Rage against the Machine - Communism Vs. Capitalism (again!)

[Velociryx]

Cos there are only so many hours in a day, Kid. 24 of them, to be precise.

If you spend all day ranting and complaining that you're being exploited, then you're not leaving any time for anything else.

If you're not leaving time for anything else, then what are you doing?

Nothing. (well, 'cept ranting and complaining about being exploited)

-=Vel=-

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Cos there are only so many hours in a day, Kid. 24 of them, to be precise.

If you spend all day ranting and complaining that you're being exploited, then you're not leaving any time for anything else.

If you're not leaving time for anything else, then what are you doing?

Nothing. (well, 'cept ranting and complaining about being exploited)

-=Vel=-

Hey, what I do with my leisure time is my business. Just because I don't have 4 jobs doesn't mean I'm paralyzed in inactivity pal.

[Velociryx]

Yep. That's just exactly right.

What you do with you time (all of your time, actually, unless you "rent it out" to another), is your business.

Just as it should be.

Of course, it wouldn't be if your vision of the revolution comes to pass, so enjoy it while you can.

In the meantime, if you feel that railing against phantoms of exploitation is a good use of your time, and putting you further along the path of accomplishing the goals you have set for yourself, have at it.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna grab a shower, and get back to packing...

-=Vel=-

[The Templar]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Just got back, and it's late, but one quick note:

Interesting you should use logistics and people skills in your example. I should just bring up that two of the greatest strengths of Dwight D. Eisenhower, CINC Allied Forces in Europe in WW2, and future President of the US, were logistics and people skills. That's right, the CINC wasn't a front-line soldier, nor was he a strategist by any means. He was, as you put it, a glorified secretary. Yet, this "glorified secretary" rightfully deserves a lot of the credit for Allied victories in WW2, in my opinion.

Logistics is important. Secretaries are important. If I have to file, mail, and photocopy all of my own stuff, I'll have no time to do my actual work. Division of labor is crucial to our society. My point is merely that the job of logistics people should be to free up the creators, workers, and producers to do their jobs.

CEOs, executives, managers, etc. aren't just the infrastructure though. They decide what is created, what is to be designed, and what will be available to the consumer. Their choices are (ostensibly) based on profitablity. So we have the market, whose sole purpose is to deal with scarcity of resources. Due to scarcity, only so many projects can make use of the limited resources. But what we end up with under our system is profitablity on the market ruling which projects should be supplied with resources. In other words, we've allowed the mechanism for allocating resources to actually dictate how resources are used.

What we should be doing instead is designing our markets to feed the projects that we pursue, not the other way around. Smart people reading this right now are thinking - but doesn't consumer choice in the market already tell us what projects to pursue based on what people want?

That's well and good, but here is the rub - most consumers lack the expertise to know how to pursue second order goals. The second order goals are really what the consumer is seeking to maximise. Consumers want things like transpotation, information, recreation, jobs, education, safety, necessities, etc. However, most consumers lack the expertise to determine the best methods to achieve these goals.

This is why I favor something like a planned economy. The first question we should ask is what is the capacity of the economy. That is, how much labor in various fields is available, what amount of raw materials will be necessary, the limits environmental issues place on the economy, etc. Once we know capacity, we have to determine what values the people want to maximize. This is accomplished both through past market performance and elections. Third, we have to know what methods have to be employed to achieve these goals. We then design the market to accommodate the projects that will best meet these goals. Who determines which projects best meet the goals of the people? The experts in the damn field - that's who! Not some damn CEO looking at the bottom line.

If you're designing a car, tell the engineers the relevant trade-offs people want to make (safety, features, etc.) the environmental impacts, and the resources available for design and production, then let them get to work. But the engineers are the boss - the logistics people are there to make it so not dictate design choices. Engineers best know how to evaluate such projects - not MBAs. (Or better yet, urban planners and engineers will design clean mass transit in efficiently laid out cities...)

Moreover, some resources will have to be dedicated to projects which are of the "pure knowledge" variety. The idea being that some will yield important fruit in the future. Physicists will need to have the resources to run their experiments - and let the physicists themselves decide which projects get priority. They are the ones who know how to evaluate physics projects.

