to help millions of people they have never met for no gain other than a warm fuzzy feeling inside. And at bottom this is why it is, and was, doomed to failure.
For as long as you have it in your head that the world owes you something, you will forever be disappointed.
I’ll let you in on a little secret, and I’m rhetorically going to assume you’ve never been on a protest before.
They’re actually a lot of fun! Sometimes I hear people making arrangements with others to attend one, and it’s almost interchangeable with arranging to go to see a live band or go out to have fun in some other way. People dress up much more fancily and make their own creative props specially for the event - last time I saw a vulture, propped up high with poles (also used to flap its wings), with a pair of scissors as its head/beak - to symbolise the public sector cuts. And once you’re actually there, it’s the epitome of rabble rousing, it’s absolutely about herd mentality and going along with the crowd - heckling those who support what you are protesting against and everything… It’s disgraceful and contemptible behaviour, no question - but is it meaningless beyond these superficial boons for the masses, who are voluntarily getting up early and leaving their bored plasma tv/wine/coffee/playstation/spectator sport lifestyle for the day?
Absolutely not. We here may not be or feel part of the herd, but if you do not understand them you know very little.
Group dynamics are infamous for irrationality and inhumanity, earning them an association with the detrimental - when in fact they are simply ill understood. Research indicates that irrational choices are better made than rational ones IF the variables are many and complex. Rationality is limited, but superior (only) within its limits, whereas irrationality is like a mediocre failsafe - even on an individual level, for example, neither fight nor flight may be the best option, but it is often wise. In a group, there exists a phenomenon known as “the wisdom of the crowd”, where the group somehow arrives at a wise answer without necessarily using much rationality at all.
In short, there is a reason for group dynamics that is deeply ingrained in human evolution and survival through not only less rational times, but even to this day. An irrational mob can congregate for irrational reasons and still be onto something that not even the most rational minds might be able to understand. Individual mob members may even be pretty thick and clueless, yet with their collective cause particularly shrewd. So despite any thickness, they should not be patronised and disregarded - especially since they comprise the work force that keeps our economy going. They are not to be disregarded.
Invariably, protests involve anarchists who are often young teens who have issues with authority. They go off and cause some trouble, break some stuff and get arrested - and usually that’s all you hear about the protest (which is one reason why they do it).
Most are just there for the organised bits in peaceful obedience, devoid of individual ideas, just adding to the numbers really (a very important role).
You also get Left Wing academics, who I attend with. The sharpest people you’re ever likely to meet and very widely read. I’m not an academic but I fit in with them none the less, except when they keep referring to authors I’ve never heard of.
I get the feeling that you’ve forsaken the Left Wing largely due to its individual proponents. I don’t blame you, the Left is not without its fools - the trick is to find the ones who really understand it rather than just use it to justify their feelings of revenge and inferiority. That’s when you realise the real value of the Left. Otherwise you’re just stuck in a scene which feels like it’s going nowhere, and that’s frustrating if you just want to get things done. I also wonder if you abandoned your original way of thinking due to an inability to find compatibility between it and Nietzsche? I toyed with siding with the obvious right wing interpretation of Nietzsche for a while myself, but then I finally saw through it. Perhaps you can straighten this one out for me?
Well, consider this. If the vast majority of people in a society never ever see the profit incentive in their entire life, simple working class folk who own nothing in their work environment at all - and little in their home life beyond a few material trinkets - what the hell keeps them glued together?! Lol.
They find work with people they’ve never met before, and yet they learn to work with and compete against them just fine. They work damn hard too and get things done, even if just in return for a vaguely liveable proportion of the value they work to add to their product/service…
The ONLY thing Capitalism has that Socialism and Communism do not is the profit incentive from the ownership of the means of production - and that’s only for the relatively very few. Anything else is utterly compatible with Socialism and Communism.
But to gain there is direct democracy rather than indirect (or none at all), a stake in the means of production that you are operating while at work (rather than none at all), more incentive to cooperate which is deeply ingrained in human social psychology - yet squandered under Capitalism in favour of relentless stress and competition (which can still be arranged under Socialism and Communism, without being mandatory for all like under Capitalism), access to much more levels of wealth than before with the greater levels of efficiency that would result from streamlining an overly competitive and inappropriately unequal economy - all sorts. There is a huge amount of flexibility.
So if the vast majority of people can be held together in a Capitalist economy, despite never seeing the benefits that are exclusive to Capitalism, and there is all this to gain from Socialism and Communism, then just what exactly is holding us back other than falling for the misinformation, cleverly spun by those in power?
To your first sentence: Communism means that individuals don’t privately OWN the means of production.
To your last sentence: Communism is different to Capitalism since individuals don’t own the means of production and get rich that way.
