Incentives under communism?

[amadeus]

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.

At the risk of turning the thread away from its ostensible focal point of incentive under a ideal conditions—which I think I have answered sufficiently—I infer from current conditions that this simply isn’t the case; the individual small business owner who has their own means of production, I don’t think they work any less than someone in the employ of another. Granted, they are operating in an economy where not everyone else has this privilege, so I suppose there needs to be some discounting for that, but I still don’t see the present capacity of output to be sufficient for all of us to work significantly reduced hours without negatively impacting the total productivity.

 

[REDY]

the individual small business owner who has their own means of production, I don’t think they work any less than someone in the employ of another

I think this is actually a communist solution. You will be never effective when you do not own means of productions. In communist ideal society you own (or to be more precise, share) means of productions. The similiar principle works in some capitalist corporations, like distributing companys shares, the problem is that distribution is not equal or fair according communist principles and even if it is, its not applied generally.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I think this is actually a communist solution. You will be never effective when you do not own means of productions. In communist ideal society you own (or to be more precise, share) means of productions. The similiar principle works in some capitalist corporations, like distributing companys shares, the problem is that distribution is not equal or fair according communist principles and even if it is, its not applied generally.

Ownership isn't equal or fair in small businesses either. The startup funds burden usually falls on the limited ownership as does the risk. The longer term goal is usually to grow the company large enough to sell it for enough to retire or to start up a new business. In many cases though the end result is failure (and lost capital) or a more breakeven scenario that fails to meet the owners goals.

 

[NinjaCow64]

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.

Its a complicated question without a simple answer and outside of the scope of this thread. I just wanted to remind people that these things can be changed.

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 know the game you are talking about (although the name eludes me too) and I mostly agree. The economy does run on a capitalist logic at the end of the day.

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.

That does sound socially useful but I imagine many other data entry jobs are not.

 

[NinjaCow64]

More like this I'd think:

View attachment 672087

Is this supposed to be an “epic own”? Should I post a picture of the Indonesia military during the U.S backed massacre that killed everyone even remotely associated with the Indonesia Communist Party (including their families, infants and the elderly) marching about and saying “this is what we’d be like under capitalism”?

 

[Lexicus]

as does the risk

This is just simply not true, business owners in limited liability corporations risk little more than the workers do. The business owner risks failure of the business, very often the employee's risk of losing their job is a much more existential threat to the worker than the business failing is to the business owner.

 

[Hygro]

It is so much harder creating something viable than slotting into a process someone else made for you.

I am out of work right now. I am quite technically the CTO of some dudes socially valuable, potentially incredibly lucrative firm. To make exist I have to *be* something incredibly uncomfortable, fire in my brain. Chronic finals week level stress even with smaller hours.

So when my unemployment ran out, I switched to another grind, which is getting re-employed by a firm that has infrastructure in place. Money in reserve. My top choice, of which I am in interview limbo between interviews 2 and 3 is for a job I will basically have to make up, but at least I will have a structure around me.

That’s also quite difficult, you have to take technical assessments that poop all over what you thought was hard in school, pass multiple interview rounds, and keep faith against constant rejection. Since I am out of money and out of unemployment, I will be resuming driving for Lyft which is of course it’s own exhausting grind and pays less than ever.

But juggling that is still easier than being half an entrepreneur, the CTO who is leaving the real stamina and effort to the CEO.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not saying it's not harder to start a business or whatever, I'm saying that the idea that people who start businesses are somehow assuming more risk than those who don't is pretty wrong.

 

[Lexicus]

I still don’t see the present capacity of output to be sufficient for all of us to work significantly reduced hours without negatively impacting the total productivity.

This I can't speak to, because I don't know for real, but I suspect that right now we have a level of technical knowledge that would enable this to happen in a strictly perfect world in which we could organize the economy from a blank slate to satisfy human need instead of for profit. We unfortunately do not live in that world and we currently have a lot of people doing socially harmful jobs like police, soldiers, private equity firms, management consultants, and so on. When I say socially harmful I don't mean it in the liberal individualizing "all cops are bastards" sense but in the sense that those jobs are either predatory or simply would not be needed in a democratically organized global economy (ie communism).