Sure, economists would have a central role to play in determining capacity and distributing resources. But they too have to see themselves as a species of master logistics person. There job is to maximize as many projects as feasible. And they should work with artists, engineers, physicists, etc. to reach consensus on how to distribute resources and with politicians to insure that the spending aligns with what the people want.

[Velociryx]

So...by doing it the "other way" we get a better economy, even IF the economy produces stuff that nobody wants...I mean, hey! The central planning group said that flatulence control pills are for the good of society, so we made six million bottles of them. People should buy them!

Good luck....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Here's what else you get in a centrally planned economy:

Everybody needs shoes, so we'll make lots of shoes.

Our statistics tell us that the average shoe size is....ten (to pull a number out of my arse).

So we'll make lots of shoes, mostly size ten.

But I don't want a ten....I want a fourteen!

A pity for you.....that shoe size fell outsize two standard deviations from our projections....we didn't make any. Wear the smaller and buy some ointment to cure the blisters.

But, I don't want white shoes! I like black!

Look, we made you some damned shoes, now get over yourself and wear them!

Choice.

A planned economy, no matter how complex, can never take into account the full range of human desire.

If "least common denominator" is what you prefer, then planned will (sometimes) get the job done (and in that case, I must assume you are all for the global takeover of american culture, as it is oft accused of that same reduction to the least common denominator).

As for me....I'll take choice, thanks.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
GePap: It (my statement) is not applicable to any "system" capitalist or otherwise. Simply a statement about HUMAN action.

I can spend all day every day looking over first this shoulder, then that, fretting about who has more, and who's "exploiting" me, or, I can figure out what I want, and go after it.

You guys can sit there, paralyzed into inactivity by worry over exploitation (imagined or not) all you want....I'm off to accomplish my goals, fulfill my dreams, and make my desires a reality.

-=Vel=-

And what informs your desires? You want to be rich..why? Why is finatial security a good thing? is it naturally good? No. You live within a system and for the most part your choices are informed by the system itself. Being finatialy well off is considred Good, and you want to be good, so you aim for that. If yu had lived in 1100 ad, would your choices be the same, given the very same person?
This is the porbem Vel: you assume that today, here, now, this system, that they are "normal". They aren't. They are artificial: even neolithic hunters live within systems artificialy created by man, systems that are not permament. For all the praise of capitalism, the act is that significant changes in technology ahead of us will orbably mean the end of the capitalist system, if only because they might overthrow many of the basic assumptions needed to justify a system like capitalism.

[GePap]

You keep talking about choices Vel: OK.

Lets say you want ice cream. You go to a store to buy it. They have chocolate. (they only have chocolate) Choose.

Is the above the example of having no choice? No, you have a choice, chocolate.

As for the "poverty" issue. The logic here astounds me. People say that only 9% of the people are poor, so see how great things are! If I said 5% of the population had syphilis, would the reaction be "Yeah! 95% don't"? We have defined what poverty is, we define it as a bad situaion to be in. If we have the resources to have 0% poverty rates without making evryone poor (which we certainly have), then why not do it? Either we think that being poor is OK, which you are free to argue, or you believe poverty is not OK, but people who are poor are aso not OK, which is another valid arguemnt. But it makes no sense to define poverty as a social ill and then let it be.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Velociryx
So...by doing it the "other way" we get a better economy, even IF the economy produces stuff that nobody wants...I mean, hey! The central planning group said that flatulence control pills are for the good of society, so we made six million bottles of them. People should buy them!

Good luck....

-=Vel=-

The funny thing about what people want is that it is open to heavy manipulation. Our capitalist system produces tons of things nobody wants. Advertisers are then enlisted to use psycholgical means to create a market. Ads link products with sex and status, ads tell us it will make our life better, play on our sense of inferiority, etc.

What's the difference between a central planning group creating a gas-guzzling SUV and a corporation creating the same? No one needs it, moreover no one should have it due to the dangers (to other drivers, to the environment, even to infrastructure - a 6K lbs Hummer will wear out roads faster than a Honda). The corporation then links the SUV to masculinity and safety in a concentrated ad campaign and people buy. (There is a great Salon artice on how the automakers design SUVs with focus groups to make them look as militant and agressive as possible to appeal to that sort of driver).

