Capitalism vs. Communism

[Occupied Deutschland]

Once again, intervening in the market to set wages at some arbitrary constant is highly inefficient.

Wages exist in order to compensate the worker for the labour he has undertaken. But, depending on the labour itself, the opportunity cost is variable (this is a crucial consideration).

When the labour has high risk; considerable human capital acquisition (and the associated economic costs therein); unsocial hours; poor working conditions; or high relative efficiency per labour unit, the worker will be compensated more in order to generate incentive.

If the wage is too low, the opportunity cost of undertaking that particular work will outstrip the compensation, and the worker will have no incentive to produce. And if the wage is too high, you are wasting resources. In your proposal, both would be an issue. In reality, too, there are other factors which determine the wage rate, but we are just considering these for simplicity.

Intervening in the market to adjust wages is inefficient. It needs to be done to some degree for social reasons, but that is only because we value the social benefit greater than the economic cost.

Your proposal, however, would be ruinous.

This capitalist system is what made the world the mess it is today and needs overthrown and destroyed. It ignores all but the rich and leaves the rest of people to fend for themselves

Do you own a computer?
How about an Ipod?
A radio?
A television?
Do you have electricity?
A car?
A bike?
Etcetera ad infinitum.

The capitalist system is what has made consumer products available to people at ever decreasing cost to them. The average schmuck is better of now than he was two hundred years ago.

[Renegade Island]

This capitalist system is what made the world the mess it is today and needs overthrown and destroyed. It ignores all but the rich and leaves the rest of people to fend for themselves

Do you own a computer?
How about an Ipod?
A radio?
A television?
Do you have electricity?
A car?
A bike?
Etcetera ad infinitum.

The capitalist system is what has made consumer products available to people at ever decreasing cost to them. The average schmuck is better of now than he was two hundred years ago.

Someone else is confusing science with capitalism again.

[Renegade Island]

There is no scarcity.

...
I know multiple people have responded to this already but I just have to add: Ha-Ha no.

I can when there is a world food surplus (1) combined with 1 billion starving people, free energy technology (2) but an over reliance on finite energy sources, diminishing minerals (3) combined with accelerating cyclical consumption, etc, etc, etc.

Modern economics is the perpetuation of scarcity.

1: A surplus in one sector does not mean there is no scarcity. Nor does it mean there aren't shortages in local markets related to that sector.
2: Trollscience doesn't actually WORK, you know...
3: Now you're getting it there.

1. Yes it does. It's a distribution issue rather than a scarcity one.
2. Solar, W, Geothermal, Wave Power, Tidal Power, Hydro-Electric.... I don't see any "Troll science" here.
3. An example of perpetuation of scarcity. Unnecessary waste for the sake of profit and the preserving of "the economy."

[The Joseon Dynasty]

Once again, intervening in the market to set wages at some arbitrary constant is highly inefficient.

Wages exist in order to compensate the worker for the labour he has undertaken. But, depending on the labour itself, the opportunity cost is variable (this is a crucial consideration).

When the labour has high risk; considerable human capital acquisition (and the associated economic costs therein); unsocial hours; poor working conditions; or high relative efficiency per labour unit, the worker will be compensated more in order to generate incentive.

If the wage is too low, the opportunity cost of undertaking that particular work will outstrip the compensation, and the worker will have no incentive to produce. And if the wage is too high, you are wasting resources. In your proposal, both would be an issue. In reality, too, there are other factors which determine the wage rate, but we are just considering these for simplicity.

Intervening in the market to adjust wages is inefficient. It needs to be done to some degree for social reasons, but that is only because we value the social benefit greater than the economic cost.

Your proposal, however, would be ruinous.

This capitalist system is what made the world the mess it is today and needs overthrown and destroyed. It ignores all but the rich and leaves the rest of people to fend for themselves

Congratulations on totally ignoring my critique and responding with vague, mindless rhetoric. My criticism of your proposal does not depend on a particular economic model. It's just general logic.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Do you own a computer?
How about an Ipod?
A radio?
A television?
Do you have electricity?
A car?
A bike?
Etcetera ad infinitum.

