Communism is wrong because

People don't have enough incentive to work.

By the way there are two Capitalism threads too.

Edit: If I can I invite everyone to write in all 4 threads.

robocop (actually) said:

People don't have enough incentive to work.

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Actually, I think that largely covers it!

If you only have to contribute what you're capable of, and you can only get what you need, why contribute more? And since humans can be wonderfully creative and wonderfully resourceful, what's so very wrong with rewarding that creativity and resourcefulness? On the other hand, there are humans that are far less creative and resourceful. What, in the end, would be so very wrong with lending them a helping hand, too?

As you can see, I'm what would be called a "liberal." A particularly hated species in the US these days, as I understand it.

Evangelicalhumanist said:

Actually, I think that largely covers it!

If you only have to contribute what you're capable of, and you can only get what you need, why contribute more? And since humans can be wonderfully creative and wonderfully resourceful, what's so very wrong with rewarding that creativity and resourcefulness? On the other hand, there are humans that are far less creative and resourceful. What, in the end, would be so very wrong with lending them a helping hand, too?

As you can see, I'm what would be called a "liberal." A particularly hated species in the US these days, as I understand it.

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Just a note: This thread is in the Communist Only Forum. Please respect the rules and ask only respectful questions in this forum unless you are a communist.

Hated? No I loved your answer, and you also agreed with the other Communism thread (there are two capitalist ones too).

Sunstone, anyone can post in this thread if I am allowed to make that decision.

Just let me know if I can announce that in all 4 threads. As you can see there is a pro and anti thread in both systems... free talk is perfectly welcome.

Sunstone said:

Just a note: This thread is in the Communist Only Forum. Please respect the rules and ask only respectful questions in this forum unless you are a communist.

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Apologies, didn't notice --- bowing out.

robocop (actually) said:

Sunstone, anyone can post in this thread if I am allowed to make that decision.

Just let me know if I can announce that in all 4 threads. As you can see there is a pro and anti thread in both systems... free talk is perfectly welcome.

Click to expand...

If you want anyone to be able to post, it would be best to move these threads to the politics forum. Would you like me to do that?

Yes please move all 4 to the political forum!

robocop (actually) said:

Yes please move all 4 to the political forum!

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Will do.

I just thought people who were, say Communist, could discuss what parts of it they liked and didn't like. If I just wanted why they agree with it, it wouldn't have been as much of a discussion to me.

Evangelicalhumanist said:

Apologies, didn't notice --- bowing out.

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No problem. The thread has been moved to political debates. Anyone can post whatever they want in it now (within the rules).

Sunstone said:

No problem. The thread has been moved to political debates. Anyone can post whatever they want in it now (within the rules).

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Thank you kindly.

When I was young (a very long time ago, indeed), my very simplistic understanding of Communism could be boiled down to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." No doubt there's much more complexity, and I should have spent more time studying -- but my real point was that Communism seems (to me) to ignore the tremendous need -- and the tremendous response -- that we humans are capable of when presented with incentive. Communism doesn't seem to provide any reason for, or reward for, the incentive that tends to be one of our great human strengths.

@Evangelicalhumanist I think looking at the issue as one of incentive is a bit simplistic. At the very least, there seem to be two kinds of incentive that could be discussed here. There is, for instance, the internal incentive that someone might have to fulfill through their occupation some felt need of theirs. Think in this case of a musician who feels a need to compose and play music. Then there is the use of incentives to compel people to work at jobs that they might not enjoy but which are necessary to their survival. I find that capitalism excels at providing incentives for people to work at jobs they dislike, but which are necessary for their survival. It also seems, on the whole, to reward some people who doing what they want to do, but I would submit their number is dwarfed by the people who are doing what they'd prefer not to do.

Stephen Gould once said that what interested him more than how Einstein became a great physicist were the countless "Einsteins" who lived and died working in the cotton fields, the factories, and the coal mines, unrecognized for what they were. Capitalism has proven to be an imperfect system for maximizing human talent. But, in all fairness, I'm not sure if any other system is much better than it.

"Communism" is such an umbrella term. I don't see the dictatorship of the proletariat, called for in Marxism, as a viable strategy for bringing about a communist society.

Communism isn't about only giving everyone what they need, its about everyone benefiting from their collective effort - there can still be inventiveness and creativeness and it can still be rewarded, but the rewards are shared. The problem with communism is not the idea, its that humans are, by and large, not very good at it - sharing stuff I mean.

