Another hypothetical about Communism... and there is a poll!

[Alassius]

That's still what Cutlass said, you want to throw out the bathwater of authoritarianism, but you don't say whether you are throwing out the baby too, or if you can find a replacement baby.

 

[pi-r8]

Mostly I see it as an information problem. Money and private capital allows information to flow from the ground up. You can say, "I don't like this product, I don't want to pay much for it" and society will adjust by either producing less or reducing the price. Or if a resource is scarce, you can raise the price so that people will automatically conserve it.

But, it fails badly at finding large-scale adjustments (like having to build a nationwide system of highways and gas stations so that cars will work), or pricing in externalities like pollution. For that, you need everyone to work together as a society, which is done at the government level.

To make a math analogy- private capital finds the local maximums, but government ownership finds the global maximums.

 

[innonimatu]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=449580

Ah, I was also wondering about this recent socialist gangs meme!

 

[amadeus]

But, it fails badly at finding large-scale adjustments (like having to build a nationwide system of highways and gas stations so that cars will work), or pricing in externalities like pollution. For that, you need everyone to work together as a society, which is done at the government level.

How small do you think a country must be before this stops being true?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Alassius
I don't know what the "baby" will be, that's correct. I only can see the need to actually look for it. Which a democratic communist society offers an opportunity for I hope.
That then can be any number of things.

One possibility is a public management of investment, profit and wages while the innovation stays private. To get more tangible:

Every opening of a new business has a trial-phase, which can be accompanied by subsidies if a certain number of people belonging to the target market vote for it (say you want to open a Pizza delivery service in a certain district of town, then people living in this district may vote for it). This should best happen via the Internet and there via a specifically designed system to encourage participation.
If it is an success (i.e. it pays for itself), after the trial-phase all surpluses (wages not yet subtracted) go to the state, while the workers are paid some standard fair wage and the founder/employer a higher wage for his additional contributions of time/effort from that surplus as far as it allows to do so. Also, if the business manages to generate enough further profit, all costs the founder invested in the business in the first place will be paid back by the state. If it is a great economic success - i.e. the profit gives room for it - bonuses for the founder/employer and the workers are in order.
The employer can of course also plan new investments, which again is subject to the mentioned democratic system of subsidies. And there we see how such subsidies are financed - by the surpluses kept by the state.
Additionally one could introduce a rule that a person who wants his or her first subsidies has to gain relatively many votes, while a person having a history of turning subsidies into economic success may need relatively lesser votes.
On the other side of the medal, is will be easy to hire and fire employees (which won't be that bad because a general welfare system will be in place to ensure they stay afloat - which however I think should know boundaries, for instance if you refuse to work at all the welfare can be cut altogether).

Which could provide the following attributes:
- Founding a business is more easy when a demand is democratically determined for the proposed business and open to members of all kinds of wealth/income classes (while founding one without one could be encouraged by something akin to the modern system of shares - just more attainable for all kinds of businesses and better [for instance share trading should not amount to be an important business of its own right - there really is no need to I see]).
- Workers get a bigger share of the earnings, while the founder still is financially benefited for his efforts and all are motivated to further improve the business by default because they will economically benefit by default (just that the employer will benefit less than in a free market)
- The business still has to be economical sound.

Oh and I think it may also be good if once the original founder of a business retires, the workers should have the right to elect his or her successor (and to vote out as well).


Now this is just a random suggestion of mine which I just made up. It surely has its holes.
But what actually works or what may need improvement, in what ways... whatever we should do. We first need to get on our way and actually try and look.

And that is most of all what I advocate.

The free market is fundamentally flawed, as already the game theory proves. Just letting humans compete is not efficient. Or the ideal of emotional fulfillment. It is just easy and convenient as a system. And, filled up with ideological BS we decided to settle with it. But I don't want humanity to settle for what seems to me as not more than the modern easy road.

 

[amadeus]

...and you say the free market isn't efficient?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

It's just an illustration

 

[Cutlass]

@Alassius
I don't know what the "baby" will be, that's correct. I only can see the need to actually look for it. Which a democratic communist society offers an opportunity for I hope.
That then can be any number of things.

One possibility is a public management of investment, profit and wages while the innovation stays private. To get more tangible:

Every opening of a new business has a trial-phase, which can be accompanied by subsidies if a certain number of people belonging to the target market vote for it (say you want to open a Pizza delivery service in a certain district of town, then people living in this district may vote for it). This should best happen via the Internet and there via a specifically designed system to encourage participation.
If it is an success (i.e. it pays for itself), after the trial-phase all surpluses (wages not yet subtracted) go to the state, while the workers are paid some standard fair wage and the founder/employer a higher wage for his additional contributions of time/effort from that surplus as far as it allows to do so. Also, if the business manages to generate enough further profit, all costs the founder invested in the business in the first place will be paid back by the state. If it is a great economic success - i.e. the profit gives room for it - bonuses for the founder/employer and the workers are in order.
The employer can of course also plan new investments, which again is subject to the mentioned democratic system of subsidies. And there we see how such subsidies are financed - by the surpluses kept by the state.
Additionally one could introduce a rule that a person who wants his or her first subsidies has to gain relatively many votes, while a person having a history of turning subsidies into economic success may need relatively lesser votes.
On the other side of the medal, is will be easy to hire and fire employees (which won't be that bad because a general welfare system will be in place to ensure they stay afloat - which however I think should know boundaries, for instance if you refuse to work at all the welfare can be cut altogether).

Which could provide the following attributes:
- Founding a business is more easy when a demand is democratically determined for the proposed business and open to members of all kinds of wealth/income classes (while founding one without one could be encouraged by something akin to the modern system of shares - just more attainable for all kinds of businesses and better [for instance share trading should not amount to be an important business of its own right - there really is no need to I see]).
- Workers get a bigger share of the earnings, while the founder still is financially benefited for his efforts and all are motivated to further improve the business by default because they will economically benefit by default (just that the employer will benefit less than in a free market)
- The business still has to be economical sound.

Oh and I think it may also be good if once the original founder of a business retires, the workers should have the right to elect his or her successor (and to vote out as well).


Now this is just a random suggestion of mine which I just made up. It surely has its holes.
But what actually works or what may need improvement, in what ways... whatever we should do. We first need to get on our way and actually try and look.

And that is most of all what I advocate.

The free market is fundamentally flawed, as already the game theory proves. Just letting humans compete is not efficient. Or the ideal of emotional fulfillment. It is just easy and convenient as a system. And, filled up with ideological BS we decided to settle with it. But I don't want humanity to settle for what seems to me as not more than the modern easy road.

The problem being, that no matter how good this may seem to you in theory, in the real world you just flat out cannot accomplish it. Workers get one share, management another. How do you define that across a whole economy? Answer: You just can't. If you try to regulate that centrally, then you screw it up for everyone when the central planners don't get the numbers right. And if you let each person and group make up their minds, then in 2 generations you're back to capitalism.

 

[Tee Kay]

I voted yes on the assumption that it's the one of the kinds of socialism out of approximately 724,192 that I agree with.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

You just can't. If you try to regulate that centrally, then you screw it up for everyone when the central planners don't get the numbers right.

Why not? Those wages would be based on the mentioned surpluses. A simple formula can then be applied across the board. Or maybe it can be enhanced to be better tuned. If we can collect taxes, we can do that, too.
And what do you even mean by "don't get the numbers right"?