Incentives under communism?

[Gorbles]

It's not like you actually are interested in discussion when the question is TWICE "why would a business owner have more money ?" and you answer TWICE "because he has more money". As every single time, apply your own advice to yourself before delving in lesson-giving.

Because you literally need money to make a business. Loans (as Edward mentioned) are guaranteed, so you need collateral.

The existence of this collateral, generally, is wealth workers increasingly do not have.

As lexi and I have already said, exceptions exist. Nobody's denying that there aren't (exceptions). If you were actually reading the posts properly instead of looking for opportunities to lecture about "lesson-giving", we'd be in a more constructive place. Sadly, that isn't what you chose to do.

 

[Lexicus]

Yes, obviously, because it takes investment capital to start a business. If a person does not have enough capital to launch a business, it usually will fail. I spent 8 years teaching an evening course for the SBDC (2006-2014) on writing business plans and launching a new business. The "students" were almost entirely 30-55 year olds who wanted to be independent of bosses, had lost their most recent job or who had a new approach for an old idea. It was mostly a course in how to think about their individual idea and what they needed to understand about business before taking on such a venture. These folks were not rich with buckets of assets to spare. It was one of the most interesting things I have ever done.

Just want to point out that the central proposition here is essentially that greater and more equitable access to capital will lead to more production and more wealth because almost everyone has ideas and value propositions that they can't realize because they don't have access to capital. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that communism requires and entails the unleashing of vast productive forces compared to what is currently the case. Under capitalism the supply of capital is artifically restricted because that is what benefits the capitalists and allows them to extract monopoly rents from the system.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Just want to point out that the central proposition here is essentially that greater and more equitable access to capital will lead to more production and more wealth because almost everyone has ideas and value propositions that they can't realize because they don't have access to capital. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that communism requires and entails the unleashing of vast productive forces compared to what is currently the case. Under capitalism the supply of capital is artifically restricted because that is what benefits the capitalists and allows them to extract monopoly rents from the system.

As an side, I would like to point out that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Things are far worse than that.

Your statement is true assuming that the capitalist are rational actors which they might not be. After all was it rational for a billionaire to try and stage a coup to become the king of america?

But that's the sort of behavior you see from the owning class throughout history. Once people get so much capital that they become ultra rich there is simply nothing else for them to do than chase whims. No matter how crazy those whims are.

And so we aren't just talking about something as comparatively harmless as hamstringing our economies. We are talking about a situation where a small elite concentrates all the wealth and therefore power in their own hands creating a class of nobility to rival the ruling class and crush the rest.

Food for thought.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Just want to point out that the central proposition here is essentially that greater and more equitable access to capital will lead to more production and more wealth because almost everyone has ideas and value propositions that they can't realize because they don't have access to capital. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that communism requires and entails the unleashing of vast productive forces compared to what is currently the case. Under capitalism the supply of capital is artifically restricted because that is what benefits the capitalists and allows them to extract monopoly rents from the system.

I agree with the bolded part but not with the red part. Human nature prevents any significant equality envisioned under communism.

 

[Narz]

Just want to point out that the central proposition here is essentially that greater and more equitable access to capital will lead to more production and more wealth because almost everyone has ideas and value propositions that they can't realize because they don't have access to capital.

I agree that it's not fair that not everyone has capital and therefore not equal access to try their hand at starting a business.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that communism requires and entails the unleashing of vast productive forces compared to what is currently the case.

But here's the leap of faith.

You're assuming all of a sudden every Tom, Dick and Harry will be able to start a business under communism even tho with collectivism and government control there will be room for fewer businesses.

 

[Gorbles]

You're assuming all of a sudden every Tom, Dick and Harry will be able to start a business

No he's not. He's simply assuming there will be more than can currently. The point is the option, not the follow-through.

More opportunities logically leads to more outcomes.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I agree that it's not fair that not everyone has capital and therefore not equal access to try their hand at starting a business.

But capital is just the foundation of a new business. the wherewithal to actually run/grow a new business is lacking in most people.

 

[Hygro]

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.

But what is risk, right?

So @Gorbles has a good example where the boss was situationally ready to recover and he wasn’t, we all agree the risk of being out of work is pretty important! And someone with a true and well adjusted entrepreneur’s temperament is going to recover faster (although, caveat, bipolar aka “the entrepreneurs disease” has a high mortality rate, and failure is cycle triggering).

@Birdjaguar stated it clearly however, really depends on the worker as well, some can just collect unemployment and get a new job. Others are boned.