Communism is wrong in that it doesn't solve the class divide issue, it just switches the focus of how class hierarchy is structured.

robocop (actually) said:

People don't have enough incentive to work.

By the way there are two Capitalism threads too.

Edit: If I can I invite everyone to write in all 4 threads.

Click to expand...

Evangelicalhumanist said:

Thank you kindly.

When I was young (a very long time ago, indeed), my very simplistic understanding of Communism could be boiled down to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." No doubt there's much more complexity, and I should have spent more time studying -- but my real point was that Communism seems (to me) to ignore the tremendous need -- and the tremendous response -- that we humans are capable of when presented with incentive. Communism doesn't seem to provide any reason for, or reward for, the incentive that tends to be one of our great human strengths.

Click to expand...

Sunstone said:

@Evangelicalhumanist I think looking at the issue as one of incentive is a bit simplistic. At the very least, there seem to be two kinds of incentive that could be discussed here. There is, for instance, the internal incentive that someone might have to fulfill through their occupation some felt need of theirs. Think in this case of a musician who feels a need to compose and play music. Then there is the use of incentives to compel people to work at jobs that they might not enjoy but which are necessary to their survival. I find that capitalism excels at providing incentives for people to work at jobs they dislike, but which are necessary for their survival. It also seems, on the whole, to reward some people who doing what they want to do, but I would submit their number is dwarfed by the people who are doing what they'd prefer not to do.

Stephen Gould once said that what interested him more than how Einstein became a great physicist were the countless "Einsteins" who lived and died working in the cotton fields, the factories, and the coal mines, unrecognized for what they were. Capitalism has proven to be an imperfect system for maximizing human talent. But, in all fairness, I'm not sure if any other system is much better than it.

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The "communism has no economic incentives" argument is a Myth: income inequality was greater in the USSR than in the USA in the 1930's. As of 1931, Stalin gave a speech attacking the tendency towards "wage-levelling" or ("equality of outcome" as we know it in the west) as utopian. He argued that materialism meant material/economic incentives should continue to play a role but that moral incentives would eventually take precedence under "full communism". So even Stalin was saying selfishness can be useful to communism and the stalin period was responsible for developing a consumer culture as the right to "personal property" was written into the 1936 soviet constitution.

Ayn Stalin: Soviet Inequalities In 1929-1954

Its worth keeping in mind that Marxism was a theory from political economy and was therefore very loyal to the classical (capitalist) economists including adam smith, david ricardo, among others. This was particuarly true regarding the labour theory of value which fell out of use in economics the late 19th century due to the political controversy of making a moral cases for workers as producers to own their products and the means of production and because the labour theory of value wasn't easily turned into a mathamatical forumla as economics tried to present itself as a science rivalling physics in terms of prestiege.

Marxism is therefore the most loyal economic school of thinking around today to classical economics from the beginnings of capitalism. Any failing of Marxist economic theory is also a failing of capitalist economic theory given the degree of overlap. They aren't mutually exclusive. Modern capitalist economics has virtually nothing to do with classical economics beyond maybe the first few pages of the economic textbook. So Marxists are better at capitalism than capitalists are!

Next question.

It has never worked, so what do you expect ?.

As for the myth that Communism gives no incentive, I disagree. Capitalism gives a selfish incentive; Communism is saying you work for the benefit of the entire community. That should be incentive enough to a decent person who wants to look after his fellow people. It's this selfish Capitalist incentive that has ruined millions of lives by prioritising profit over people.

Rival said:

siti said:

Communism isn't about only giving everyone what they need, its about everyone benefiting from their collective effort - there can still be inventiveness and creativeness and it can still be rewarded, but the rewards are shared. The problem with communism is not the idea, its that humans are, by and large, not very good at it - sharing stuff I mean.

Click to expand...

As for the myth that Communism gives no incentive, I disagree. Capitalism gives a selfish incentive; Communism is saying you work for the benefit of the entire community. That should be incentive enough to a decent person who wants to look after his fellow people. It's this selfish Capitalist incentive that has ruined millions of lives by prioritising profit over people.

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I think I have to agree with siti, actually. It would be nice to think that we are all "decent" folk who would look after one another, but unfortunately, I don't think the reality quite works that way.

Granted, we are what should be termed a "social animal," but unlike other social species, we are capable of quite a bit of very independent, and often very unsocial, thoughts and actions. I think that's what at the heart of Prof. Jacob Needleman's very good book, Why Can't We Be Good?