The capitalist system is what has made consumer products available to people at ever decreasing cost to them. The average schmuck is better of now than he was two hundred years ago.

Someone else is confusing science with capitalism again.

Science invented those things.
Capitalist systems distributed them. (And that's ignoring the motivations for their inventions in the first place.)

The availability of cars to the general public wouldn't have been possible without the assembly line spearheaded by Henry Ford to make himself more money.

1. Yes it does. It's a distribution issue rather than a scarcity one.
2. Solar, W, Geothermal, Wave Power, Tidal Power, Hydro-Electric.... I don't see any "Troll science" here.
3. An example of perpetuation of scarcity. Unnecessary waste for the sake of profit and the preserving of "the economy."

1. Exactly, and we lack the capability to distribute all this food (which itself is scarce) because we lack the resources needed to distribute it. Even assuming we have a surplus supply of food on the whole planet (which, maybe we do technically, I dunnow) there are sectors where we don't have surpluses that affect the supply and distribution of food.
2. Solar - requires photovoltaic cells and batteries. Photovoltaic cells require silicone, batteries require a number of things, acid and some kind of metal agent right? Silicone is scarce. There is only so much. Lead or any other metal used in batteries is scarce, there is only so much. In addition to that, in order to get silicone or lead it must be mined using machines which themselves consist of multiple component parts and pieces which themselves need to come from other resources.

Solar power doesn't mean no scarcity of energy, it means a reduction in cost at most (and currently not even that with how inefficient they are, though with time they'll likely get better).

3. See above. There is only so much Silicone or copper on the planet and making it is damned near impossible. There is only so much land to grow food on and making it is damned near impossible. "Diminishing minerals" isn't some boogeymen trotted out by economists to maintain their jobs, it's a fact of nature that needs to be accounted for if we want to have any chance of accurately guessing what we can use to produce things that will result in the least cost to us.

[Renegade Island]

Someone else is confusing science with capitalism again.

Science invented those things.
Capitalist systems distributed them. (And that's ignoring the motivations for their inventions in the first place.)

The availability of cars to the general public wouldn't have been possible without the assembly line spearheaded by Henry Ford to make himself more money.

1. Yes it does. It's a distribution issue rather than a scarcity one.
2. Solar, W, Geothermal, Wave Power, Tidal Power, Hydro-Electric.... I don't see any "Troll science" here.
3. An example of perpetuation of scarcity. Unnecessary waste for the sake of profit and the preserving of "the economy."

1. Exactly, and we lack the capability to distribute all this food (which itself is scarce) because we lack the resources needed to distribute it. Even assuming we have a surplus supply of food on the whole planet (which, maybe we do technically, I dunnow) there are sectors where we don't have surpluses that affect the supply and distribution of food.
2. Solar - requires photovoltaic cells and batteries. Photovoltaic cells require silicone, batteries require a number of things, acid and some kind of metal agent right? Silicone is scarce. There is only so much. Lead or any other metal used in batteries is scarce, there is only so much. In addition to that, in order to get silicone or lead it must be mined using machines which themselves consist of multiple component parts and pieces which themselves need to come from other resources.

Solar power doesn't mean no scarcity of energy, it means a reduction in cost at most (and currently not even that with how inefficient they are, though with time they'll likely get better).

3. See above. There is only so much Silicone or copper on the planet and making it is damned near impossible. There is only so much land to grow food on and making it is damned near impossible. "Diminishing minerals" isn't some boogeymen trotted out by economists to maintain their jobs, it's a fact of nature that needs to be accounted for if we want to have any chance of accurately guessing what we can use to produce things that will result in the least cost to us.

