What do you think of Communism

[Republica Federal de Catalunya]

Theory and reality. Is what you buy on Alibaba vs what you pay for.

[Betoni]

Owners sell factories quite often, either to get capital to invest in other ventures or simply to retire. Most, I suspect, would have no problem if the buyers were a worker's cooperative rather than another capitalist. The problem is for the workers to raise the necessary cash.

The fact that workers lack capital is a part of the oppresion of the capitalist system. It’s saying ‘I agree in theory with your right to self-governance, only if you find the cash!’ in a system where the factory owner benefits from paying his workers as little as possible. Capitalist exploitation is unjust, partially because getting capital is not a choice. Ot is something that by necessity can only happen to a few, and more often than not its through birth.

That’s why socialists want to seize the means, without paying for it: the system of capital that would allow you to pay for it, is itself exploitative and exclusionary.

When you say you ‘protest’ when the workers take the machines from their owner, you are saying that the machines should belong to the owner in the first place. While most owners have never seen the machines that their workers use all day to create their profits. Their ownership is purely paper, probably even effectuated by lower management without their knowledge in many cases.

This is likely untrue, just by going by the numbers, there is bound to be more mid to small size local businesses than big national or even international ones. It's a consistent talking point in certain circles that anyone who employs someone else is automatically an exploitative pig capitalist with a fat belly and no idea what the average worker goes trough. While in the real world most business owners are actually self-employed people who might have the means to employ others if they are lucky. I get that its not as easy to convince yourself or others about your good intentions when you don't paint the enemy as the undesirable other, and the devil is in the details, but no need to sugar coat it here.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

The fact that workers lack capital is a part of the oppresion of the capitalist system. It’s saying ‘I agree in theory with your right to self-governance, only if you find the cash!’ in a system where the factory owner benefits from paying his workers as little as possible. Capitalist exploitation is unjust, partially because getting capital is not a choice. Ot is something that by necessity can only happen to a few, and more often than not its through birth.

That’s why socialists want to seize the means, without paying for it: the system of capital that would allow you to pay for it, is itself exploitative and exclusionary.

When you say you ‘protest’ when the workers take the machines from their owner, you are saying that the machines should belong to the owner in the first place. While most owners have never seen the machines that their workers use all day to create their profits. Their ownership is purely paper, probably even effectuated by lower management without their knowledge in many cases.

This is likely untrue, just by going by the numbers, there is bound to be more mid to small size local businesses than big national or even international ones. It's a consistent talking point in certain circles that anyone who employs someone else is automatically an exploitative pig capitalist with a fat belly and no idea what the average worker goes trough. While in the real world most business owners are actually self-employed people who might have the means to employ others if they are lucky. I get that its not as easy to convince yourself or others about your good intentions when you don't paint the enemy as the undesirable other, and the devil is in the details, but no need to sugar coat it here.

I could make similarly snide remarks about the need for liberals to portray everyone with legitimate and fundemental criticisms of the status-quo as cynical propagandists.

Anyway, it depends on how you see owners. Most large companies are publicly traded meaning that their ownership is divided between tens of thousands. But to speak of stock holders as 'owners' is not directly clear. However, most machines are owned by that large group of capitalists.

Regardless, every capital owner is necessarily exploitative because they enrich themselves off of the labour of others. If they labour themselves, then of course they are entitled to the fruit of their own labour, but nothing entitles them to a profit on top of that. As for fat bellies and having no idea what workers go through, that's neither here nor there. It doesn't really matter if owners speak to their workers, or hell, if they at one point have been a worker. Their role is inherently exploitative.

[Betoni]

This is likely untrue, just by going by the numbers, there is bound to be more mid to small size local businesses than big national or even international ones. It's a consistent talking point in certain circles that anyone who employs someone else is automatically an exploitative pig capitalist with a fat belly and no idea what the average worker goes trough. While in the real world most business owners are actually self-employed people who might have the means to employ others if they are lucky. I get that its not as easy to convince yourself or others about your good intentions when you don't paint the enemy as the undesirable other, and the devil is in the details, but no need to sugar coat it here.

I could make similarly snide remarks about the need for liberals to portray everyone with legitimate and fundemental criticisms of the status-quo as cynical propagandists.

