Incentives under communism?

[aelf]

Yes like wars of religion, honour killings, conquering and imperializing foreign land so as to proclaim glory and pride over one's rivals, enslaving others for sexually exploitative reasons, etc.

They are non-financial motivations nevertheless. If you look at smaller-scale communities, you can also see more positive motivations.

 

[Zardnaar]

I will just say that the real reason socialism can't work is because many people are antisocial, hate people because they think they are mean/crass/disgusting/unsightly to their own eyes and sensibilities (and usually are), and some tend to be introverted.

Socialism heavily relies on a bubbly overenthusiastic type of person, a person who is obsessed with how they are socially perceived and judged by others (hence the "social" to socialism), and is generally extroverted + the "life of the party" kind of charismatic person.

In other words the perfect population of ideal socialists that would actually make socialism work would be the popular kids you knew from high school. Including but not limited to the mean girls (so as to add judgemental peer pressure to enforce part of the socialism psychologically), the jocks (to enforce the socialism through more violent physical means as well as intimidation), and the artsy/poetic/literature types who are nevertheless extremely outwardly bubbly/mushy and often the "teachers pet's" of the humanities department (so as to form the intellectual core and vanguard of the system, also creating systems of expression that create the base socialist culture and peer pressures via their "art" which they somehow command the popular kids into believing is the constant "it" thing in order to impose the socially engineering ways that is socialism)

Socialism might work Communism doesn't. We've never seen an actual socialism state emerge or attempt to build one so it's still theoretical.

 

[Farm Boy]

Human nature exists, just not in the way reactionaries like to invoke it as a political argument. Conservatives have been claiming that their particular society's destructive hierarchy and injustice is timeless and natural for millennia. It's all stupid.

Noticing a pattern that trends across hundreds and hundreds of generations, eh? I think that one is there, too. But your descriptor is too narrow.

 

[Zardnaar]

Noticing a pattern trends across hundreds and hundreds of generations, eh?

The big flaw in any political or economic system is the self aware evolved monkeys with opposable thumbs trying to implement it.

Some form of authoritarianism has been the default since we settled down pretty much.

We've only had universal suffrage for just over 100 years (NZ first in 1893) and that's only in a few places . USA arguably didn't get there until 1960s.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, they're pretty amazing considering that. Often enough.

 

[Joij21]

Socialism might work Communism doesn't. We've never seen an actual socialism state emerge or attempt to build one so it's still theoretical.

I think over time the definitions of these words have twisted and contorted so much, and also leftists haven't just stayed under a rock since the 19th century. They do and still are advancing and changing their various theorems and theories, tweaking them when conditions change or new scientific knowledge arises, but still nevertheless sticking to capitalism = stunted and stagnant system that will eventually be unable to adapt to future external issues as well as issues of it's own creation.

Generally communism means a way of doing, that is everything is done via a communal based system. Socialism by it's very root meaning is a system of which is essentially a socially engineering based civil society which causes people to go about the communal way of doing (that is the communism). So communism at the local level with a socialist civil society on top which enforces and creates it, until eventually the socialist civil society is longer needed once the communism becomes culturally ingrained thus causing the state which is necessary to logistically maintain such a civil society to crumble away.

Except because modern day leftists have advanced their theories they now no longer believe the crumbling away thing is necessarily realistic, and so socialism and communism mean largely the same thing. The distinction of course being that socialism perpetuates and enforces a cultural communism of the people.

 

[Birdjaguar]

There is nothing called "human nature" beyond the need to eat, breathe and procreate (and the latter is also in doubt). Everything else is created within the social sphere.

Biology, genetics, family, local culture and media all play major parts is setting the 8 billion mostly unique personalities we have all around us. What motivates you is likely pretty different from what motivates me. In addition, usually one's motivation changes over time as one's circumstances change.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think over time the definitions of these words have twisted and contorted so much, and also leftists haven't just stayed under a rock since the 19th century. They do and still are advancing and changing their various theorems and theories, tweaking them when conditions change or new scientific knowledge arises, but still nevertheless sticking to capitalism = stunted and stagnant system that will eventually be unable to adapt to future external issues as well as issues of it's own creation.

Generally communism means a way of doing, that is everything is done via a communal based system. Socialism by it's very root meaning is a system of which is essentially a socially engineering based civil society which causes people to go about the communal way of doing (that is the communism). So communism at the local level with a socialist civil society on top which enforces and creates it, until eventually the socialist civil society is longer needed once the communism becomes culturally ingrained thus causing the state which is necessary to logistically maintain such a civil society to crumble away.