My point is that preference formation is itself highly very susceptable to manipulation and is not some fixed quantity or even rational. If prefernce formation were rational, all we would see are so-called "Tombstone" ads with nothing but straight information.

Another factor is how our environment is laid out. Why are cars so popular? Probably because we have lots of roads (all the linkage of the automobile to freedom in the US mind would not make a difference if roads were not so good here).

But cars aren't just popular because of preference formation and the availablity of roads - the fact that so many cities sprawl out in unplanned ways (think LA, Houston, Dallas) there really is no way to build a reasonable mass transit system. So we are left with the need for a damn car if you live outside the Northeast.

So what I want is a function of necessity, possibility, and preference formation which is primarily a function of my social environment and you're complaining about the central planning committee greenlighting stuff nobody wants?

Anyway, that's why I say the people must set their own second order values democratically. Let the experts make it so. If the engineers determine the best way to achieve transportation is in small electric cars then take away the gas stations and market the cars as environmentally friendly. The combination of necessity and manipulation of preference formation will create the consumer desirability.

And BTW, I'm sure their would be a huge demand for anti-flatulence pills.

[Kidicious]

Prices should be used to help measure demand for products and services and prevent shortages.

Advertising will not be necessary though

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Velociryx

Choice.

A planned economy, no matter how complex, can never take into account the full range of human desire.

If "least common denominator" is what you prefer, then planned will (sometimes) get the job done (and in that case, I must assume you are all for the global takeover of american culture, as it is oft accused of that same reduction to the least common denominator).

As for me....I'll take choice, thanks.

-=Vel=-

OK, I want an operating system for my computer that supports lots of software, has all the good games, installs easily, and works transparently, but is not made by Microsoft.

So much for free market choice, comrade. I can choose between Windows NT and Windows XP. Linux fails all of the above criteria except not made by Microsoft. The Mac OS installs easily and works transparently but is lacking on the software and games front (and who knows how much Microsoft contributed). Where is my choice?

I want digital music with a high sample rate and that easily copies from stereo, to computer, to iPod like device. iTunes fails on the sample rates. Property control issues create a market failure. Where is my choice?

Any system is going to have its barriers to fully maximizing consumer choice. As for the shoes, the solution is to make too many of each size, but minimize the surplus by using consumption data from the previous fiscal period.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by The Templar
OK, I want an operating system for my computer that supports lots of software, has all the good games, installs easily, and works transparently, but is not made by Microsoft.

Get a Mac.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Prices should be used to help measure demand for products and services and prevent shortages.

Advertising will not be necessary though

Advertising is always necessary in its informational capacity. I need to know what products are available and how well they function.

As for preference formation, do you really think those pop out of thin air? Humans are incredibly social creatures, and inherit preferences from their fellows using "messages" about norms and status.

[GePap]

Not many games for mac. OS, now are there?

On the issue of central planning: the internet gives you a great tool for central planning. In theory, if each household was given a simple computer with internet access, the invidiaul could custom order whatever they wanted, and then it could be custom made, with no surplus whatsoever. The amount of different poducst and porduct types available can be decided elsewhere, but with such a system, no need for any surplus (this in thoery would also do wonders for any business who got the ability to do it as well).

[The Templar]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Get a Mac.

I said it had to run lots of software.
Everyone I know with a mac has problems locating software. Although I do really like macs.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by The Templar
Advertising is always necessary in its informational capacity. I need to know what products are available and how well they function.

Maybe, but not at the levels we have now. Most of the products that are advertized are crap that falls out of use or taste just because consumers find that they don't get the utility they were told they would. And a lot of it is information that is completely useless like Coke commercials. Damn it, I know I can go to the store and get a Coke already!

Originally posted by The Templar
As for preference formation, do you really think those pop out of thin air? Humans are incredibly social creatures, and inherit preferences from their fellows using "messages" about norms and status.

No, but why should we play an active part in creating them.

[Velociryx]

What a thread! I love it.

And to answer both Templar and GePap at the same time.

The answer to the lack of "choice" is (quite obviously, actually) to change the equation.

You want mint chocolate chip ice cream and they don't have it? They "only" have chocolate? GREAT! Here's what you do:

1) bucket
2) ice
3) milk, cream, & sugar
4) rock salt
5) green food coloring
6) chocolate chips
7) Mint flavoring

mix, chill, serve.