Anyway, it depends on how you see owners. Most large companies are publicly traded meaning that their ownership is divided between tens of thousands. But to speak of stock holders as 'owners' is not directly clear. However, most machines are owned by that large group of capitalists.

Regardless, every capital owner is necessarily exploitative because they enrich themselves off of the labour of others. If they labour themselves, then of course they are entitled to the fruit of their own labour, but nothing entitles them to a profit on top of that. As for fat bellies and having no idea what workers go through, that's neither here nor there. It doesn't really matter if owners speak to their workers, or hell, if they at one point have been a worker. Their role is inherently exploitative.

Then why bring it up, if its neither here nor there? In fact, it seems to be a major part of your thinking seeing that it needs to brought up in every other post. There seems to be this implication that the current owners of the means of production would suffer a loss if those were made communally owned suddenly, but on the other hand that very thing is supposed to make everyone better off in the long term, so you have to do this balancing act between almost clandestine evil capitalist groups and very real people as business owners, make up your mind. The role is inherently exploitative if you accept the ltv as truth. Perhaps it needs to be reminded that not everyone does and legitimate criticism of it exists.

[Senkaku]

The fact that workers lack capital is a part of the oppresion of the capitalist system. It’s saying ‘I agree in theory with your right to self-governance, only if you find the cash!’ in a system where the factory owner benefits from paying his workers as little as possible. Capitalist exploitation is unjust, partially because getting capital is not a choice. Ot is something that by necessity can only happen to a few, and more often than not its through birth.

That’s why socialists want to seize the means, without paying for it: the system of capital that would allow you to pay for it, is itself exploitative and exclusionary.

When you say you ‘protest’ when the workers take the machines from their owner, you are saying that the machines should belong to the owner in the first place. While most owners have never seen the machines that their workers use all day to create their profits. Their ownership is purely paper, probably even effectuated by lower management without their knowledge in many cases.

This is likely untrue, just by going by the numbers, there is bound to be more mid to small size local businesses than big national or even international ones. It's a consistent talking point in certain circles that anyone who employs someone else is automatically an exploitative pig capitalist with a fat belly and no idea what the average worker goes trough. While in the real world most business owners are actually self-employed people who might have the means to employ others if they are lucky. I get that its not as easy to convince yourself or others about your good intentions when you don't paint the enemy as the undesirable other, and the devil is in the details, but no need to sugar coat it here.

The American mythology of the virtuous small business feels very much like a capitalist’s attempt to cloak themselves in the tradition of the yeoman farmer or artisan tradesman— close to the land/workers/economic forces, in touch, modest— but the reality is that abuse, wage theft, fraud, embezzlement, and labor rights and workplace safety violations are actually much easier to get away with for small business owners or senior employees than they would be at larger-scale enterprises. Yes, there’s also plenty of small business owners who are good to their employees and don’t take home much, because they’re passionate about what they do, but pretending that every car dealership owner or local restaurateur or freelance journalist/PR writer is some salt-of-the-earth paragon of economic and moral virtue like this gets a little tedious.

[Betoni]

This is likely untrue, just by going by the numbers, there is bound to be more mid to small size local businesses than big national or even international ones. It's a consistent talking point in certain circles that anyone who employs someone else is automatically an exploitative pig capitalist with a fat belly and no idea what the average worker goes trough. While in the real world most business owners are actually self-employed people who might have the means to employ others if they are lucky. I get that its not as easy to convince yourself or others about your good intentions when you don't paint the enemy as the undesirable other, and the devil is in the details, but no need to sugar coat it here.

The American mythology of the virtuous small business feels very much like a capitalist’s attempt to cloak themselves in the tradition of the yeoman farmer or artisan tradesman— close to the land/workers/economic forces, in touch, modest— but the reality is that abuse, wage theft, fraud, embezzlement, and labor rights and workplace safety violations are actually much easier to get away with for small business owners or senior employees than they would be at larger-scale enterprises. Yes, there’s also plenty of small business owners who are good to their employees and don’t take home much, because they’re passionate about what they do, but pretending that every car dealership owner or local restaurateur or freelance journalist/PR writer is some salt-of-the-earth paragon of economic and moral virtue like this gets a little tedious.