Except because modern day leftists have advanced their theories they now no longer believe the crumbling away thing is necessarily realistic, and so socialism and communism mean largely the same thing. The distinction of course being that socialism perpetuates and enforces a cultural communism of the people.

The differences as I understand it are communusm is revolutionary in nature, socialism is more natural in progression.

Social Democratic is still capitalism reigned in by laws and regulations.

A village used to have communal land for example for grazing animals.

In USA terms they could transition to Social democracy and if they ever got to a point where 75% of the states wanted socialism they could rewrite the constitution for example. They may allow the states who don't want it to stick with whatever or leave but may not idk. Either way super majority required.

Communism would overthrow the government and impose communism and wouldn't tolerate small scale capitalism or allow exceptions.

As I understand it anyway. Communism as attempted skipped the socialist stage.

1970s NZ possibly Nordics woukd be the closest thingbto it and NZ at least was more extreme end of Social Democratic (lots of regulations, government owned state utilities etc). It was very hard to import stuff or start your own business lots of red tape required very few permits granted etc.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Biology, genetics, family, local culture and media all play major parts is setting the 8 billion mostly unique personalities we have all around us. What motivates you is likely pretty different from what motivates me. In addition, usually one's motivation changes over time as one's circumstances change.

Biology doesn't play as great a role as one would think; society filters the way its effects are dealt with, so as to say -- for an example, disability and being a transgender person work out in radically different ways from place to place. Apart from the imperative needs - which, still, pose the question of how exactly they're satisfied - I'd say that biology isn't the end word. Neither is genetics, and considering the past century's quite reckless use of genetic research to excuse some rather grisly acts and policies, I'm fairly reticent on that regard. However, the point, really, that I am trying to make is there's no unique "shard" of Human Nature that makes us evil bastards who secretly want to stab you with a knife to steal ten dollars because That's Just How We Are. This is the rather anti-human view that most anticommunists appear to (sub)consciously believe in.

If you can't procreate you go extinct, plain and simple. Immortality is not realistic at this juncture in time, and even if it were, accidental death will inevitably befall you statistically speaking. Invincibility may well be beyond possibility per the laws of thermodynamics.

Gay people seem to be doing pretty fine, I would know, I'm one, and I've got many friends who are.

 

[Farm Boy]

Most people learn to kill in similar enough ways that there are practiced ways to teaching it. The ones that learn in other ways form trends that can often be classified.

 

[Senethro]

People here shifting between "Capitalism is Good", "Capitalism is Good Enough" and "Capitalism is Inevitable" without quite acknowledging these are not identical.

 

[Zardnaar]

People here shifting between "Capitalism is Good", "Capitalism is Good Enough" and "Capitalism is Inevitable" without quite acknowledging these are not identical.

For me capitalism is flawed. Worst economic system except for all the others we've tried. I just d8nt see how murderers people and stealing stuff is the solution.

 

[Crezth]

Sometimes, you really have to appreciate how much of a sense of agrarian idyll has settled down on the minds of Anglo homesteaders who don't really seem to get that for most of history, nobody gave a damn what a farmer thought about anything and, generally, people who need to eat have just forced the farmers to do the farming. Far from working terribly, it fed most of humanity for most of history.

If anything the track record shows that communists have had such trouble with it precisely because they want to change the abusive and exploitative character of the whole thing. Sure, you get some losers, with the kulaks having their grain requisitioned - but you can't not do that when you have people to feed. No society in history, certainly not any capitalist one, has ever really tolerated a status quo where food couldn't get to its people. The problem communists have is that they promise everyone will eat, not just the valuable citizens.

Now with commercialized agriculture there are essentially two problems. Number one is that it's not actually designed to feed the world, it's just designed to feed the markets with the most eating. This creates so much waste that it can't possibly be efficient. So we already know that there's food that could be getting into people's faces that isn't and the only reason for it is the commercialization of food production. Number two is that it can only be profitable if you own your own land and don't pay taxes, get loads of "subsidies" from the government which is essentially just them admitting there's no capitalistic basis for food to be produced but the guys who already own the land are still allowed to keep their inefficient enterprises going (which actually just makes them more inefficient in the long run as new opportunities for profit-shaving are always pursued), or if you have a bunch of workers that you pay frickin' nothing. None of these is sustainable and so they will not, cannot, be sustained.