 

[Birdjaguar]

This is just simply not true, business owners in limited liability corporations risk little more than the workers do. The business owner risks failure of the business, very often the employee's risk of losing their job is a much more existential threat to the worker than the business failing is to the business owner.

How many LLCs have you actually owned? I have owned or partly owned 4 that sold products or services to both business customers and retail customers. In one of those I was a passive owner. In every case I put my capital at risk. An LLC can protect one's personal assets (house, bank accounts, investments etc.) but they do not protect you from losses of any money invested in the venture itself or from business losses or debts. One of them I financed on a company CC. Small business ownership is a huge risk. The last company I owned, I sold, but I paid all my employees regularly even during the many months when there was no money to pay anything at all. Startups are cash flow dependent and unless you have many thousands of of investment dollars, it is a tough road. Very few small business startups have any capital beyond owners personal investments and bank loans.

 

[Lexicus]

How many LLCs have you actually owned?

Have you ever been in a position where not getting a paycheck or two would result in you living in the street?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm not saying it's not harder to start a business or whatever, I'm saying that the idea that people who start businesses are somehow assuming more risk than those who don't is pretty wrong.

Workers are at risk of losing their job and having to find another which is situationally easier or harder depending upon their personal skills and experience. A small business owner can be out anywhere from a low 5 figures to 6 figures+ in cash, debts for unpaid rent commitments. In addition, the owner may well be stuck both inventory and equipment that is now of much lessor value. If you have never actually run a business that has at least 6 employees and sells products or services (not consulting), you will never understand what it is all about.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Have you ever been in a position where not getting a paycheck or two would result in you living in the street?

Nope, my wife and I have always had one of us working sufficiently to make ends meet. We have been poor making minimum wage but we learned how to live cheaply when we had to.

EDIT: Homelessness was mostly not an issue until the Reagan years and even then it was a much more limited problem. It didn't really take on its current scope until well after my wife and I were well established.

 

[NinjaCow64]

EDIT: Homelessness was mostly not an issue until the Reagan years and even then it was a much more limited problem. It didn't really take on its current scope until well after my wife and I were well established.

This is just factually wrong, Reagan didn't invent homelessness in a lab there were homeless people under Carter and even beforehand.

 

[Narz]

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.

Sounds great in theory and that it should crush capitalism in terms of efficiency.

So the OP's question about incentives is projecting present limitations that spring from insufficiently developed productive forces onto the future society.

I don't understand what you're saying.

No incentives will be needed whatsoever to do ones best work because the environment will be so perfect?

 

[Narz]

I'm not saying it's not harder to start a business or whatever, I'm saying that the idea that people who start businesses are somehow assuming more risk than those who don't is pretty wrong.

Lol clearly you've only ever worked for other people

 

[Akka]

This is just simply not true, business owners in limited liability corporations risk little more than the workers do. The business owner risks failure of the business, very often the employee's risk of losing their job is a much more existential threat to the worker than the business failing is to the business owner.

Okay, I might miss something, but how exactly does a business owner who loses his business is any less at a risk than an employee losing his job ? Does being a business owner magically creates a permanent money revenue that sustain you once your business falls ?

 

[Gorbles]

Lol clearly you've only ever worked for other people

Feels like this is going after the poster and not their argument?

Okay, I might miss something, but how exactly does a business owner who loses his business is any less at a risk than an employee losing his job ? Does being a business owner magically creates a permanent money revenue that sustain you once your business falls ?

Like lexi already said, the difference between a worker losing their job, and the business owner failing in their venture, is that the owner's material circumstances are safer. It's not a risk in that they'll end up on the streets, compared to all the workers that they lay off when folding the business.

Or rather, their risk is (far) lesser, and the worker's risk is greater.

As an anecdote, my first boss liked creating startups. He worked in databases for years, and then went into consultancy. When he created the startup that hired me, if it hadn't worked out, he still would've been fine. If if hadn't have worked out, I'd be out with no job and limited/ no experience. The risk for me was greater, because of the two of us, I was the only one at risk of homelessness (via no money for rent).