Wouldn't know about that, not an American, but that was not my intent at all. In fact, I was pointing out that generalizing all business owners as shady big capital was a mistake. So I'm not sure why you would think then that I would encourage to generalize all business owners as some virtuous yeoman farmer archetype. There is plenty of ideologically charged language to go around for each "side" no doubt. I find the idea of business owners as benevolent job "creators" particularly galling, but going no you does not make it better when "my team" does the same thing later.

[Australian rePublic]

This is likely untrue, just by going by the numbers, there is bound to be more mid to small size local businesses than big national or even international ones. It's a consistent talking point in certain circles that anyone who employs someone else is automatically an exploitative pig capitalist with a fat belly and no idea what the average worker goes trough. While in the real world most business owners are actually self-employed people who might have the means to employ others if they are lucky. I get that its not as easy to convince yourself or others about your good intentions when you don't paint the enemy as the undesirable other, and the devil is in the details, but no need to sugar coat it here.

I could make similarly snide remarks about the need for liberals to portray everyone with legitimate and fundemental criticisms of the status-quo as cynical propagandists.

Anyway, it depends on how you see owners. Most large companies are publicly traded meaning that their ownership is divided between tens of thousands. But to speak of stock holders as 'owners' is not directly clear. However, most machines are owned by that large group of capitalists.

Regardless, every capital owner is necessarily exploitative because they enrich themselves off of the labour of others. If they labour themselves, then of course they are entitled to the fruit of their own labour, but nothing entitles them to a profit on top of that. As for fat bellies and having no idea what workers go through, that's neither here nor there. It doesn't really matter if owners speak to their workers, or hell, if they at one point have been a worker. Their role is inherently exploitative.

Why though? If you work for a major, publically traded company, nothing but nothing is stopping you from owning shares in said company. Nothing is stopping anyone from owing shares in the company they work for (unless you can't afford to, which is a different scanario). In fact, I actively believe all companies should give shares to their employees for a multitude of reasons. Some people don't wanna own shares in the companies they work for. They just wanna go in, do their job and fuck off home. Why deprive people of that? But if you do wanna own shares, go for it. Who cares if someone else also wants to own shares in that company? Why is that a bad thing? As long as you can own shares in your own company, who cares whether or not anyone else does. Public ownership under communism would be the same as public ownership under capitalism, but with a few millionore unimterested owners. And your statement that no body is entitled to what someone else produces is contradictory under communism. Your flawed logic here is- I produced this corn, no one else can have any. And you'll find that most CEOs and other owners of large companies do significantly more work than your average communist. Sure, they may not be scrubbing toilets or picking fruit or any other kind of physical labour, but they still work very, very hard spending all day doing paperwork and shit. The same, as I said, can't be said about your average communist. By that logic, philosophers, artists, and anyone else with an airy-fairy hob is not entitled to anything because they don't actually do any real work but benefit from the toilings of others. And that's a pretty fucked ideology.

[Primitive Communism]

By "Communistic" (not "communitarian"; that's something else entirely) I am referring to traits of a Communist society: lack of state, class, hierarchy, currency, and property. Societies that exhibit a lack of most (but not necessarily all) of these concepts with an explicit culture built around social unity, collective ownership, mutual contribution or egalitarianism are what one can refer to as "Primitive Communism".

Understood, thanks. Would a "primitive society" that maintained social hierarchies, private property, and profit-based economics (eg the hunter that gives away his food does it for a benefit, examples provided in that essay I linked) be described as "Primitive Capitalism," then? I would believe that if the state of the societies described as "primitive communist" could count as examples of "communism," then this type of society would display enough traits of capitalism to be described as "capitalist." In a sense?

Theoretically yes but the point is rather moot as the direct predecessors of capitalism, such as mercantilism, already have names of their own. "Primitive Communism" is mostly describing systems that didn't have names for themselves because they weren't really a common philosophical/ideological practice so much as they were a natural development.

[Exogenous Imperium]

Communism is evil.

[Duvniask]

By "Communistic" (not "communitarian"; that's something else entirely) I am referring to traits of a Communist society: lack of state, class, hierarchy, currency, and property. Societies that exhibit a lack of most (but not necessarily all) of these concepts with an explicit culture built around social unity, collective ownership, mutual contribution or egalitarianism are what one can refer to as "Primitive Communism".