In fact currently this problem has created a major contradiction within capitalistic agriculture whereby workers are pressured to seek illegal employment in order to get around the fact that the illegal labor market is undercutting the legal one. Far from agriculture being the domain of homestead yeomen farmers, it's the domain of landlords and profiteers. It's essentially always been violent, and it's still violent, and the socialists aren't going to make it less violent by singing kumbaya and begging for an industry that is essentially also ruled by greedy profiteers to "just share." It will be force and in the long run it will be for good.

And finally a note on the other problems with adapting agriculture to serve the needs of the people: most agriculture the planet over, including in Russia, and yes even in China, but especially in India, Africa, and South America, has been so ruled and warped by commercialization that these agricultural industries are practically worthless for producing food but very good at producing money. Many of these broken industries were then inherited by revolutionaries who then worked to bring them to equality. This is not even just a problem with communism but with many nations at various stages of decolonization or decommercialization. This is because almost all nations that went through these processes did have to revise their agricultural systems to feed their people. But it is a constant struggle and the problem they are struggling with is not the impracticality of social collaboration, but the rapacious greed of the capitalists who think their right to buy a banana trumps everything else.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Biology doesn't play as great a role as one would think; society filters the way its effects are dealt with, so as to say -- for an example, disability and being a transgender person work out in radically different ways from place to place. Apart from the imperative needs - which, still, pose the question of how exactly they're satisfied - I'd say that biology isn't the end word. Neither is genetics, and considering the past century's quite reckless use of genetic research to excuse some rather grisly acts and policies, I'm fairly reticent on that regard. However, the point, really, that I am trying to make is there's no unique "shard" of Human Nature that makes us evil bastards who secretly want to stab you with a knife to steal ten dollars because That's Just How We Are. This is the rather anti-human view that most anticommunists appear to (sub)consciously believe in.

The nature of the ego and how it shapes and drives human activity is important. Individual egos are themselves shaped by biology, genetics, family etc. It doesn't take many more selfish, more greedy, more warped, more cruel, egos to "infect" the world around them. If 80% of us are mostly OK, the other 20% can still create great harm.

 

[Farm Boy]

Efficient farming doesn't hit productivity requirements when the weather goes south, or a blight hits. The poor in a hemisphere are obese, usually, instead of half staving... an absolutely phenomenal increase in quality of life between two non idyllic choices, but progress very much nonetheless.

 

[Lexicus]

Noticing a pattern that trends across hundreds and hundreds of generations, eh? I think that one is there, too. But your descriptor is too narrow.

Order of magnitude problem. 200 generations x 50 years = 10,000 years, about how long we've been sedentary (farming isn't quite that old IIRC) but a mere 5% of our tenure on the planet.

 

[Zardnaar]

Efficient farming doesn't hit productivity requirements when the weather goes south, or a blight hits. The poor in a hemisphere are obese, usually, instead of half staving... an absolutely phenomenal increase in quality of life between two non idyllic choices, but progress very much nonetheless.

Poor here used t get apples and milk at school and got sent to health camps if obese.

 

[Farm Boy]

So you can't notice patterns over the course of 10,000?

 

[Joij21]

As I understand it anyway. Communism as attempted skipped the socialist stage.

That's anarchism. There's revolutionary forms of socialism like the bolshevists who believed in imposing a socialist order first through violent means. But there's also democratic socialists who believe in arriving at socialism via a series of reforms and democratic processes like you mentioned.

Anarchists and democratic socialists are populist, with anarchists being pro-violence populists, and democratic socialists being "let all just get along" and "use more civilized methods" populists.

Revolutionary socialists on the other hand are elitists, believing in a sort of exclusive academic vanguard of really smart people who will coordinate the revolution in a Machiavellian way whether the masses want it or not. They don't wait for popular approval, because they believe you have to mobilize and launch the revolution more quickly and strike "at the right time" when the system is most vulnerable to be more easily overthrown. And since the opinion of the masses often does not line up "at the right times", they shun populism and view it as a task to be tried only after they have seized consolidated power and the state apparatus, then use the apparatus to socially pressure the masses through coercive means until the masses have no choice but to welcome the vanguard with open arms.

 

[Zardnaar]

Order of magnitude problem. 200 generations x 50 years = 10,000 years, about how long we've been sedentary (farming isn't quite that old IIRC) but a mere 5% of our tenure on the planet.

Hunter gatherings nit viable anymore though so moot point.

Once we settled down we're kinda stuck with it.