1. Rubbish, corporations routinely transport food all around the world.
2. Yes, that's true, but building a permanent sustainable infrastructure requires less resources than there are available. (Oh and with regard to solar power, provinces in Germany are operating at a net surplus with solar energy.)
3. Yes, I agree, we should abolish the concept of cyclical consumption and reorient society to make every product sustainable and accessible to everyone in order to minimize the usage of scarce resources.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Science invented those things.
Capitalist systems distributed them. (And that's ignoring the motivations for their inventions in the first place.)

The availability of cars to the general public wouldn't have been possible without the assembly line spearheaded by Henry Ford to make himself more money.


1. Exactly, and we lack the capability to distribute all this food (which itself is scarce) because we lack the resources needed to distribute it. Even assuming we have a surplus supply of food on the whole planet (which, maybe we do technically, I dunnow) there are sectors where we don't have surpluses that affect the supply and distribution of food.
2. Solar - requires photovoltaic cells and batteries. Photovoltaic cells require silicone, batteries require a number of things, acid and some kind of metal agent right? Silicone is scarce. There is only so much. Lead or any other metal used in batteries is scarce, there is only so much. In addition to that, in order to get silicone or lead it must be mined using machines which themselves consist of multiple component parts and pieces which themselves need to come from other resources.

Solar power doesn't mean no scarcity of energy, it means a reduction in cost at most (and currently not even that with how inefficient they are, though with time they'll likely get better).

3. See above. There is only so much Silicone or copper on the planet and making it is damned near impossible. There is only so much land to grow food on and making it is damned near impossible. "Diminishing minerals" isn't some boogeymen trotted out by economists to maintain their jobs, it's a fact of nature that needs to be accounted for if we want to have any chance of accurately guessing what we can use to produce things that will result in the least cost to us.

1. Rubbish, corporations routinely transport food all around the world.
2. Yes, that's true, but building a permanent sustainable infrastructure requires less resources than there are available. (Oh and with regard to solar power, provinces in Germany are operating at a net surplus with solar energy.)
3. Yes, I agree, we should abolish the concept of cyclical consumption and reorient society to make every product sustainable and accessible to everyone in order to minimize the usage of scarce resources.

1. Yes they do. But there are only so many container ships available that can be used to transport food around the world. Added to that there are only so many ports available on the world and some places need to be gotten to via truck or plane which increases the cost of transporting it there. We lack the capability to distribute everything around the world because of scarcity. Because it wouldn't be efficient to build enough cargo tankers to haul food to every port on the planet on a regular basis because we'd have to give up whatever other use all the metal and labor involved in making that boat otherwise would've gone to.

2. I'm not sure about that but even assuming building it is possible it runs into the same problem as above. What would have to be given up to build it? Added to that, what would have to "stay" given up to maintain it? I'm no expert on solar power or any other renewable resource but I know the systems need to be maintained somehow. To do that something would have to be given up.

3. That's the problem, NO product is sustainable and available to everyone. Hell, sunlight and air have hard times fulfilling one of those two parameters, and even then it doesn't work (the sun isn't sustainable in the long-term and either one may not be available to everyone because of some event (where they live, a volcanic eruption, etc.)) The only way to "reorient" society around sustainable production and keeping that production available to everyone is to kill everyone in society. Mankind's existence strains resources and on the net mankind since the dawn of time has "used" more resources while alive than could be sustained.

[Renegade Island]

1. Rubbish, corporations routinely transport food all around the world.
2. Yes, that's true, but building a permanent sustainable infrastructure requires less resources than there are available. (Oh and with regard to solar power, provinces in Germany are operating at a net surplus with solar energy.)
3. Yes, I agree, we should abolish the concept of cyclical consumption and reorient society to make every product sustainable and accessible to everyone in order to minimize the usage of scarce resources.

1. Yes they do. But there are only so many container ships available that can be used to transport food around the world. Added to that there are only so many ports available on the world and some places need to be gotten to via truck or plane which increases the cost of transporting it there. We lack the capability to distribute everything around the world because of scarcity. Because it wouldn't be efficient to build enough cargo tankers to haul food to every port on the planet on a regular basis because we'd have to give up whatever other use all the metal and labor involved in making that boat otherwise would've gone to.

