CityOfAngels

In honor of change, which is the goal of this thread, I am changing the thread. Instead of being specific with Capitalism and Communism, I'm wiping that clean, and our new goal is to come up with a government system that is better than any other system of government. It can have elements of any system, and new elements and ideas are highly encouraged. I will leave the old thread starter in a quote here, for relevancy.

Willravel

If we are talking about communism (basically: everyone owns everything, and there are no clesses), and capitalism (basically: an economic system in which all or most of the means of production are privately owned and operated), then this is seemingly quite simple. The government is publicly traded, and every citizen owns at least one share of stock, or he or she loses his or her citizenship. But in order for this to be communism, all goods and services have to be ownbed by all people, so all goods and services must be tied into the governemnt. In other words, there is extreme central organization, but that organization is decentralized down to each stock holder. The stock holders vote on every decision the company makes, and the shares value increases when they are good decisions, and they decrease when it is a bad decision. People with higher valued shares are able to split shares and sell the second share for goods and services. Each citizen would have to perform a benificial function in the society in order to keep his or her stocks, and there always must be 100% employment, whcih is the burden of the state, and thus the entire populace.

It won't really work (because people are too lazy, and because this level of organization would hvae to be run by a computer), but it's fun to think about.

CityOfAngels

True, but we can take elements of both and bring them together. We don't necessarily have to make each complete system work together. We are making our own system.

alpha phi

Well for my contribution here are the principles of Communism


In my opinion there is already a marriage of
communism and capitalism existing today called
The United States Of America

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CityOfAngels

I repeat: "We don't necessarily have to make each complete system work together. We are making our own system."

Yes, the United States is our best example put into play. But our goal here is to find something BETTER. Think BETTER. C'mon; you can't say you're fully happy with where America is at unless your defense is in relation to the rest of the world. Our goal is to go past that mentality; past that acceptance, and say, "I want something better for my people and I."

alpha phi

As far as something better?
communism would play no role
it gives way to much power to the state,
and removes power from the people
commumism corrupts capitalism.
From the free market economy
to a state run corporation

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CityOfAngels

Communism as a whole would play no role, but neither would capitalism. But we can take ideas from those two systems and use them for our own. That is what I meant when I said: "We don't necessarily have to make each complete system work together. We are making our own system."

Charlatan

Visit any Scandinavian country or Canada... this is, IMO, the best of both systems.

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CityOfAngels

Charlatan; please expand on that statement. I'm not saying that because I disagree with you, but rather because not everyone actually has had experience in those countries, and not everyone has studied them. It would greatly help the discussion if ideas were laid out for everyone to see and analyze for themselves.

Charlatan

These nations have free markets (as much as *any* market is free today) but they also have a lot of social services (universal health care, national daycare, etc.).

These are so-called Socialist trappings that many on the extreme right would cry individuals should pay for...

In effect, the wealth of the nation is combined (via taxation) and then distributed back to the citizen by way of services.

In my mind, this is the ideal form of government. You get the flexibility of a capitalist system but you also have a highly educated (subsidized to universal education at all levels - University included). Your economy is not centrally planned but the government exercises the power of a single buyer in key areas of the economy (i.e. healthcare) thereby cutting out price gouging.

It isn't perfect but what system is.

In the end, it takes an increasingly collective position in the face of increasing individualism.

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- Old Man Luedecke

CityOfAngels

Ok, so that's what's good about Socialism. But like all systems of government, it's imperfect. Which elements should we incorporate into our government? Which elements shouldn't we incorporate? It's important to recognize other forms of government, but remember; we're creating our own. Let's focus on that. Who's up for the challenge?

Willravel

That is my own system. I don't know of any government that operates in that way. I was expecting a little more feedback...

Charlatan

City... it's not Socialism. Socialism has an entirely planned economy.

This, IMO, is the beauty of these systems. They are NOT planned economies and yet there is still a social saftey net and social services.

Perfection is Utopia -- an unattainable goal.

