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Again, that's not an effective way of distributing wealth. The extra chairs will be immediately taken into a decomposition plant and the matter which constituted the extra chairs will be converted back to energy which in its turn will be converted back to a couple of glasses of martini for two of them who need some right now and the rest will be stored for future use.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crocodile
Both types of comfort are subjective.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
No it won't. As much as killing 20 kulaks does not bring about the social justice for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
It's good to some people and bad to others.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
I was trying to convey my opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Yes, there are double standards and a lie in every propaganda. And Maseratis are not as good as they are advertized either. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Yes, but what kind of comfort will dominate people when all types of 'butt-comfort' are satisfied?Quote:
Originally Posted by Crocodile
This correlates with my previous quesiton. What good will be in private property when ALL your needs can be satisfied here and now. Will private property be so important to you? Even if it will - well, you can get a ton of gold and put a sign 'Private property' on it. Other people will just think you're a weirdo of sorts and pass you by.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crocodile
They won't ENVY you and envy is the primary driving force for the desire to posess things.
Let me answer this question for you - they try to sell me a car because they want my money to buy them something else (maybe even also a car :lol:). Capitalism states that you are better if you posess more and consume more. But think - does a greater level of consumption really make you better?Quote:
Originally Posted by Crocodile
What? Maseratis are not good? (shoked) How that may be? They cost so much money! They must be good!Quote:
Originally Posted by Crocodile
Your difficulties with communism lie not in the theory, but in the sad 'practice' you wintessed back in USSR. USSR had its faults, and many of them, but this doesn't automatically mean that the theory itself is bad.
"I will teach you profitable acts"-God (Bible). I am not using His Name in vain. It is written in the Word of God.
Where in the Bible is this allegedly from? It is completely unfamiliar to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by heartfelty
The word "profitable" has many meanings. Creating profit is just one of them. I believe that when the KJV version uses that expression it simply means "beneficial" or "good".
I forgot where in the Bible did I saw it. But I really saw and read it. The exact words. ...(Deleted.L.)
It's not in the Bible and you are talking absolute nonsensical rubbish as usual!
The problem is that most of the people don't want to live equallyQuote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
They want to live better and eventually better than others
Deficit wasn't 100% fault of the bad planning, sometimes it was created intentionally by people who can influence the production
If one can control deficit of something one gets power and using this power one can make one's life better
read this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow'...archy_of_needs
Communism cannot be built if most of the people in society haven't reached the top of the pyramid
Even today the 'butt-comfort' is not the only comfort that is being consumed. In the early 21st century we have much less people in the production business and more people in the service business. So, to extrapolate that, if we have technologies to produce the goods very cheap by only 1% of the population, then the rest 89% would be doing services (let's leave 10% for the unemployed).Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Overall, I think the idea of the most of the population parasiting on the automated society somewhat relates to the sentiments of the early era of the industrialization - that the automation would make people unemployed. People would just shift focus.
The sense of ownership [presently] creates motivation for the people to act. The entire society of the parasites does not look very attractive to me. Unless, of course, some religion or another ideology, or fear would create the motivation in the future. Perhaps, there might be other incentives: if you're doing something useful, we will upgrade your body to be stronger and healthier, and if you don't - you will live as usual, only some 75-95 years. Every day of work useful for the society would give you an extra day of your life. I cannot rule those possibilities out. Like you said, I know nothing about that distant future. But, right now, I don't think the capitalization on the sense of ownership is the worst of all options.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