@amadeus says ok but just financial risk, a worker who sucks and costs the firm isn’t going to lose their existing retirement whereas the owner might be mortgaging their house to keep the worker employed, so we’re just talking about rewarding those who consent to deals with uncertainty get the big payoff if there is one.


So yeah different risks.

But I want to talk about another which is the risk of burnout, shame, etc. If you get a job and get laid off, your family goes from relieved to understanding sympathetically. You aren’t rocking boats. You likely didn’t “give it your all” you know, the real all, you kept some balance, you have all your outside of work stuff to show for it and rebound you.

But if you’re starting a business your family, very generally speaking, is going to be nervous, worried you’re self aggrandizing, full of it, wanting you to get a real job and go to grad school, and while they think they want you to succeed, the dark psychology of it is if you fail, they get validation. People are against you. They don’t want to get their hopes up. Any significant other is anxious, your kids are anxious, your parents are anxious, and you are working all in, nothing else, no emotional net to catch you, relationships are by the wayside, until you succeed or fail. And if you fail, you will be exhausted. Your resume will be non traditional so if you need a job, you’re playing from behind.

So it makes sense there’s a reward if you succeed in creating a thing people want that didn’t exist before.

 

[Hygro]

No he's not. He's simply assuming there will be more than can currently. The point is the option, not the follow-through.

More opportunities logically leads to more outcomes.

I skipped a couple pages so I don’t want to “take a side” except to say yes,
We had more startups per capita when income was more equal back in the day than we do today. To add, the trend steadily moved upward until that great 70s-80s system change from which point it steadily moved downward. @Cutlass posted that graph here on cfc a few years back.

We know the egalitarian version of capitalism led to better growth of new companies, with a cap on potential earnings worth high taxes, than todays opposite harsh, winner take all buy the winners are subsided to stay rich approach of the past 40 years.

 

[Akka]

No, again, because the people who start businesses tend to have more of a cushion of wealth to fall back on if the business fails. Key phrase there being "tend to."

Idk why you bother quoting my post when you evidently don't read it. I even said explicitly that this isn't always the case and that workers also sometimes have a cushion of wealth to fall back on, and gave myself as an example of that!

I did read it, but it basically just said that you thought business owner had more money than non-business owners, which... basically was just being back to square one and not actually answering the original question.

Again, I explicitly say this in my post. Anyway, some evidence for my position:

Okay, NOW that's actual stuff giving some solid arguments.
I'm still not sold on claiming that business owner aren't at a comparable risk as they need to invest a lot more to start their business than a salaryman to start a job, though, but that might be alreayd included in the net worth.

 

[Perfection]

You'll come around to our point of view when the capitalists have stolen away your stake in the status quo.

I would appreciate it if you would not make these sorts of comments towards me. This is a personal request.

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.

I generally take "communism" to mean supporting the abolition of most private enterprise in the nearish future. If we're talking post-scarcity scenario, things become different, but it's hard enough for me to understand society at present so I generally limit my political self-label to what we can presently do.

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.

When I look at the outcomes of violent revolutions I tend to not be impressed. You killed the old bastards, now meet the new bastards. I end up suffering more in the process. Fixing the structure of society requires more than just offing the present set of bastards on top.

That said, I do think the threat of violent revolution can at times force a less-democratic system into a more democratic one in which actual progress can be made.

 

[NinjaCow64]

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.

Because socially harmful professions like police, the military, ect are required to grow and maintain wealth. The ultimate goal is to make as much money as humanly possible and they are not above harming others to do it.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Corporate liability shields are one of the fundamental flaws of the design of this country.

"Only the risk I am comfortable with" alongside "too big to fail" and what you are arguing against isn't even capitalism anymore. The deal is broke.

If you say this then you’re not allowed to complain when Communists say “well that isn’t real Communism” when a Communist project fails.

 

[NinjaCow64]

And you constantly reference the ultra wealthy and the dirt poor as consequences of capitalism when they are more consequences of globalism and socialism and loopholes for the very rich.

lmao what? How on Earth did socialism cause that? And you do realise that globalism and loopholes for the very rich are natural consequences of capitalism.

It is hysterical to me how often Capitalism defenders accuse us Communists of going “oh that’s not real Communism” when I hear this sort of rhetoric from Capitalist apologists all the time. When someone points out a major flaw in that system they continuously go “that’s not real Capitalism that’s Badism”.