Understood, thanks. Would a "primitive society" that maintained social hierarchies, private property, and profit-based economics (eg the hunter that gives away his food does it for a benefit, examples provided in that essay I linked) be described as "Primitive Capitalism," then? I would believe that if the state of the societies described as "primitive communist" could count as examples of "communism," then this type of society would display enough traits of capitalism to be described as "capitalist." In a sense?

Your problem is in trying to pass off "profit" as simply meaning anything received for anything else, such as in the case of hunter-gatherers bartering, when the actual economic concept has to do with revenue (which relates to income, money, value) minus the costs of an operation. Calling these societies "primitive capitalism" is wrong, if for no other than the fact that they are not based around commercial production and do not feature much if any capital.

Understood, thanks. Would a "primitive society" that maintained social hierarchies, private property, and profit-based economics (eg the hunter that gives away his food does it for a benefit, examples provided in that essay I linked) be described as "Primitive Capitalism," then? I would believe that if the state of the societies described as "primitive communist" could count as examples of "communism," then this type of society would display enough traits of capitalism to be described as "capitalist." In a sense?

Theoretically yes but the point is rather moot as the direct predecessors of capitalism, such as mercantilism, already have names of their own. "Primitive Communism" is mostly describing systems that didn't have names for themselves because they weren't really a common philosophical/ideological practice so much as they were a natural development.

Theoretically no.

[Galactic Powers]

Understood, thanks. Would a "primitive society" that maintained social hierarchies, private property, and profit-based economics (eg the hunter that gives away his food does it for a benefit, examples provided in that essay I linked) be described as "Primitive Capitalism," then? I would believe that if the state of the societies described as "primitive communist" could count as examples of "communism," then this type of society would display enough traits of capitalism to be described as "capitalist." In a sense?

Your problem is in trying to pass off "profit" as simply meaning anything received for anything else, such as in the case of hunter-gatherers bartering, when the actual economic concept has to do with revenue (which relates to income, money, value) minus the costs of an operation. Calling these societies "primitive capitalism" is wrong, if for no other than the fact that they are not based around commercial production and do not feature much if any capital.

Profit is defined as the difference between revenue and operating costs, no? Would a hunter gatherer trying to get a more valuable item for himself in an exchange (profit seeking) and keeping the tools he uses for his labor (private owns of the means of production) not be early elements of capitalism? It’s a thin connection, but so is equating gift economies as some kind of communist system that proves communism is human nature.

If no, then how much of “capitalism” needs to be there for it to be considered a “primitive” form of it? The invention of agriculture and early land/private property rights, early money, debt economics in Babylon, Ancient Greek/Roman property and markets…all of those seem like they contain enough elements of capitalism to me.

[Commonwealth of Adirondack]

America only exists because of military force. Its economy ran on slaves captured by military force. Even after "abolishing" slavery it has used military force to secure economic interests, from bananas to oil. The military industry is enormous. I don't think there's any American wealth that can be meaningfully separated from military force.

That is true of every state. Well, either their military force or someone else's.

[Snowhead]

I don't like It

[Point Blob]

I don't like any sort of Collectivism.
Communism doesn't mean nobody is in charge. It just means at best the one in charge is a groupthink gestalt... which is necessarily stupider than most individuals would be. And humans aren't biologically fit to govern large populations fairly nor reasonably.

I favour equality of opportunity and to some extent equivalence of outcome... but any obligation towards cooperation doesn't sit right with me.

[Kaskalma]

Communism is terrible.

[Australian rePublic]

Every time somebody here tries to defend communism, they use brain-dead logic and parade around as if they're smarter than me, and then when I point out why their ideology is brain-dead, they either totally, utterly and completely ignore me, knowing that they're unable to reply reasonably, or they repeat the mantra that I keep posting the same thing, as if what I posted was wrong, without giving me any reason as to why what I posted was wrong. (And you can tell that they're ignoring it because I have brought it to their specific attention multiple, multiple times). This is bargain-bin propaganda from a shitty ideology. I sincerely wish that all communists would read this thread and see communism for the glorified steaming pile of shit that it is. Also either failing to take into account the perspectives of people who lived under communist regimes, or saying how wrong they are, like a terrible cult. If anyone were to read the dribble posted by communists in this thread, the ideology would die the death it deserves. Gosh, I need to get everyone to read this

The most braindead of these claims is by people who appear to have never worked a day in their lives claiming that people would maintain sewers for free, but that's far from the only braindead claim

[Australian rePublic]

Yea? And? You still haven't explained why it's bad for people to make more than people who realign sewers all day.