2. I'm not sure about that but even assuming building it is possible it runs into the same problem as above. What would have to be given up to build it? Added to that, what would have to "stay" given up to maintain it? I'm no expert on solar power or any other renewable resource but I know the systems need to be maintained somehow. To do that something would have to be given up.

3. That's the problem, NO product is sustainable and available to everyone. Hell, sunlight and air have hard times fulfilling one of those two parameters, and even then it doesn't work (the sun isn't sustainable in the long-term and either one may not be available to everyone because of some event (where they live, a volcanic eruption, etc.)) The only way to "reorient" society around sustainable production and keeping that production available to everyone is to kill everyone in society. Mankind's existence strains resources and on the net mankind since the dawn of time has "used" more resources while alive than could be sustained.

This seems to me like the "I'm living comfortable, so fuck everybody else" argument.

Who cares if we have to give up something for everyone to have access to food, energy and clean water?

Also, no product is sustainable and available to everyone, because that's not how we do business. A business set up in that way would fail in the current scarcity perpetuation economy.

[Blakk Metal]

Why not?

For many reasons...

For one thing you don't have a flag, don't have a seat at the United Nations, and for another you probably reside within the area covered by the jurisdiction of another already existing, long-standing, and legitimate state. Plus there's absolutely no chance of you being a state if not a single other state or organized society recognizes you as one.

Since that is the stupidest (implied) definition ever, I'm just going to use Sociobiology's.

a state is a government + a polity.
and that a organized government = a government
a government be a political organization of specialized law makers/enforcers.

Or, in other words, a state is an arbitrary area controlled by a specialized group of people who brutalize anyone who does something they don't like.

Therefore, according to Sociobiology, if I can get a posse with specialized skills and use said posse to dominate his area, he automatically agrees to cut his dick off.

This capitalist system is what made the world the mess it is today and needs overthrown and destroyed. It ignores all but the rich and leaves the rest of people to fend for themselves

Do you own a computer?
How about an Ipod?

Those were based on open source innovations.

A radio?
A television?
Do you have electricity?

Those were inadvertently made by the innovations of scientists.

A car?

You have a point there. It would been invented either way though.

A bike?

Not made for profit.

The capitalist system is what has made consumer products available to people at ever decreasing cost to them. The average schmuck is better of now than he was two hundred years ago.

That would've happened in any system freer the U'SS'R.

Someone else is confusing science with capitalism again.

Science invented those things.

And capitalism rarely does.

Capitalist systems distributed them. (And that's ignoring the motivations for their inventions in the first place.)

The availability of cars to the general public wouldn't have been possible without the assembly line spearheaded by Henry Ford to make himself more money.

You do realize most supplies can only be accessed thru the capitalist distribution system, right?

[The Joseon Dynasty]

This is a ridiculous system. It's easy to plop down and say "if I ran the world, everyone would be able to do what they wanted and have as much as they wanted".

Realistically, to maintain a functional society, considering scarcity, you would need to be cognizant, chiefly, of the most efficient allocation of those scarce resources. If you have 50 people wanting to be shoe-makers, but your economy only needs 20, by intervening in the market to add an additional 30 shoe-makers, you are not only wasting resources, but crowding out the other shoe-makers and reducing overall efficiency.

It's not feasible, in any sort of economic system.

I never said you would get the job you wanted originally. Say your situation does happen, economy only needs 20 and has 20, you could pick another job that is needed and be given it. You might not be a shoemaker, but you will have a job.

Why? Your system still doesn't work. If resources are distributed inefficiently, which they are (and especially in your proposed system), the demand for labour will never equal the supply of labour.

You will either be inefficiently subsidising labour where it is unneeded (with magical, conjured-up resources), or (less likely) having jobs going unfilled.

For most practical purposes, there is no such thing as full employment. Rather, the most efficient allocator of labour is the market itself. Demand and supply are theoretically optimised through the mechanisms already in place, rather than through a social planner.