I think the key is to strive for but never reach Utopia and I think the systems I have mentioned are on the right path towards this... the key is to continue to balance between the strengths of free market and the strengths of the planned econmony without being either.

Reigning in the excesses of both systems.

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Ustwo

The estimated number of Canadians living in the United States is 820000.
The estimated number of US citizens living in Canada 688000.

Percent of Canadan population living in the US: 2.5%
Percent of US population living in Canada: 0.23%

Hmmmmmmm

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Paq

forgive my drunkeness, but IIRC, 820,000 of almost 300,000,000 is not quite 2.5%

and i'm not sure roughly or canada's population, but say it's roughly the size of the US,then wouldnt' the percentages be roughly similar considering you're talking about numbers that are the size of middle -sized towns? you're talking about a diff of 132,000, not exactly a huge number of people in two developed countries...which brings us to point number 2:

huh?

the supposed percentages have to do with what, exactly?

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Ustwo

You are most obviously drunk

The 820,000 are Canadian's living in the US, which would be divided by Canada's population to get their %, not the US's.

The gross number of Canadians living in the US is greater than the gross number of US citizens living in Canada, without even looking at population sizes. Add in that the US population is almost bigger than Canada's by a factor of 10, and it seems that it is far more common for a Canadian to come live in the US than a US citizen to move to Canada.

What does this mean? I could mean many things, but what it means directly is the US has something that Canadians want. Perhaps their system is not the best of both worlds, but just another system.

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Charlatan

The population of Canada is roughly 35 million compared to the roughly 350 million in the US.


Ustwo... no big deal. I said, in my opinion, these nations offered the best of both systems. Clearly a completely free market is not the answer... we have seen what happens when there is no regulation on the marketplace. The key is protecting people from the bad elements of the corporate world while still allowing other parts to flourish. The key is balance.

Time will tell who got the balance right.

Edit: it could also meant that our old people love Florida and Arizona...

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

pig

Ustwo, I think you might be simplifying the situation a bit; I think that the historical properties of the land masses which have become the US and Canada easily have as much to do with the strength of the economies and the desirability of residence as the differences in the government styles, but maybe that's just me.

For a contribution to the question of government forms, I'm going to suggest that government service be treated like the military is in much of the world; everyone has to serve a certain period of time, at some level of their local, city, state or federal government; depending on their intelligence, resume, etc. Furthermore, there is a limit to how long a person can spend in a particular position, and how long they can spend total. ie. a person has to eventually live under the laws they help to form while they are in the government.

will, in your system does the government control the means of production? I'm wondering how much those shares are different from votes? Furthermore, it would seem that this system would just give control of the government to the rich, more so than they already control it in our present system. Wouldn't those with more shares, and/or more highly valued shares, simply control the government through majority votes? I'd have to think about it a little more to have a more well thought out opinion, I think.

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CityOfAngels

Interesting point. I like it.

I think it's important to keep our independance from the government, while at the same time the government should be a tool to enhance ourselves and our communities. Wouldn't mandatory service be intrusive on such independance? Plus, have we REALLY come up with a test for intelligence? I personally don't think so. We didn't have to test Albert Einstein to realize his intelligence anyways. His (immeasureable) measure of intelligence was based on his works and ideas; but those works and ideas were fueled by his ambition. Yes, I think it's important to have intelligent individuals in government, but I think another thing we must incorporate is their ambition and will to do their job correctly, and to make sure that whatever they do while on the clock is for the good of the country.

That means no kickbacks; no "fund-raising" coke parties; no excess business expenses, etc.

Willravel

I never stipulated who the rich would be, aside from those who have more stock in a company. That would depend on the ability of the company you work for and/or own stock in. One person = one vote. Those with more shares simply have more options when it comes to access to public property and services.

I'm not saying this is a viable option. I was just trying to create a system that I've never seen before that incorporates a communist and capitalist governmental system. I would hate to live in my hypothtical country, simply because I think capitalism is an extention of private ownership and materialism, both of which I am strongly against.