There are two kinds of people in this world- people who want to do a a pleasent job and are happy to get a little bit of monet for it, and people who are willing to do an unpleasent job and get a lot of money for it. As long as the later exist, we have people who realign sewers, people who do electrical work, etc. Who the fuck cares if someone earns 1000x more than then? If there are enough people who think that income from realigning sewers is worth it, then who fucking cares if someone outearns them for doing an easier job? People should get adequately compensated for doing unpleasent work. If someone who does a less unpleasent job butnout earns them, then who cares? If the guy who realigns sewers earns enough to think it's worth his while, why does it matter if someone outearns him? He's obviously happy withnwhat he's got- otherwise, he wouldn't do it. Why would he do it? He'd have to be a fucking lunatic. If he's happy to work hard and earn a substantial amount of money for it, and he's happy with the amount of money he earns, why does it matter if someone out earns him. Your entire argument is- capitalism bad because rich people- okay, why is that a bad thing. As long as the poor are capable of living comfortably, then why does it matter how much the rich have? Who cares? Good for them

Oh, it doesn't matter if someone outearns him, eh? It follows: it's totes ok for artists and philosophers to make the same as the guy.
You're coming around, comrade!

Nope. Poorly, poorly misrepresenting him. In fact, I've specifically mentioned that too. I don't care if artists or philosophers outearn people with blue collar jobs. Good luck to them! Living the dream! It's only if they do it whilst being communist that's a problem. How on earth did you come to the conclusion that I think it's bad for one group of people to outearn others? IF ARTISTS AND PHILOSOPHERS CAN OUTEARN BLUE COLLAR WORKERS good luck to them! It's only if they do it whilst being communist that makes them bad, well not bad so much as hypocrites. I'm not coming around, I've been in this thread long enough to see how dumb the claims of communists are

[Duvniask]

Your problem is in trying to pass off "profit" as simply meaning anything received for anything else, such as in the case of hunter-gatherers bartering, when the actual economic concept has to do with revenue (which relates to income, money, value) minus the costs of an operation. Calling these societies "primitive capitalism" is wrong, if for no other than the fact that they are not based around commercial production and do not feature much if any capital.

Profit is defined as the difference between revenue and operating costs, no? Would a hunter gatherer trying to get a more valuable item for himself in an exchange (profit seeking) and keeping the tools he uses for his labor (private owns of the means of production) not be early elements of capitalism? It’s a thin connection, but so is equating gift economies as some kind of communist system that proves communism is human nature.

This is such a confused interpretation. A hunter-gatherer bartering with someone else is just trading goods to get something he wants, something which would be of use to him, most likely for consumption or to help with acquiring food. Calling that "profit seeking" is to render every single exchange of goods to be that of "profit seeking". Are you profit-seeking when you buy a bag of pasta off the shelf at your local supermarket? Nonsense.

To me this reads like you're confused about the difference between 1) the exchange value (or just "value") of a good and 2) the use value (or utility) of a good. A commodity, which is to say a good that is treated as a tradable thing, has an exchange value in the sense that it trades for equivalent amounts of something else, be that money or other tangible goods. But its use value derives from its, well, useful quality to the final end consumer, be that the satisfaction of the senses or the facilitation of the labor process. The hunter-gatherer bartering with another tribe or perhaps even a more developed civilization will primarily be interested in the use-value of whatever he's trading for.

If he were interested in maximizing exchange value he would actually be profit-seeking, which is to say he would also start resembling businessman instead of a hunter-gatherer. I mean, think about it: it's basically part of the definition of being a hunter-gatherer that your way of life is focused around the acquisition of use-values - if you're profit-seeking you have to become embedded in an impersonal market structure that is totally alien to that way of life. That would imply acquiring food, not for the purpose of feeding you and your tribe, but because you can trade it at market for money. And in that case it usually makes a lot more sense to just become a farmer, in order to maximize output for the market, or seek another occupation entirely.