I respectfully disagree. First, your future society satisfies 100% all basic needs, remember? And what about the extra? If you live in a small hut and have a free food, and at the same time Hanna lives in the 5,000 square feet penthouse with the walls covered by the paintings of the old Italian masters, and eats delicious fruits, that would create an envy and the desire to possess the same thing that Hanna has. And you can't really replicate the old Italian paintings (unless you're fine with the reproductions, which you probably aren't). ;) There would ALWAYS be things which exist in limited quantities, so who would get them? The possession of those items would create envy. If you and I live under the exact same conditions, but you also have a rare mineral from the distant planet, you would invite Hanna over to show it to her, and I won't be able to do that. Hanna will find it more interesting and will go to your hut and not to mine. And then, you can start talking about things and God knows what happens next. Won't that make me wish I had a better mineral so Hanna would prefer to visit me first? Of course, it will. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
What is better and what is worse? That is purely subjective. Does the better knowledge of the Sun make you better? Does writing poems make you better? Does taking drugs make you better? Does marrying a beautiful, smart, and devoted woman make you better? Does donating a million dollars to charity make you better? What is better? And why is it better to be better?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
There's something between you and the money. :) The money is only a temporary mutually agreed measurement for a value which is purely subjective to you. The advertisement for Maserati is trying to create a value for the customers by making the customers believe those cars are panty-droppers. For the transportation purposes, those cars are just cars, with their pros and cons. For example: Maserati recall: The last recall you will needQuote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
My difficulties with communism are caused by the fact that it took 100 years and LOTS of lives to realize you can't introduce communism now in any country. So, on the onset, the communists promised the communism in 10 years, then in 20, then by 1980, then by 2000 and now in the distant future. All that is just BULL$$IT, using your expression. The communism postulates the cooperation and that would replace the competition. The life on our planet had been competitive since the onset, the competition was one of the major drives of the evolution of life. The cooperation exists as long as its more beneficial than the competition. You have to prove that the satisfaction of the basic needs is more beneficial for all individuals than being a consumption machine. The postulation of the private property does not prohibit some people to combine their property and have the common property in their circle. But the postulation of the common property prohibits the existence of the private property inevitably causing some people wanting to leave the system. As long as the communism is mandatory, it will have people flee the system or cause mass-prosecutions. That's what the practice of the 20th century demonstrates. You introduce the communism, and you inevitably have people fleeing your country. And then, you should prohibit the people from leaving otherwise you end up with a country with no people. The rest follows.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Maybe the solution is to set up a Communist nation somewhere and have people choose to join the "commune".
Then they would know what they were signing up for. Then if they do not pull their weight, they can be ejected
I think kibbutzim in Israel work in that way.That is a form of Communism I think. Inside of the kibbutz they don't use money, they just go and collect the stuff that they need. Everybody has a similar house, regardless of their position. They share everything that can be shared.
One question that interests me: Say I am a poor but clever person who is born in a backwards village deep in rural Russia and I want to study at a good university and get a nice job in a pleasant city: Would I have better chances of achieving this in the Soviet times, or today --- or is it not comparable?
That option is totally fine by me. And I think communes like that existed throughout the centuries. Think monasteries, etc. What usually happens with those communities is that there's division of the responsibilities. The entire community cannot participate in each and every decision, so the heads of the community are elected to run the community, and then the heads would select the lower level aides, which would select their aides, etc. In the end, you get a typical power pyramid. Similar assets, but different power.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Haha! Yes, they do. But, the kibutzim hire the workers to do the job they don't want to do. In a very capitalist way in the outer market. Does that makes the kibutz members 'better persons'? ;) And also kibutzim regularly get subsidies from the Israeli government. Meaning, the kibutzim are, in part, parasite on the capitalist economy. Does that make them 'better people'? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
"Карандышев (вставая). О, не раскайтесь! (Кладет руку за борт сюртука.) Вы должны быть моей.
Лариса. Чьей ни быть, но не вашей.
Карандышев (запальчиво). Не моей?
Лариса. Никогда!
Карандышев. Так не доставайся ж ты никому! (Стреляет в нее из пистолета.)
Лариса (хватаясь за грудь). Ах! Благодарю вас! (Опускается на стул.)"
But anyway - who will invent new things?
Who will innovate existing?
If they will not get any benefits for their hard work - why bother?
If they will get benefits - then sooner or later - everyone will not be equal anymore.
I think that USSR was lagging behind the West partially because its inventors/scientists/etc. did not get fair compensation for their work.
For example Mikhail Kalashnikov - his invention is produced in massive quantities - yet - he does not have any benefit from that.