What's more, since the store "only" has chocolate, if what you make is good, you can probably start selling it to OTHER folks who want something besides chocolate, either right out of your house, or on the shelf beside the chocolate!

Shocking, I know....innit great?

Same basic premise for the OS. If you want it, and it ain't there, go make it, Comrade.

-=Vel=-

[Kidicious]

I didn't know GePap was a communist. I thought his was just arguing about your logic.

[GePap]

Vel:

:sigh:

You really do get stuck on the measely details while missing the big picture, don't you?

Lets say Vel want's to go into space: according to him, all he has to do is to,well, build his own spacecraft and heck, if other people want to go into space, he'll make money on it too!

My comment address the very notion of "choice" (and don't confuse my argument with templars: we have different notions on choice as his post shows). You ALWAYS have a choice. Think of the oft stated "with a gun to my head". You can always refuse to do what someone who has a gun to your head tells you to do. The thing we leave olut is that choices (any choice) has consequences. The size of the consequence varies with the size of the choice, but there is lways one. If you do somehting becuase someone has a gun to your head is becuase you assume that if you do not do as told, you will be killed or badly injured, so the choice you made was "life and heath vs. pride and other values (depending on what was asked of you)". It was a choice. Maybe not the type of choice you like to make, BUT a CHOICE nonetheless. Notice how the "gun" arument also requires other assumptions, like knowing what a gun is. if you put a gun to the head of someone who never knew what it was or could do, they would not feel any sort of life or death choice upon them, since they don;t know death is a possibility in that moment. As always, what you know (and how you know it) determines what you envision the choice to be in the first place.

[Velociryx]

ain't no problem with my logic, Kid, unless you'd like to argue that the above is physically impossible to do. If so, you wanna come over and have some ice cream? I got a mixer just downstairs, not packed yet!

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I didn't know GePap was a communist. I thought his was just arguing about your logic.

I am argung against his logic. I am not actually a communist sicne I question Marxist though in various places. BUt I am also neither a capitalist, and as I have said, I find it absdr that people confuse man's creations with something natural.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Velociryx
What's more, since the store "only" has chocolate, if what you make is good, you can probably start selling it to OTHER folks who want something besides chocolate, either right out of your house, or on the shelf beside the chocolate!

Shocking, I know....innit great?

Same basic premise for the OS. If you want it, and it ain't there, go make it, Comrade.

-=Vel=-

What allows for a technologically advanced society such as ours is division of labor. That is, different people get different skill sets and do different jobs.

Now, if everyone decides to invest the 5 to 8 years to study computer science in order to build their own idiosyncratic OS (and I guess the software to go with it as well - I better just contract out my spellchecker ), the world is going to have real problems.

Nor do I want to spend the time to master ice cream production. Ben and Jerry make enough flavors and do it well (and there is some company in CA that makes a nice Green Tea ice cream as an alternative).

My point is, is that if capitalism's big claim to superiority is choice, it fails even on that ground due to the constraints of the division of labor in society. Choice is necessarily limited by the resources that are thrown at a problem. Windows is good enough for what I do, runs all the software I need, and gives my far less headaches than Linux. I'll stick to what I do and let the comp sci guys do what they do.

But why should we lead the division of labor to chance in an uncontrolled market? If we know what we want - or can at least reach some consensus on second order values - and we know what experts can do the first order work of setting methods to maximising values - why are we fooling around?

[Velociryx]

Not at all, GePap....I'm well aware of the macro-level picture. We just have a different method of looking at it, is all.

One side says that society should drive the engine, and dictate to the individual (macro-level). The other side says that the devil is in the details, and starts at the individual level, working up to the macro level from there.

One way makes the individual subservient to the society, and the other way celebrates the power OF the individual, relying on the sum total of individual actions to drive and shape society itself.


I know where I'd rather live, if your "choice" is different, there are options available, right now. Need a suitcase?

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Temp: I'm not saying that capitalism is perfect. But you must concede that it's a far better race horse than ANY attempt at communism has been do date, yes?

If you believe in your system, start on a small scale. Start a company run along communist lines.

PROVE it works.

Prove it is scalable.

Then we'll have something to talk about?