[Renegade Island]

I never said you would get the job you wanted originally. Say your situation does happen, economy only needs 20 and has 20, you could pick another job that is needed and be given it. You might not be a shoemaker, but you will have a job.

Why? Your system still doesn't work. If resources are distributed inefficiently, which they are (and especially in your proposed system), the demand for labour will never equal the supply of labour.

You will either be inefficiently subsidising labour where it is unneeded (with magical, conjured-up resources), or (less likely) having jobs going unfilled.

For most practical purposes, there is no such thing as full employment. Rather, the most efficient allocator of labour is the market itself. Demand and supply are theoretically optimised through the mechanisms already in place, rather than through a social planner.

Employment needs to go the way of cave-dwelling.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

We're discussing Economics. Economics is the study of scarcity. You can't just assume away the most crucial component of the discussion.

I can when there is a world food surplus combined with 1 billion starving people, free energy technology but an over reliance on finite energy sources, diminishing minerals combined with accelerating cyclical consumption, etc, etc, etc.

Modern economics is the perpetuation of scarcity.

You're pulling the old "economics is complicated and boring, so I'll just dismiss it as useless and thusly ignore all arguments made from an economic perspective". It's a brilliant strategy, until you encounter someone with even a modicum of knowledge about the subject, who realises that your flippant, simplistic definition is utter rubbish.

Furthermore, your very small list of supposed reasons why scarcity is, in general, only circumstantial just involves an inefficient allocation of resources. The resources are still finite, but could be better distributed or harnessed, in this case, to improve economic efficiency. That's it.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

Why? Your system still doesn't work. If resources are distributed inefficiently, which they are (and especially in your proposed system), the demand for labour will never equal the supply of labour.

You will either be inefficiently subsidising labour where it is unneeded (with magical, conjured-up resources), or (less likely) having jobs going unfilled.

For most practical purposes, there is no such thing as full employment. Rather, the most efficient allocator of labour is the market itself. Demand and supply are theoretically optimised through the mechanisms already in place, rather than through a social planner.

Employment needs to go the way of cave-dwelling.

And the alternative is?

[Renegade Island]

I can when there is a world food surplus combined with 1 billion starving people, free energy technology but an over reliance on finite energy sources, diminishing minerals combined with accelerating cyclical consumption, etc, etc, etc.

Modern economics is the perpetuation of scarcity.

You're pulling the old "economics is complicated and boring, so I'll just dismiss it as useless and thusly ignore all arguments made from an economic perspective". It's a brilliant strategy, until you encounter someone with even a modicum of knowledge about the subject, who realises that your flippant, simplistic definition is utter rubbish.

Furthermore, your very small list of supposed reasons why scarcity is, in general, only circumstantial just involves an inefficient allocation of resources. The resources are still finite, but could be better distributed or harnessed, in this case, to improve economic efficiency. That's it.

I understand economics just fine.
I didn't say that resources weren't finite.

[Renegade Island]

Employment needs to go the way of cave-dwelling.

And the alternative is?

Volunterism.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

And the alternative is?

Volunterism.

Good luck with that.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

You're pulling the old "economics is complicated and boring, so I'll just dismiss it as useless and thusly ignore all arguments made from an economic perspective". It's a brilliant strategy, until you encounter someone with even a modicum of knowledge about the subject, who realises that your flippant, simplistic definition is utter rubbish.

Furthermore, your very small list of supposed reasons why scarcity is, in general, only circumstantial just involves an inefficient allocation of resources. The resources are still finite, but could be better distributed or harnessed, in this case, to improve economic efficiency. That's it.

I understand economics just fine.
I didn't say that resources weren't finite.

Evidently not.
So, basically, your argument is that if everything were perfectly efficient, then everything would be perfectly efficient.

[Renegade Island]

I understand economics just fine.
I didn't say that resources weren't finite.