As for private property, this is not unique to capitalism at all. Feudalism also had private property, primarily tethered to land ownership, and so did the even older societies with their landed estates. What distinguishes capitalism is generalized commodity production; goods are produced first and foremost for the purposes of exchange. Farms grow crops and factories make clocks not to supply themselves but to supply the market in exchange for revenue and to make a profit. And under capitalism, that is what most economic activity looks like.

If no, then how much of “capitalism” needs to be there for it to be considered a “primitive” form of it? The invention of agriculture and early land/private property rights, early money, debt economics in Babylon, Ancient Greek/Roman property and markets…all of those seem like they contain enough elements of capitalism to me.

We only speak of "primitive communism" in the first place if its mode of production has central, distinguishing features that are similar. If referring to some particular society as primitive communist is ultimately incorrect, then so be it.

Capitalism is distinguished, as above, precisely by generalized commodity production. Commodity production, has existed since ancient times, but it was always an ephemeral layer atop what was mostly an economy of self-sufficiency, with the vast amount of people employed in subsistence agriculture and who traded their modest surpluses essentially without any capital accumulation. These societies always contained, in embryo, elements that are predominant in today's world, but they were not so back then.

[Ifreann]

Every time somebody here tries to defend communism, they use brain-dead logic and parade around as if they're smarter than me, and then when I point out why their ideology is brain-dead, they either totally, utterly and completely ignore me, knowing that they're unable to reply reasonably, or they repeat the mantra that I keep posting the same thing, as if what I posted was wrong, without giving me any reason as to why what I posted was wrong. (And you can tell that they're ignoring it because I have brought it to their specific attention multiple, multiple times). This is bargain-bin propaganda from a shitty ideology. I sincerely wish that all communists would read this thread and see communism for the glorified steaming pile of shit that it is. Also either failing to take into account the perspectives of people who lived under communist regimes, or saying how wrong they are, like a terrible cult. If anyone were to read the dribble posted by communists in this thread, the ideology would die the death it deserves. Gosh, I need to get everyone to read this

The most braindead of these claims is by people who appear to have never worked a day in their lives claiming that people would maintain sewers for free, but that's far from the only braindead claim

Why would anyone maintain a sewer when we've implemented UBI, which you support, and they can just be unemployed until a better job comes along?

[Australian rePublic]

Every time somebody here tries to defend communism, they use brain-dead logic and parade around as if they're smarter than me, and then when I point out why their ideology is brain-dead, they either totally, utterly and completely ignore me, knowing that they're unable to reply reasonably, or they repeat the mantra that I keep posting the same thing, as if what I posted was wrong, without giving me any reason as to why what I posted was wrong. (And you can tell that they're ignoring it because I have brought it to their specific attention multiple, multiple times). This is bargain-bin propaganda from a shitty ideology. I sincerely wish that all communists would read this thread and see communism for the glorified steaming pile of shit that it is. Also either failing to take into account the perspectives of people who lived under communist regimes, or saying how wrong they are, like a terrible cult. If anyone were to read the dribble posted by communists in this thread, the ideology would die the death it deserves. Gosh, I need to get everyone to read this

The most braindead of these claims is by people who appear to have never worked a day in their lives claiming that people would maintain sewers for free, but that's far from the only braindead claim

Why would anyone maintain a sewer when we've implemented UBI, which you support, and they can just be unemployed until a better job comes along?

Because, get this right, you can earn more money for maintaining sewers than you can for being on UBI. You see, there are two kinds of people in the world, people who value happiness above money and are willing to sacrifice income based on that, and people who are willing to sacrifice happiness if it'll earn them money. When forced to make a choice,l between the two, some will choose happiness and others money. Sewer workers will fall into the second catagory. Even without a UBI, there are jobs which are easier and less unpleasent than sewer work, but sewer workers still forgo that to maintain sewers. That doesn't change under a UBI, which would ensure that sewer work pays significantly more than the UBI. If the UBI didn't pay significantly less than sewer work, then you're doing a UBI wrong. Seruously, ask yourself why people maintain sewers now, and the answer is that it pays more than most other jobs. (Sure, there are other jobs which pay more than sewer work, but it's really hard to get those jobs, and it takes a long time to get them). It's not that sewer workers can't get more pleasent jobs, it's that those pleasent jobs pay significantly less. A UBI does not change that