CityOfAngels

How about this one: All deeds, contracts, etc. are null and void.
And this one: There shall be no economy; the world is owned by none.

How would this affect us? How could we make them work?

irateplatypus

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~ Winston Churchill

CityOfAngels

I have changed this thread. I hope that is alright with all of you. I think by not being specifically tied to other systems of government, it can help prevent us from going off-topic, and will help us focus on creating something NEW, rather than looking upon what we already have.

alansmithee

You want some new, super-government? Make new, super-people. As long as we have the same old homo sapiens, any economic system will have the same problems-not enough reward for good behavior will cause too much free riding, and those in power will always work to ensure that they maintain their power, often at the expense of everyone else. Until you can get rid of those two things in human nature, there's no reason trying to come up with some miracle cure.

smooth

if you're going to go that route, keep in mind that a central assumption of Marxism is that humans do change over time, according to their material conditions.

I guess the short answer is that we may actually have new humans walking around now that we've shifted (are shifting) economies.

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Ustwo

If you think marxist theory is valid then yes.

I think marxist theory is hogwash. You want your govenmernt to work best with human nature, not the other way around.

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roachboy

so here we are again: someone mentions marx or the left and ustwo deploys his sub-limbaugh "understanding" of the topic with the exclusive intent of trying to prevent a conversation from happening.

i have seen many posts from you on this topic, ustwo: you do not know what you are talking about, but you do not hesitate to talk anyway.
given that you have no idea what you are talking about, where is the gratification for you in posting in these threads at all? it is not as though your juvenile quips constitute anything like a serious critique--it is not as though you have any interesting insights to put forward on the matter. you just seem to want to prevent conversations from happening that involve taking the topic seriously.

it is tedious, ustwo, and i really wish that you would stop.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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CityOfAngels

Roachboy - You do have a point, and I commend you for sticking up, but please remember that everyone here has a valid opinion.

Ustwo - Please be more expansive in your responses. The more open we are about everything, the better understandings of each other we will have. I believe that is critical for producing ideas that can be of benefit to everyone. Also, if you plan on responding to Roachboy, I beg you to think deeply about what you have to say. Let's try to keep this thread from becoming a personal conflict with each other.

smooth

I find it strange that capitalists can hold incompatible assumptions about economies, human interaction, and human nature.

For example, capitalists often mix the ideological standpoing that capitalism is good, human behavior is innately bad (or at least slothful). Capitalism is good seems to stem from the belief that it allows people to excel on their own merits, presumably leaving the slothful in the dust where they belong (although, according to alansmith's perspective if I understand it correctly, everyone is innately lazy and freeloading).

I guess the mechanism to spur people into action is the invisible market. This market functions to encourage innately lazy people into working. The detritus sifts to the bottom, while the more deserving overcome their personal stumbling blocks (I'm supposing).

Then we have the innate quality of greed. I'm not sure how capitalism keeps greed in check, in fact it seems to encourage it. Yet, greed is a "valid" critique of marxism (or communism, or whatever left of capitalism comes into being). And there is no data I'm aware of that has cemented the fact that greed is innate. It appears at least no small part is due to nurture. Since all of us have been nurtured in a capitalist society, I see no way one can adequately seperate the society we developed within and our notions of what we might be like without it. That is, would people be "innately" greedy in a socialist or Marxist world?

Clearly the idea that we are necessarily individuals and perhaps greed is somehow long ago critical to the survival of the species (if we go with the genetic transference theories) resonates with US citizens. Yet, that would seem to be counter to the historical evidence that humans coalesced into small and then increasingly larger societies. At least in the distant past, our ancestors saw fit to be less individualistic than we proclaim is our innate desire and trait today.