It worked out, for the record. He sold it, cashed in, and made another startup. The cycle continues for him. After we were sold, our owning company was bought. The new company laid off 90% of our team. I got lucky. Most didn't.

Workers are inherently at more risk under capitalism than any business owner in the same system.

 

[amadeus]

This is just simply not true, business owners in limited liability corporations risk little more than the workers do. The business owner risks failure of the business, very often the employee's risk of losing their job is a much more existential threat to the worker than the business failing is to the business owner.

I think we are defining risk in a way that is too broad here. The life-risks if we can call them that to the worker and the owner can be the same in that they could lose their livelihoods, but the kind of risk I’m thinking of is more the textbook-type, whereby somebody could put money into a business and receive less than the initial investment. This kind of risk does not apply to workers because they don’t pay to be there, the tradeoff being the surplus in Marxian terms is captured by the investor.

I don't understand what you're saying.

No incentives will be needed whatsoever to do ones best work because the environment will be so perfect?

If I may, the question is difficult to answer if you are imposing inapplicable conditions; questions such as “how would you pay more to somebody [in a moneyless society?]”

You asked a hypothetical question and I think it’s been answered, but I’ll restate my position: if you have your needs and wants met, I will add under any system, I think there is still the human impulse to provide something of value.

If you are asking what the incentives would be under a socialist system, that is a different question and I‘d say my answer would be much different depending on how you are defining socialism.

We unfortunately do not live in that world and we currently have a lot of people doing socially harmful jobs like police, soldiers, private equity firms, management consultants, and so on.

I snipped some of your post here just for readability. If you believe we do have this technical capacity*, why do you think the capitalists of today not applying it themselves? I would think that if it were possible, it would already be in progress.

*let me know if I’m misreading your concept of technical capacity.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Honestly it all boils down to very, very simple things that have been blown into too much complication over a century of overanalysis, philosophizing and propaganda.

In traditional societies you have the following social classes, top to bottom:

1. The ruling class. They do what ever the hell they want unless they really go so far that everyone else gets fed up and chops their head off.
   
   
2. The owner class.This class owns all the land, businesses and other means of producing wealth. And rather than contributing any value to the economy they simply use their right of ownership to syphon value off the things they own. In other words they get all the profit without any of the work. Examples include capitalists, land holding nobles and such.
   
   
3. The middle / professional class. A subsection of the working class that has skills, talents or qualifications which are difficult to get such as unique trades, schooling or certification. This makes them difficult to find and replace and thus gives them more bargaining power and thus better compensation. But they still have to work way more than they are paid. Examples include engineers, doctors etc. but also managers.
   
   
4. The working class. Low or unskilled laborers who do the hardest work and carry the actual economy on their backs. Because they lack any special unique skills to make them irreplaceable they are completely powerless and can thus be easily exploited by the owning class. After all, if a janitor dies from exhaustion you just have his replacement sweep up the body. Plenty more people who can hold a broom where they came from.
   
   
5. The unemployed, undesirable etc.

The key thing to take from this lineup is that the sheer fact that class #2 exists means that those working to actually create values, that being classes #3 and #4 are putting more into the system in terms of labor and time than they are getting out. And that the lower you are on the list the less power you have and thus the worse that ratio of labor to reward is for you.

Theoretical communism basically says "Lets make everyone #2. And than all will be equal and the world will be perfect." That is just silly, won't work, can't work and has newer even been seriously tried. And yes, the OP is right that in such a system there would be absolutely no incentive to try hard.

Practical communism, as people have tried to do in real life thus converts this to simply: "Let's eliminate #2 and split the profit between #3 and #4." This leads to #3 and #4 having more overall and thus being happier. And #1 still gets to keep their share and run things. So the incentives there is that you still have the whole economic system that you always had. And everything works just the same as it always did. You just in theory have a better work to reward ratio.

And that's all there is to it. It's not about risks and freedoms and what ever. It's just a simple question of why do I get paid so little if I work so much?