If your invention was a factory that was so good that everyone wanted to work in it because they would all be better off producing 3 times as much, then you could keep it to yourself but you wouldn’t get filthy rich off it. If you shared it, the entire economy would benefit from that invention being used everywhere and your entire society would be better off, lifting you up along with everyone else to filthy richness - I’m talking wealth here, relative to the past (growth) rather than relative to others. And all my communist pals would be thrilled, showering you with praise, fame and directly democratically voted rewards that would surpass any Capitalist reward because instead of just boosting yourself you were boosting the entire economy which would thereby be doing better as a whole for you (and everyone else).
But if you don’t like that, if you prefer to be held back, then you are free to not join in.
Well thanks for looking up what communism means. At least you know now… What you just wrote goes against your other claim that I have everything to gain from sharing my invention and that I would be allowed to make rental transactions.
Looking up what Communism means? Don’t you mean reiterating what I’ve been saying to you over and over to you for the past couple of days?
Learn the difference between private ownership and public control over sharing stuff that exists, I’ve said nothing contradictory. Renting isn’t the only form of sharing. Think birthday gifts or something: a transaction without any rent/sale/anything. Imagine that! Let’s say you pick a flower from public property and you give it to your girlfriend, there’s no difference between mining some resources or coming up with an innovation - it’s not automatically “privately owned property”, it’s just an object or idea that has come into existence and you’re involved in putting it “here” rather than “there”. Say it after me: “No privately owned property laws needed”.
Then the less and less you understand. I think I’m done here, I’ve written fuck loads and you’ve gotten nothing from it. I don’t want to live under Capitalism whether I’m the richest guy in the world or the poorest, whether everyone keeps their money according to one definition or loses it according to another. If you don’t understand it’s ONLY about living with Socialism by now then you’re a lost cause.
You don’t want to live under socialism if it doesn’t include taking wealth from the rich. You reiterated that multiple times. Living in your own socialist community is not enough for you.
I dispute the claim that people never see the benefits of their labour under a capitalist system. People own more material possessions now than they ever have in history.
To repeat again, capitalism works better because it works off self-interest and competition. Socialism works off vague abstract concepts which are ultimately doomed to fail because they can’t be sustained in the long term.
This is really really vague, would you mind explaining exactly how this ‘sharing’ (it sounds wonderful ) would happen in reality ? Are you referring to the ‘idea’ of the tool …intellectual property rather than physical property ?
To be specific… imagine I had an idea for building a tool that would improve the cotton picking. It would take me 20 hours of my free time to build, and let’s just say there’s not too much free time working in the communist cotton fields (though this is irrelevant I guess). So while all my comrades are off dancing and singing about their love of the motherland, I will be stuck in my hut working on my tool. Now maybe this is what I really really like to do, but let’s say I am like the majority of my comrades and would prefer singing and dancing to being stuck in my hut. If once I am finished building my tool and it works like a charm … should I now put it in the common tool pile for everyone to share ?
Let’s say that if I used this tool alone and was able to keep my harvest for myself then I would have double cotton. If, however I share this tool with my group of comrades (I’ll assuming we are only ‘sharing’ with my local comrades and not everyone on the planet) which number 100 people, then my cotton ration (or whatever it is) will go up by 1%.
Now in which scenario do you think I am more or less likely to spend 20 of my hours working on this tool ?
Those societies are few and far between . They also do not deal with humans by the thousands and millions. What works for a closed small society cannot work for its opposite. You are trying to train a bird like you would a dog, it does not work. Actually a Government that is run by the few is far more efficient than any other form of governing body when dealing with vast numbers of bodies.
You might want to explore the World Socialist Movement site – the Socialist Party of Great Britain operate this site/forum and it is very informative.
BTW; Have you ever read Einstein’s ‘Why Socialism’? Easily googled. While not an actual argument, it is an endorsement with many points hitting the mark.
The Socialism/Communism (S/C for the sake of ease) I advocate for has no government command economy and the means to production are not Nationalized and government owned. In S/C the means to production are held in common by all and production is based upon use/need.
But beyond this, I would agree with you in that a ’
, does not work. Again, a ’
is not a S/C society. Not, by any argument or rationale any Socialist/Communist I know would offer.
Let me be clearer as well, the S/C I advocate for is a moneyless, classless, stateless society wherein the means to production are owned in common and production is based upon use/need. Or, to put it another way… ‘Socialism means a global system of social organization based on common ownership, democratic control by all, production for use, and free access.’ WSM site.
I would be happy to argue in favor of a S/C society and to respond to any further discussion on the principled ideology of S/C.
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) would happen in reality ? Are you referring to the ‘idea’ of the tool …intellectual property rather than physical property ?