primitive capitalist

this post is in response to the responses I found in the post: people say:…‘stoopid communists.’

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=158983

I would like to deal with communism as an economic system first.
some people prosper adhering to capitalism, while some people do not. Some people prosper adhering to communism, while some people do not.
which one is ‘better’ changes from vantage point. o.k.

in a ‘civilized’ or ‘modern’ society the element of physical strength really no longer applies to survival.
i.e. Bill Gates does not appear to be physically fit, however he is surviving, reproduced, and will most likely be able to raise his offspring to an age that the will be able to reproduce.
with laws, police, and the justice system in modern societies, people have evolved to a point where physical strength (once an important characteristic in terms of survival) no longer plays an important role. Those that have not evolved accordingly, i.e. when caught battering some, go to prison.

This demonstrates that humans are separating themselves, or taming, their primitive characteristics, while adopting new, civil, survival characteristics.

Greed is an important characteristic in terms of survival. The more one has, i.e. food, shelter, clothing, land, ect., the more likely they will survive and reproduce.

Greed is the basis of capitalism. One wants their own (private ownership), and one continues to work to acquire more and more for one’s self.

Thus, capitalism is a system fueled by the primitive survival characteristic greed.

For communism to flourish, the mass of the population would have to separate themselves, or tame, their primitive survival characteristic of greed. and the few that could not adapt, when caught being greedy, i.e. taking more than one needs to survive and reproduce, go to prison.

Why not shed this primitive characteristic of greed, like humans have shed the primitive characteristic of physical strength?

Please do not claim communism will not work because people are lazy. Those lazy people will still have to work enough to produce what they need to survive. If they don’t, just like in a capitalist system, they will not survive.

Now, to Communism as a political system, which many portray as: rule by dictatorship, tyrant, ect. On a philosophy site one would imagine the choice would be for a philosopher king to run the show.

However, the end game of communism is to have no govenment. But this will never happen because, for the most part, humans can not tame, or shed, all of our primitive instincts and continue to behave like the beasts we are.

feel free to disagree.

Essentialist nonsense. “‘Those brutes’ have ‘not yet evolved’, but we are highly evolved”, “human nature makes a state necessary”, and so forth. You are refuted because of your reliance on metaphysical constructs.

?
I dont really understand your post
but I interpert it as stating: the previous post is invalid or does not carry weight because it relies on theory. well, if that is the case…

communism does ‘work’ and ‘works well’ as an economic system when practiced by people who are not greedy. I.E. The Shakers.

the shakers are not a theroy they had, and may still exist.

now one may state: the shakers were a small community of people and communism will not have the same reults when applied to a larger population. well…that is because the majority of people are greedy and have not shed the privitive charateristic of greed.

No. I’m saying that you assume that all - or even most - men are essentially greedy, as if there were something in either their biological or ‘metaphysical’ character that predisposed them to such. Prove this.

Likewise, had you asserted to the contrary and made the Rousseauian claim that men are basically benevolent and giving au naturale, I would have demanded precisely the same of you.

Prove that men are biased towards one or the other; that a firm division betwixt the two exists; and that, finally, it is impossible to be both at once.

do you agree that greed exists?

greed: selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed
m-w.com/dictionary/greed

I am greedy. I am selfish and have an excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed.

If the concept of greed exists, then I am greedy.
I have a bias that of greed. ect.

did I learn to be greedy or is it in my biological construct.

either way

I need to seperate myself, or tame, the charateristic of greed, to be able to funtion properly in a communistic society.

If I am greedy (for one reason or the other) why isn’t anyone else?

People certainly can be greedy. What you need to do is prove that people are sufficiently greedy, enough of the time and under all circumstances, to disrupt communalistic society. Or, conversely, that people are altruistic enough to condemn capitalism to the dustbins of history. It makes little difference.

winverawin: Greed is the basis of capitalism.

This a ridiculous statement. The basis for capitalism is the fee market and the pursuit of self-interest. Greed is one possibility of capitalism. Moreover, under communism or any other economic system greed can also exists. Greed, like lust, is a human condition no matter the governing system.

There is a confusion about the meaning of greed.

They are precisely the same thing - give or take a degree of intensity. It really depends which ideology you promote: one man’s ‘greed’ is another’s ‘self-love’.

I am glad you now agree that people certainly can be (are) greedy.

so, sufficently and time ?

time does not exist, it is an egotistical construct. thus has no bearing

however,

sufficently is relative. the world is constantly changing. so what is sufficent now, will not be sufficent now

so, I can not give you a measurement because it is constantly changing.

or

sufficently= the degree needed for your quote to occur
“people are altruistic enough to condemn capitalism to the dustbins of history.” dionysus

there is no confusion. I provided a definition in an earlier post. it is

greed: selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed
m-w.com/dictionary/greed

we may interpret it differently but like Dionysus said

“They are precisely the same thing - give or take a degree of intensity. It really depends which ideology you promote: one man’s ‘greed’ is another’s ‘self-love’.”

greed can exist under communisim, but they do not exist harmoniously.

just like they guy who goes around battering people to survive in a ‘modern’ or ‘civil’ society. he exists but does not function properly, thus goes to jail.

Surely this is a good thing.

Why exactly is greed evil? Just because I earn more by being greedy does not mean that another will suffer.

