That is a great video and well done, worth one's time. It is not new information though. All this was covered in my Business School classes in 1982-84. It is good to see that such thinking is still around and maybe coming back into vogue. 
Incentives under communism?
- Thread starter Narz
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Zardnaar
Deity
Didn't the fimmunusts get ected in Moldova or Romania or somewhere? They left power once they lost an election.
Doesn't bother me if communists get elected as long as the go when they lose.
Narz
keeping it real
I am with everyone but you
Some folks would rather discuss the poster rather than the content.
But it gets really boring always responding to what you think my beliefs or intentions are rather than the subject.
Not going to respond to further personal attacks
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Narz
keeping it real
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Read up what happened to Allende.
Trying to understand the poster is not the same as attacking them.
If you don't want to discuss, that's absolutely fine. But asking you why you're moving the goalposts you established in your own opening post? That's not an attack. Nomatter how you spin it.
Yeah, you do this too lol. I was trying to get us past it.
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Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
haven't read the 5 pages.
i don't know about communism. some musings about structures within capitalism.
in my life i deliberately chose to be poor because i wanted to do stuff that'd basically keep me in low income situations (unless i got really lucky). y'know, art. like, to be clear, i wanted to do art, and accepted the low income part of it.
a lot of people are incentivized by money because they like to eat and to have a house to live in. if they get to middle class, they'll care about stuff like travel, cars and expensive electronics for the sake of it.
it's not really the same for the wealthy though. then money is a signifier for their version of cultural capital. i've been lucky enough in a sense to see both the bottom and near-top of society in denmark. i grew up with the upper-est of middle class kids in denmark, i've dipped into the upper class too, and it was clear that these kids wanted to become lawyers and doctors not because of interest, not even because of the money really, but because of what that job has of social value. importantly, of course, the money was intrinsic to this social value. if it didn't make money, they wouldn't have been interested. but the money even in that sense wasn't the point. the money is a signifier for what they actually want. to have prestigious jobs. luxury life of course is also pleasant, but why didn't they then just go into finance or tech?
incidentally, a lot of them tend to drop out when they find out they have to be interested in some pretty hard fields in order to make it. and they go into finance, tech, communications, instead, because the upper middle class life (which is also socially enviable to them) is something they similarly want. becoming a doctor, at least here, is harder than tech, finance and communications.
economic stability is of course also important, don't get me wrong. but coming from denmark, where economic stability is bluntly pretty secure in a lot of social layers (if you're willing to cut your luxuries, as i am), this behavior kind of comes to the forefront. that money isn't the point, but a signifier of the point, which is social value. i imagine it's different in the states where a toe stub wound can cripple you economically so you end up losing your foot.
i don't know about communism. some musings about structures within capitalism.
in my life i deliberately chose to be poor because i wanted to do stuff that'd basically keep me in low income situations (unless i got really lucky). y'know, art. like, to be clear, i wanted to do art, and accepted the low income part of it.
a lot of people are incentivized by money because they like to eat and to have a house to live in. if they get to middle class, they'll care about stuff like travel, cars and expensive electronics for the sake of it.
it's not really the same for the wealthy though. then money is a signifier for their version of cultural capital. i've been lucky enough in a sense to see both the bottom and near-top of society in denmark. i grew up with the upper-est of middle class kids in denmark, i've dipped into the upper class too, and it was clear that these kids wanted to become lawyers and doctors not because of interest, not even because of the money really, but because of what that job has of social value. importantly, of course, the money was intrinsic to this social value. if it didn't make money, they wouldn't have been interested. but the money even in that sense wasn't the point. the money is a signifier for what they actually want. to have prestigious jobs. luxury life of course is also pleasant, but why didn't they then just go into finance or tech?
incidentally, a lot of them tend to drop out when they find out they have to be interested in some pretty hard fields in order to make it. and they go into finance, tech, communications, instead, because the upper middle class life (which is also socially enviable to them) is something they similarly want. becoming a doctor, at least here, is harder than tech, finance and communications.
economic stability is of course also important, don't get me wrong. but coming from denmark, where economic stability is bluntly pretty secure in a lot of social layers (if you're willing to cut your luxuries, as i am), this behavior kind of comes to the forefront. that money isn't the point, but a signifier of the point, which is social value. i imagine it's different in the states where a toe stub wound can cripple you economically so you end up losing your foot.
Manfred Belheim
Moaner Lisa
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That's not coercion though is it, that's just needing something and finding the best (or most expedient) way to obtain that something. I mean you even used the phrase "provide for myself".
Senethro
Overlord
Maybe the word desperation in the same sentence adds context?
EgonSpengler
Deity
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It does. I think "not [a job] I spent longer in than I had to" also does.