Capitalist apologists seem more interested in defending a theoretical system of Capitalism than defending the one that actually exists.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Of course I received no reply which furthers my view that those who claim that want communism are generally an unserious bunch like incels who claim they want a girlfriend but haven't showered in two weeks.

Look, mate, I don’t have the answers to how these problems will be worked out because I don’t think I will live to see Communism fully implemented.

I am far more interested in practical solutions to modern problems and Communism is to me the only ideology that attempts to actually solve the problems that actually are facing our planet and our societies, which is far more indicative of an ideology’s seriousness than pointless utopian navel gazing.

What does the moderate left, the centrists or the right even offer nowadays? At best they propose a bandaid on a gushing wound, at worst they propose senseless slaughter.

 

[NinjaCow64]

But I want to talk about another which is the risk of burnout, shame, etc. If you get a job and get laid off, your family goes from relieved to understanding sympathetically. You aren’t rocking boats. You likely didn’t “give it your all” you know, the real all, you kept some balance, you have all your outside of work stuff to show for it and rebound you.

That might be true for your family, its not true for everyone’s. Some people will be very cruel to a relative who got laid off through no fault of their own, use it as validation to their idea that they are worthless. And for those living paycheck to paycheck, getting laid off could mean homelessness or death.

 

[innonimatu]

Communism, in terms of motives (I like that word better than the technocratic "incentives") had two origins.

One is the rationalism of the enlightenment. The same that produced the universal declaration of human rights. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs is a recipe for a rationally satisfied society.
But the other is often overlooked, I thing it came out of the old judaico-christian morality. The motto above is also very christian...
The fact that at one point in one text Marx described religion as "the opium of the people" did not meant he denounced its morality. Only that be thought religion during his time XIX century) in Europe provided something already of that communism aimed to provide, but too little, just enough to anesthetize the will of people to ask for more. Not in heaven but in Earth already. One should look at the original text.

And this was not something new. Adam Smith wrote "a theory of moral sentiments" to go with his other more famous work. And Marx was the last of Smith's line, the last great classical economist.

In fact, after Marx economics had to be reinvented to abandon the labour theory of value, to make up different methods and different explanations of the world and humans, lest the moral part won and the oligarchs of the era lost control. Ever since economics has been the search for a "moral" theory justifying the unjustifiable, the exploitation of man by man. So ingrained is the oligarchic propaganda since that now the morals of the people of the XIX century seem foreign - and people are led to argue about "incentives" instead of "morals"!

 

[Zardnaar]

Look, mate, I don’t have the answers to how these problems will be worked out because I don’t think I will live to see Communism fully implemented.

I am far more interested in practical solutions to modern problems and Communism is to me the only ideology that attempts to actually solve the problems that actually are facing our planet and our societies, which is far more indicative of an ideology’s seriousness than pointless utopian navel gazing.

What does the moderate left, the centrists or the right even offer nowadays? At best they propose a bandaid on a gushing wound, at worst they propose senseless slaughter.

Well one can look at say the 1950s or 60s without the racism.

By advicating for Communism though you're essentially advocating for direct death and destruction to impose it.

Even if you avoid tge excesses of Stalin and Lein you cant have a democracy with it. If you do they can dump Communism.

Downside of social democracy is the democracy part the elites convinced people to dump it.

So that's communists catch 22. You have to convince enough people to voluntarily adopt it and that means they can voluntarily dump it.

And if you impose it by force you need things like secret police, party members become the new elite. Also my using force you've also sanctioned the yse of force to remove it.

Every society after the hunters gatherers has some sort of elite and social strata. How you move between the strata is the big difference.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Well one can look at say the 1950s or 60s without the racism.

What on Earth are you talking about?

Even if you avoid tge excesses of Stalin and Lein you cant have a democracy with it. If you do they can dump Communism.

Actually this happens far more often with Capitalism, e.g what happened when Chile elected Allende and the USA was so offended they sent the CIA to help Pinochet do a coup and establish a capitalist dictatorship.

 

[Zardnaar]

What on Earth are you talking about?


Actually this happens far more often with Capitalism, e.g what happened when Chile elected Allende and the USA was so offended they sent the CIA to help Pinochet do a coup and establish a capitalist dictatorship.

1950s and 60s America was about the best it got for the working classes.

Here tgey had cradle to grave welfare. Free Healthcare, dental care, uni, state paid your house deposit, mums got a payout for having kids. If you had crap patents for feeding you health camps existed. State would send you to one for diet and exercise. Milk and fruit was provided at school.

Rest if your post is just another whataboutism from 50 odd years ago.