Marx has a different view of human nature, in so far as one can claim humans have a nature. I'm on one side of this debate (whether Marx believed in human nature) and a number of well respected sociologists on my floor are on the other side. I guess to try and do their argument justice, in so far as we might have something approximating a stable characteristic we would not know what it is since it's ever changing. I thought that perhaps we might "return" to our species-being, and that might be the best thing approximating nature. But those others reminded me that to Marx there is no going back, only progression toward what we will be. So there you go, in so far as we might reach species-beingness, I would have to conclude it would look nothing like the original state...

...ah rambling....

anyway, I can only suspect that people espousing the virtues of capitalism while denouncing human nature as greedy and lazy are operating in some odd sleight of mind movement that allows them to grasp the upper shelf. That is, perhaps they are the most crafty or wily. It wouldn't make much sense to believe in fairness and equality if one believed the rest of humanity were acting on the basis of greed and laziness--because then of course the others would take advantage of one's kindness and mistake it for weakness.

Once one starts to unravel all these assumptions loaded into capitalism, individualis, US-specific flavors of clusters of beliefs surrounding these notions, one actually begins to taste just how violently they collide. I don't comprehend how people can hold such incompatible assumptions in their head all at once. Well, I can, but the implications make me sad and weary. And there isn't any real way one can claim to adhere to an invisible market without reifying the dang thing, since it is after all only human interaction...


well, that should be expansive enough. certainly plenty of meat for one to pick through and quote a teensy bit and drill that into the ground. should open up some kind of commentary at some point in time I imagine. good to see you around roachboy, btw. and cool thread, city of angels, haven't seen you in here for like a year but I may be mistaken as I don't as a general rule stalk forum members but nice to see yah again all the same.

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"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

CityOfAngels

Wow. That was an article in itself, and a very interesting one at that. Thank you VERY much for your input, smooth.

Is greed built-in human behavior, or is it learned? Can it be unlearned? Or more specifically: SHOULD it be unlearned? Why have we accepted capitalism as the best we can come up with?

Oh yeah smooth; I've been back for a small while, but I come off and on. It just depends on how busy I am. I have a week off work right now so I've been able to spend more time here with you all.

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The words "love" and "life" go together. It is almost as if they are one. You must love to live, and you must live to love, or you have never lived nor loved at all.

smooth

I'm not sure how to relate these sentences. Your last sentence looks like a non sequitor as it's not apparent to me how it supports the contention that marxism is hogwash. I also don't understand how "the other way around" would be: you don't want human nature to work best with your government? I don't see how this is false or undesirable.

In any case, it appears that marx' view on changing species is really not critical. There appears to be a mechanism for this in every discipline, even your medical discipline. So the notion that humans are changing over time as bunk is bizarre to me, other than you just wanting to dispute me. But the central tenet of my claim, the reason I made it, that humans change over time and we might just have a new one on our hands seems fairly safe from critique from you. I don't know how you'd go about it, but I'd like to see it.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Willravel

Greed, or more importantly, selfishness, is innate and cannot be fully unlearned. We have not accepted capitalism, but rather decided that it is sufficient to the point where we allow ourselves to be too lazy to actively fight it. It's not so bad that we feel the need to fight it, as a whole collective society.

Likewise, we also have the innate ability to be selfless and altruistically heroic. There are those among us who are willing to fight and die for what they believe to be right. There are those who actively work against systems currently in place in order to help the reality we have built around us evolve into a better reality. This group isn't reflected in the common man, but then again, no revolution really ever is.

CityOfAngels

You say Revolution; I say change. Two very similar words, with two very different literal meanings. If we are to begin a peaceful society, we must begin with peace. It is our duty to show the world that destroying each other is not the answer.

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The words "love" and "life" go together. It is almost as if they are one. You must love to live, and you must live to love, or you have never lived nor loved at all.

Charlatan

The Canadian population is roughly 32 million. Turns out I overestimated on both accounts... but the 10% rule is still a reasonable estimate.