Til then, you're comparing a system that works (albiet imperfectly) to a system that looks good on paper, but has failed every practical applications test.

True?

-=Vel=-

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Kidicious

Maybe, but not at the levels we have now. Most of the products that are advertized are crap that falls out of use or taste just because consumers find that they don't get the utility they were told they would. And a lot of it is information that is completely useless like Coke commercials. Damn it, I know I can go to the store and get a Coke already!

I said some form of advertising is necessary via an informational role. Not that the level of advertising the US engages in is good. Quite the contrary, our system does engage mostly in creating a craving for useless crap like coke. Oh yes, please make me crave something that will rot my teeth and leech calcium from my bones. I think coke was some sort of evil invention of the dental industry!

No, but why should we play an active part in creating them.

We can't help but do so. Again, should prference formation be left to advertisers out to maximize profits by selling useless ****?

[Ecthy]

Lonestar, your signature is wrong. First subversion, then infiltration, then indoctrination, then the conspiracy...

[Velociryx]

GePap: Yes! By all means though, let's change the equation, since the first example didn't work out so well. Let's raise the bar to something REALLY hard, like space travel.

If Vel wanted to go to space, he'd prolly hook up with these people:

http://www.space-frontier.org/

Next?

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Not at all, GePap....I'm well aware of the macro-level picture. We just have a different method of looking at it, is all.
One side says that society should drive the engine, and dictate to the individual (macro-level). The other side says that the devil is in the details, and starts at the individual level, working up to the macro level from there.
One way makes the individual subservient to the society, and the other way celebrates the power OF the individual, relying on the sum total of individual actions to drive and shape society itself.
-=Vel=-

The indvidual is always subservient to the society Vel. He always has and alwasy shall be, since man is a social being. You say the capitalism empowers the individual: bollocks. Capitalism uses the invidual for and end. In capitalism,choices have two qualifications: rational or not, efficient or not. That is it.

You say that capitalism starts at the micro level: wrong. The foundations of capitalism were laid from above. The most important part of a working capitalist system is a system of laws that create a certain level of accountability and stability to allow the market to work. The States creates such a system, and the state is no single individual. If things had been left to the individual we would not have the system we have today. And they would not have because they would have been working from different assumtions.

What you continually ignore (or fail to see, or fail to want to see) is that the choices you make are informed by the system you ive in. Live in a different system, and the same person gives you different choices, because the information they are using is different. The capitalist system as it exists was set up from above because that is the only way it could be set up. A small bunch gets a new idea and thinks it is best for al, so they start working on it and trying to change the whole of society from above. MOst human beings are inherently risk averse and prefer to work within what they know instead of trying to blaze new trails: society left on its own will rarely be revolutionary. Only in extreme circumstances is it, and in most circuamstances a smaller group will get the ball rolling and then force everyone else to decide which of the courses they would rather back.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
GePap: Yes! By all means though, let's change the equation, since the first example didn't work out so well. Let's raise the bar to something REALLY hard, like space travel.

If Vel wanted to go to space, he'd prolly hook up with these people:

http://www.space-frontier.org/

Next?

-=Vel=-

Oh yes, they have the working capital to build a space craft: oh, and lets not forget what you need to get something into space: right now, a rocket, which can always become a missile...and we all know how much sattes love individual groups having missiles, no?

When that bunch gets a man into space by purely pirvate means (without any public assistance) then come to me with tha answer Vel. Until then it is no answer. (I am sure plenty of epople though of setting up private Moon resorts back in 1970..see how much they did with it!)

[Velociryx]

INDIVIDUALS shape society where I live. Individuals define society where I live. Not the other way around.

Not sure where you're living, and if that is untrue where you are, I'm sorry.

What's IS true is that the communist mantra would reverse it. Society defines the individual. No choice. No freedoms. The party tells you what is right and proper, what to buy, what to think. How to live (and often, where to live).

Fail to do as you're told like a good little communist and you disappear.

(again, at least, communism as has been applied to date).

Is this innacurate? All a big lie, right? I'm not really free, I just think I am? I had to get government approval to move out of my townhouse and into the house I just bought.

I can't just pack my sh*t and move somewhere else, quit my job and go cross-country for 18 months if I want to? Nahhh. Course not.

-=Vel=-