I was 'between jobs' for a bit after the Great Recession and did data entry for a few months. I started to write that I "had to do" data entry, but did I 'have to'? I mean, sorta. I needed some money, it was a bad time to be looking for work, and I didn't have an advanced degree or any connections, so I resorted to a temp agency. I think I had 5 different jobs in 12 months, and they were all poo. Was I being 'coerced' by circumstances, and my own inability to find a 'real' job? Yeah, kinda. I don't have kids, but I needed to pay rent and eat. But that's life. Obviously, your economy is borked if a significant number of people find themselves relying on jobs that should be short-term, low-wage, no benefits, etc.
How does this relate to the theory of communism? I'm really not sure, but maybe it wouldn't be so different, in the day to day. Maybe there'd still be "stepping stone" jobs that we wouldn't expect people to stay in more than a year, nvm make a career out of, but still things that people or companies want or need done. Maybe college students and aspiring artists would still wait tables, high school kids would still mow lawns and work as lifeguards in the Summer, and people who got laid off would still do data entry for a few months.
I'll tell you what, though, if I'd been freed of the need to provide myself with the basics - food and a roof over my head - I'd never have done any of those temp jobs while I was trying to get a 'real' job.
Narz
keeping it real
No one would do crappy jobs if they didn't have to but someone has to do those jobs unless maybe ai gets so good it can replace most menial work
sophie
Break My Heart
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Its not "life". The economy is like this because a guy (well actually more like many, many guys) decided it has to be like this. Anything built by human hands can be unbuilt by them as well.
My brother in Marx this is like Communism 101
How many of those temp data entry jobs actually provided value to society outside of "they made some obscenely rich guys even more obscenely rich"? I can't speak for your experience obviously, but I imagine that most data entry jobs would be done away with under an ideal Communist society because they provide little (or perhaps negative) net value to society as a whole.
EgonSpengler
Deity
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Well, that is how my life works.
But yes, please tell me how to unbuild this system with my own human hands, because I think this system is kind of bull[stink] right now and doesn't seem to be working very well, for most people. In the meantime, I have to pay rent and buy food.Also, if I may pick a nit, a lot of our economy is a kludged-together pile of mismatched parts, assembled with no forethought or intention of any kind. It's a camel. (As in, "a camel is a horse that was built by a committee.") I'm also thinking of that party game where people write sentences on a single piece of paper, but you each write your thing without reading what the person before you wrote; then you unfold the paper and read the whole thing. As a party game, it's meant to produce something bonkers and nonsensical. It's not "Mad Libs", that's a different game, although I think "Mad Libs" could also be used as a metaphor to describe how some of our systems were assembled.
I have no idea. I don't even remember the name of the company I worked for, so I can't look them up.
Well, I can tell you what I did: I worked for a company that aggregated applications for nursing schools/programs and physician assistant's schools/programs. Basically, the customers could fill out a single application, and then this company would send the information from the one application to dozens or scores (hundreds? thousands?) of school and programs on the applicant's behalf. From the customer's perspective, it meant "fill out one application and apply to basically every nursing program in the entire country, all at once." Seems pretty useful. The data entry was in entering the information provided by the applicant into the system. A better UI, accessible on the Web, would cut out some of that. You'd have to get everyone in the US good access to the Web first. A better UI with a robust 'AI' behind it would cut out even more, since a lot of the data-entry role was correcting user errors - typos, information in the wrong field, stuff like that.
Alternately, the 2,600 schools in the United States that have nursing degree programs could all decide to use the same application, but barring sudden unanimity, you'd have to issue some kind of mandate. I've never worked in college admissions, so I don't know how much of their systems are mandated and how much is up to them, to suit their particular goals and needs. Now that I'm thinking about it, it would probably be easier to write a program that would do everything than to get the admissions offices of 2600 schools to all agree to do it the same way. I mean, heck, this was years ago, so maybe that particular data-entry job has indeed been replaced by computers.
Narz
keeping it real
Under ideal communism we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars.
Yes, you're exactly right.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Lexicus
Deity
You'll come around to our point of view when the capitalists have stolen away your stake in the status quo.
The idea behind communism is that the productive forces have been unleashed sufficiently that the amount of "socially necessary labor" is tiny compared to the available person-hours in the whole of society/the economy. So the OP's question about incentives is projecting present limitations that spring from insufficiently developed productive forces onto the future society.
Now, the hard truth that many in this thread won't want to accept is that the #grindstate people who want to work 80 hours a week and make millions per year are actually possessed by demons and need to be violently repressed for everyone's benefit, including their own.
soundjata
hole in cheese
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Very interesting picture
I would never call that communism though
Look! Those are kids, youngsters. They are on a mission: destroy "bourgeoisie"
They have just been delivered a license to kill by the great Meow himself.
This is not communism but one of the worse form of tyranny in recent history!
edit: to @Lexicus (why a license to kill does not solve issues?)
... There follows random violence in every direction (Robespierre...) Because... Hey! ...Don't you look like a bourgeois?
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