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- Old Man Luedecke

alansmithee

No, you misunderstand capitalism. What capitalism allows is for everyone to be able to strive for what's in their best interest, without relying upon goodwill to make things right. Capitalism is not a fair system, and doesn't allow for people to excel. It doesn't care who excels, only that the total pie of wealth is the largest. It's also why unfettered capitalism breaks down and is largely internally inconsistent-when someone gets too much wealth, they start creating inefficiencies in the system to maintain their own wealth, without thinking of the overall system. But the opposite (communism) will have situations where people, by acting in their best interest, will sabotage the whole system. Why work as hard as possible, when the results will be the same regardless? It's not about being lazy, it's about doing what's in your own best interest.



Capitalism not only doesn't keep greed in check, it relies upon it to be a driving force. Greed is the desire for people to maximize their utility. If you deny greed, you deny that people will work to put themselves (and their families) in the best situation possible, which is ridiculous. I don't see how you would think this is nurture. It is just because people have more advanced thoughts that they can see "utility" as being more than the next meal. Therefore they strive to accumulate the most they can, and to protect that wealth.

Now, utility is a funny concept, and it doesn't always translate directly into greed. For instance, donating large sums of money might give more psychological satisfaction than having that wealth, so the utility would be higher to give (up to a certain point). But the fact remains that for any economic or governmental system to function properly, it needs to account for greed.

This is true, but it was more a matter of survival. For people to survive, it was more necessary to pool resources, because there were less resources as a whole. But now, we might be more interdependant, but also more able to mass large accumulation of resources because there is so much more of everything.

And here you are correct-capitalism has nothing to do with fairness. It is merely the system which is supposed to achieve the highest total wealth. For instance, if you have a billionaire and someone with nothing, living on the street, in capitalism it makes no difference if the billionaire or the man with nothing were to somehow come upon $50,000 even though the billionaire would hardly care about that sum, and it would make a large difference to the destitude person.

The market works fine, when there's not a market breakdown. But because people aren't perfect, it's rare to find a perfect market situation. So you need an outside body (in my view, usually this should be a strong, central government) to try to eliminate as many of the market failures as possible. Now, I admit to there being some inconsistancies, but I think those usually arise more from people who attribute too much to capitalism and don't really understand what it's designed to do. It's not a cure-all, but it's the best thing to deal with the innate negatives in human personality.

alansmithee

But this is foolish, because it only takes one person to destroy a peaceful society. Because at the least, if you respond in kind, the "peace" has been destroyed. And if you don't respond, you end up with an autocratic society, ruled by the wills of a certain few people who resort to violence.

Ustwo

Only a moment to post, being I am working.

You can either have a fair system or a free system, by default freedom will never be fair to everyone.

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smooth

well, first of all, alansmith, don't start your replies to me with assertions that I don't understand what I'm talking about or I won't respond to you.

you claim I don't understand capitalism, but my post was about capitalists. To the extent I'm characterizing their argument, it would be their failure to understand what capitalism does or does not do--not mine.

then you launch into some kind of discussion that doesn't even significantly alter what I said. Regardless, the only defining characteristic of capitalism is the personal ownership of assets. Nothing in your post points to this, so at the very least you should temper the irony in your responses. Everything in your reply are assumptions you've loaded into the model as to what capitalism does or ought to do. Your comments aren't the defining characteristics of capitalism. At best, they characterize the US flavor of capitalism, but by no means does it have to be such and wasn't before and certainly won't always be.

As to how one can wonder if something is nurture or not, your comments on greed are not even historically accurate in our american historical context. furthermore, if you were correct, and greed were innate, we wouldn't have lasted very long as a species since particular people would have been driven to conduct themselves in ways that didn't serve their best interests. greed is the desire to accumulate more than one needs. greed would compel people to accumulate beyond their means, not just maxamize their utility. Lots of people maximized ther utility long before capitalism was even a concept to be debated over. our nation's wealth was founded on the opposite of greed. Read the Protestant Ethic by Max Weber for more insight on that. You might really enjoy his work. He's not critical of capitalism except to argue it ought to be fair.

regardless, no behaviorist would or could claim greed is innate. Perhaps some kind of behavior is advantageous to the continuation of our species, but it's merely an expression of a trait. You haven't explained the trait but instead latched onto an expression of it that our society has labeled as 'greed' and, for the most part, claims to discourage (despite what you thought, this makes no claims about capitalism as a system, but rather to state that capitalists simultaneously believe that greed is socially repugnant but somehow essential to our survival (as your post exemplifies).