Not in the UK. its usually the poor who have eight kids while the rich have one or two.

They will need to be re-educated. I suggest Siberia.

  1. if I said greed was evil why did you not quote my post stating greed is evil? if you interperted my posts as Greed=Evil. you are mistaken.

  2. o.k. poor people are greedy too. Just because one is poor, does not mean one is not greedy. I am poor and I am extemely greedy.

  3. Siberia? well, that sounds nice if the planet begins to warm at an exelarated rate.

thanks for your thoughts though.

Greed is not an asset in market competition. It interferes will the cool deliberation necessary to making optimal decisions. And communism has been proven to be a deficient way of producing wealth, as it collapsed in its competition with free markets in the latter 20th century. Command economies are inimical to the entepreneurial spirit that produces wealth.

It is interesting, this question of greed, or self interest, as the driving factor of human activity. It is especially interesting that some people would even consider this when it is so obvious that human advancement comes about through cooperation.

It seems to me that it is only when a large cooperative society comes into being that there becomes room for the self interested and greedy to survive.

Sure, every person operates on a certain amount of self interest but the vast majority view their self interest within the context of a cooperative society. They are, above all, cooperative.
Those who step outside and put self interest above the social context are deemed sociopaths or psychopaths.

So, to say that self interest or greed are the driving forces of human activity is a great extrapolation. Like saying that fish like water.

o.k. people do cooperate.

However, the self interest that you mention within a cooperating society is preventing ‘communism’ from flurishing.

now I ask you. what is the driving force behind capitalism?

wanting to rule the world with an iron fist

-Imp

Public choice takes the same principles that economists use to analyze people’s actions in the marketplace and applies them to people’s actions in collective decision making. Economists who study behavior in the private marketplace assume that people are motivated mainly by self-interest. Although most people base some of their actions on their concern for others, the dominant motive in people’s actions in the marketplace—whether they are employers, employees, or consumers—is a concern for themselves. Public choice economists make the same assumption—that although people acting in the political marketplace have some concern for others, their main motive, whether they are voters, politicians, lobbyists, or bureaucrats, is self-interest. In Buchanan’s words the theory “replaces… romantic and illusory… notions about the workings of governments [with]… notions that embody more skepticism.”

In the past many economists have argued that the way to rein in “market failures” such as monopolies is to introduce government action. But public choice economists point out that there also is such a thing as “government failure.” That is, there are reasons why government intervention does not achieve the desired effect

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theory

Basically, it’s impossible for the government to act for the ”good” of the public. Something, which many people here believe.

According to Richard Dawkings too, people will only co-operate if they get something back in return, same goes for all the animals. Like someone said already, people will only co-operate out of selfish desire

This is not the reason why the USSR failed though. It may be a minor reason but I doubt that it’s a big reason. The main reason in my opinion is that Communism has failed to overcome the Calculation problem.

“Economic calculation problem is a criticism of socialist economics. It was first proposed by Ludwig von Mises in 1920 and later expounded by Friedrich Hayek.[1][2] According to this criticism, without information provided by market prices it is impossible to rationally allocate resources. Those who agree with this criticism claim it is a refutation of socialism and that it shows that a socialist planned economy could never work. The debate raged in the 1920s and 1930s, and that specific period of the debate has come to be known by economic historians as the The Socialist Calculation Debate.[3”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_c … on_problem

Capitalism = Freedom.

Freedom and responsibility are inexorably tied together. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin. We all have the responsibility to fund our retirement. When we abdicate that responsibility to the government, we get … Social Security. Because we have abdicated that responsibility, we are required by law to participate. Parliament is free to take the “surplus” and do with it what it pleases. And the same amount of money which in any reasonable annuity would be able to fund our retirement does not even come close.

Somehow, we have taken to the idea that being free from responsibility is being free. True, government’s shouldering Social Security takes some of the worry out of retirement. But can anybody show where we have another choice besides Social Security? We don’t. So as with any other case of giving up responsibility, we have given up freedom.

Now, I ask you. Do you want to be free? I would guess 90% of the world’s population would answer, no. That is why capitalism will never work. Most people think that total freedom is good, when for most they want the government to make them safe at the price of freedom.

Economists make assumptions about the behavior of markets. Guesses, often faulty. And when actual market behavior does not conform to their faulty assumptions they exacerbate their faulty reasoning by declaring the markets flawed.

This is the problem with Dawkins and von Mises and Hayek. They assume that the primary motivation of self interest is economic. This is faulty reasoning since many people do not operate upon this assumption but make their decisions for other reasons. Their assumption that all behavior can be measured economically may be true but their arrogance in deciding that all behavior can only be measured in strictly economic terms is not.

It is true that there is a problem in markets that do not quantify information but there is a bigger problem in ignoring information that is not easily quantifiable, like public good. They say that it is impossible to have efficient allocation of resources without the price information provided by markets. I agree but it is equally impossible when markets are based solely on price.

As far as I understand, Dawkins argues that self-interest is not economic but a part of our nature for survival. For example, a bird will pick out insects from another bird based purely on the fact that the act of kindness will be replicated.

There has been study done, which indicates that animals which do not co-operate are more willing to die then those that do. Co-operation therefore is important.

Again, many people co-operate on this basis. It has been studied too, that people are more likely to co-operate with people they know as one day they may need their help. People are therefore only “kind” out of pure self interest.