Evidently not.
So, basically, your argument is that if everything were perfectly efficient, then everything would be perfectly efficient.

No, my argument is that the current economic system perpetuates inefficiency. I believe I already stated this.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

Evidently not.
So, basically, your argument is that if everything were perfectly efficient, then everything would be perfectly efficient.

No, my argument is that the current economic system perpetuates inefficiency. I believe I already stated this.

You stated it, but did nothing to demonstrate that it's true. You made a few claims about alternative energy sources, but the extraordinarily broad assertions you are making cannot be corroborated with a few arguably inefficient markets (which themselves do not constitute an inherent failing of the system itself; merely an inefficient component).

Furthermore, your proposed solution, such that it existed, was, basically, "if we fix it, it'll work".

[Renegade Island]

No, my argument is that the current economic system perpetuates inefficiency. I believe I already stated this.

You stated it, but did nothing to demonstrate that it's true. You made a few claims about alternative energy sources, but the extraordinarily broad assertions you are making cannot be corroborated with a few arguably inefficient markets (which themselves do not constitute an inherent failing of the system itself; merely an inefficient component).

Furthermore, your proposed solution, such that it existed, was, basically, "if we fix it, it'll work".

I didn't state any proposed solution.

The system has inherently failed, hasn't it? The economy is not economizing, therefore it's not really an economy.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

You stated it, but did nothing to demonstrate that it's true. You made a few claims about alternative energy sources, but the extraordinarily broad assertions you are making cannot be corroborated with a few arguably inefficient markets (which themselves do not constitute an inherent failing of the system itself; merely an inefficient component).

Furthermore, your proposed solution, such that it existed, was, basically, "if we fix it, it'll work".

I didn't state any proposed solution.

The system has inherently failed, hasn't it? The economy is not economizing, therefore it's not really an economy.

How has the system inherently failed? How is the economy not "economising"?

Don't bother citing the recent recession. For the purposes of your assertions, the aggregate, long-term growth of the economy is of more value than growth rates in a particular period. And, in the long-term, both factor productivity and income per capita (and the associated improvements in living standards) are almost monotonically increasing.

[Renegade Island]

I didn't state any proposed solution.

The system has inherently failed, hasn't it? The economy is not economizing, therefore it's not really an economy.

How has the system inherently failed? How is the economy not "economising"?

Don't bother citing the recent recession. For the purposes of your assertions, the aggregate, long-term growth of the economy is of more value than growth rates in a particular period. And, in the long-term, both factor productivity and income per capita (and the associated improvements in living standards) are almost monotonically increasing.

economise - spend sparingly, avoid the waste of.

How is the economy doing this?

[The Joseon Dynasty]

How has the system inherently failed? How is the economy not "economising"?

Don't bother citing the recent recession. For the purposes of your assertions, the aggregate, long-term growth of the economy is of more value than growth rates in a particular period. And, in the long-term, both factor productivity and income per capita (and the associated improvements in living standards) are almost monotonically increasing.

economise - spend sparingly, avoid the waste of.

How is the economy doing this?

By taking scarce resources and allocating them? That's the answer in a nutshell, really.

We can sit here and argue 'till the cows come home about how the market is inefficiently allocating resources, and many economists spend their lives doing so. But the fact of the matter is that the combination of government intervention (for social motives) and market allocations (for economic motives) has produced a reasonably efficient system; one which has not yet been rivalled.

As I said, aggregate, long-term growth rates for most, if not all, developed economies over the last one hundred years show a steady, monotonic increase in income per capita and factor productivity. That's economising.

And the cause of this recession, rather, was a deviation from an efficient allocation of resources. That isn't a failing of the system, but rather of the economic actors therein.

[Blakk Metal]

Volunterism.

Good luck with that.

Well, considering the fact that people like to do things, to the point of having their health impacted if they don't, I'd say he has very good luck.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

Good luck with that.

Well, considering the fact that people like to do things, to the point of having their health impacted if they don't, I'd say he has very good luck.

What?