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

smooth

as Marx saw it, people would always do what was in their best interest. The problem with these kinds of discussions is that capitalists make a false dichotomy between 'work' and 'leisure.' To Marx, if one could enjoys one's 'work' (actually everyday behavior), and live from that, we would have people doing what they do best--each in his or her own capacity.

So while it may be difficult for someone who believes humans are innately lazy and greedy to invision a world wherein people like to drive trains for 6 hours a day, and others who like to chat with their neighbors while collecting the garbage, the reality in my experience is that these people do exist. Such people would happily do what they already do as long as their future livlihood would be guaranteed. Contrary to your commentary, broad swaths of our population are perfectly content to stay in their current economic position. Relatively few people are trying to maximize their utility, as you put it. And even fewer still doing it in a 'greedy' (or socially undesirable) way.

your commentary on the efficiency and utility of 'pooling' resources is historically inaccurate. First of all, the most modern evidence suggests that ancients had a hell of a lot more free time than we do. gatherers worked on average 20 hours per week. pooling resources, as you put it, is not more efficient from an energy perspective. It actually takes a lot of energy to grow something in one state or country, and transport it elsewhere. People formed social groups not because they needed to pool resources, but because they started to run out of space. Now we build vertical.

No, if you were correct, and people were primarily concerned with survival of themselves (we'll leave the greed label off), they would have just killed off the competition. So I think you're committing a few errors when you state we are more advanced in our utilitarian cognition than the ancients. It appears they did much or all of what was correct, for if not, we wouldn't be here according to evolution tenets. But the point remains, we didnt' get here by unbendable commitment to individualism.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

alansmithee

I'm would like a response, but when you make broad statements that I find to be incorrect smoo, I think it's best for me to state how I think they are incorrect. I think your general statements about capitalists to be false.

Why do I need to alter what you said? I largely agreed with some parts, but certain things I found faulty. And my assumptions are no more loaded than yours. And personally, what I have always been led to believe is that capitalism isn't just driven by personal ownership, but by market forces. That is the key component. And it's debatable as to whether or not capitalism has always been this way (I would think that most economists would point to capitalism being pretty much the same since it arose from the mercantile period), but I never said it won't always be. But you can't say it will definately be different with any more certainty.

I've read some of Weber's works before, and I found them interesting, but didn't agree with many of his conclustions. And I don't see how you can add fairness into capitalism, because many people have different ideas of what exactly fair is. My point was that now, because of increases in production, utility can be maximized in more exclusionary ways. And by definition, utility would be maximized if someone accumulated beyond their means-if it didn't maximize utility, they would stop accumulation earlier. Unless your claim is that people who are opperating in a greedy way are irrational, and lower personal utility by their overaccumulation. Which I personally find hard to believe, and can't think of anyone else making such a ridiculous claim. Again, being greedy isn't just about overaccumulation, it's impossible to "overoveraccumulate". Because if someone is accumulating more, it's obvious they desire it, it's within the bounds of what they feel they need. Now, it might be more than necessary for bare survival, but that's not an accurate definition of overconsumption (unless you claim that everyone is overconsuming, which then makes it a meaningless debate).

It seems you have misunderstood what I posted. I do think that greed is if not essential to survival, definately a driving factor in survival. And I don't find it necessarily socially repugnant. One of the points I was trying to make was that capitalism relies upon greed, and that many people who speak for capitalism would like to ignore that fact, because of the negative connotation associated with greed.