And don't sit there trying to claim that sewer work is the only one of my arguments that you haven't tried to argue against. You know fully well that I've made arguements that I've tried to get you to address but you've ignored. Just because I thought that the sewer work claim was the only one stupid enough to wsrrant its own soecific mention, it doesn't mean that you're not fully aware of my other arguments. But I'm guessing that your deliverate omission of those other points is because trying to address them will make your arguements look even stupider

[Point Blob]

You see, there are two kinds of people in the world, people who value happiness above money and are willing to sacrifice income based on that, and people who are willing to sacrifice happiness if it'll earn them money.

Good thing I'm not people, as I don't care much for either of those things...

[Ifreann]

Why would anyone maintain a sewer when we've implemented UBI, which you support, and they can just be unemployed until a better job comes along?

Because, get this right, you can earn more money for maintaining sewers than you can for being on UBI. You see, there are two kinds of people in the world, people who value happiness above money and are willing to sacrifice income based on that, and people who are willing to sacrifice happiness if it'll earn them money. When forced to make a choice,l between the two, some will choose happiness and others money. Sewer workers will fall into the second catagory. Even without a UBI, there are jobs which are easier and less unpleasent than sewer work, but sewer workers still forgo that to maintain sewers. That doesn't change under a UBI, which would ensure that sewer work pays significantly more than the UBI. If the UBI didn't pay significantly less than sewer work, then you're doing a UBI wrong. Seruously, ask yourself why people maintain sewers now, and the answer is that it pays more than most other jobs. (Sure, there are other jobs which pay more than sewer work, but it's really hard to get those jobs, and it takes a long time to get them). It's not that sewer workers can't get more pleasent jobs, it's that those pleasent jobs pay significantly less. A UBI does not change that

People work in the sewers now because they need to have some kind of job or they'll wind up begging in the streets. But the whole point of UBI is to provide everyone with a minimum standard of living regardless of whether they work or not. So everyone will have the option to just not work until a better job than working in a sewer comes along. And you've been going on for weeks and weeks about how unbelievably horrible this job is, so it doesn't seem like there could be any amount of money you could pay anyone to take that job when they don't need to work, not without skyrocketing the cost of sewer maintenance. How many millions a year are you anticipating needing to pay people? Multiply that by how many thousands of people needed?

And don't sit there trying to claim that sewer work is the only one of my arguments that you haven't tried to argue against. You know fully well that I've made arguements that I've tried to get you to address but you've ignored. Just because I thought that the sewer work claim was the only one stupid enough to wsrrant its own soecific mention, it doesn't mean that you're not fully aware of my other arguments. But I'm guessing that your deliverate omission of those other points is because trying to address them will make your arguements look even stupider

This is the third time I've asked you this question about UBI and the first time you've responded, so you can climb down off that high horse.

[New Stonen]

I do like certain things about Communism, like that all resources are owned by the community and people tale and receive only what they need and nothing more. But the problem with this system is that it's straightforward to take advantage of, like dictatorships, which doesn't help anyone.

Now let me be clear: I do NOT think Communism is the way to go; it is probably the most flawed system of them all. I'm saying the noncorrupt, general idea of it is alright and could be positively expanded on.

[Western Theram]

As I’ve stated before I’ve driven away from the idea of communism. Socialist ideals can used to better our way of life. Like giving workers more of a say about what’s going on in the workplace. Who knows a better way to improve the stakes and conditions other than workers themselves?

Union busting is still a thing and people get fired for wanting better.

[Point Blob]

I do like certain things about Communism, like that all resources are owned by the community and people tale and receive only what they need and nothing more. But the problem with this system is that it's straightforward to take advantage of, like dictatorships, which doesn't help anyone.

Now let me be clear: I do NOT think Communism is the way to go; it is probably the most flawed system of them all. I'm saying the noncorrupt, general idea of it is alright and could be positively expanded on.

People can't be trusted to lead people... at least not in numbers of more than 150 or so.
That is what it all comes down to. If the one in charge doesn't personally know every single life they control... they're unfit for the position. That means everyone above the level of "small village mayor" is necessarily a tyrant.