because they care :)Quote:
Originally Posted by nulle
Communism won't work formere mortalspeople who don't give a damn
I'm not sure the USSR was lagging behind the West. It was lagging behind in certain things and was a way ahead in the others. The scientists were compensated worse than their counterparts in the West, however adequately. The problem was not the compensation, but the centralization and as a result the bureaucratization of everything that resisted any innovations. Each bureaucrat had only to report the success up the ladder, so they couldn't take risks. As a result, it was more beneficial for the bureaucracy which led the country to sell raw materials to maintain the best spy organization in the world which would steal and buy new technologies from the West and then copy them and promote to production than to promote the local inventions. The local inventions were reported up the ladder, but rarely experienced practical implementation. That caused the inevitable lag between the invention in the west, trial and error in the west, mass production in the west, success in the west, and ONLY THEN copy in the USSR, trial and error in the USSR, and mass production in the USSR. All that took years. Hence the lag. By the 80s the Soviet-manufactured calculators were displaying the magic word ЕГГОГ which meant nothing in Russian, but everybody knew it meant an error. That situation caused enormous frustration among the scientific community in the USSR hurting the motivation.Quote:
Originally Posted by nulle
Interesting then - how will new inventions appear on the "market" under communism?
I capitalism it is quite simple - if I have made it - I can go and sell it myself either through a retailer/reseller/publisher, garage sale, ebay, whatever and get $$$ in return.
And then I can see if there is a demand for my product - maybe I will produce more.
Unlike Soviet Union which sometimes produced something way more than neccessary, and sometimes not enough.
Now very few things are invented and introduced in Russia despite the capitalism. Or probably because of.
I think that is because the main business in Russia is still exporting raw materials and not production. Production requires innovation to stay competitive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus
When it comes to innovation and standard of living in the USSR, what are you comparing it with?
Africa or Germany? A black American in the South, a poor farmer in Kentucky or a company director in New York?
Most of the major Western powers got rich through imperialism, colonialism or slavery. Through exploiting peasants, workers and even child labourers. Then today, neo-colonialism in the form of sweatshops, forced bargain prices on third world produce etc. Or even starting a war or an invasion to get cheap access to the assets you need.
The USSR did not do any of that, really, at least not on a big scale, or outside its own borders.
So with less exploitation they achieved less wealth. Plus, the USSR "wasted" a lot of money that could have been spent on consumer comfort on supporting other socialist countries, on the arms race etc.
But it doesn't seem like an appalling standard of living, just not comparable to the richest Western countries at the time.
I visited both the USSR and Spain closely following each other in the mid 1980s when I was a kid. I remember thinking that the Soviets lived better than the most people in Spain. Just as a comparison, my own reflection, I have no stats to support that. Spain at the time had just come out of being a right wing dictatorship under Franco.
The USSR had many amazing achievements and inventions, just not in the area of consumer products.
Ramil, your fantastic system sounds good to me, the only problem I've seen so far is, we gotta invent an immortality pill to live till that day when we can see it happen. Anyway, the system where you can get any amount of anything you want, and where you can think in whatever way and you won't be persecuted for that seems to be the best solution humanity could ever think of. But would you mind telling me what the USSR system had to do in common with yours? That was just a regular totalitarian dictatorship, where people's needs were beneath the "state needs" - in fact the leaders' needs + there was a developed infrastructure that let the leaders have infinite control over people's minds and deeds. But nothing unusual, really, we all know what such systems look like, Orwell was able to see that over 60 years ago.
So, my point is, Ramil's system is the best to run as soon as it's able to run. From what can work now, capitalism is one of the best solutions, and the USSR system was one of the worst.
There will be no market if communism would be everywhereQuote:
Originally Posted by nulle
That was the INITIAL and NECESSARY goal of the Marx theory. He wanted communism to be world wide :)
you can imagine that US(or any other country with built capitalism) would consider it is as terrorism :)
I'm comparing the soviet-made calculators to the US-made calculators and the soviet-made cars with Italy-made cars. They are exactly the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Most of the major Western power riches which were gained that way were destroyed during the WWI and WWII. Japan have not done all that imperialist/colonialist/slavery stuff, but despite that it's one of the major innovative nations in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
I think we've been through that in several circles. The USSR had their peasants exploited in the way unimaginable to the sweatshop neo-colonialists. Those peasants had not even have the passports so they were unable to leave their place of living. And if they had done the trick to leave, they weren't accepted in the cities without the employment. And they were only hired to do the dirtiest job no regular city worker would do. The neo-colonialist sweatshops is fairly comparable to what it was.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
I agree. I think that what I said to nulle. There were a lot of inventions even in the consumer products area, but they were rarely implemented. Perhaps, one of the most famous example in the innovation area is the stealth technology which originates from Russia. It was rejected by the USSR bureaucrats, but it was successfully implemented by the US. We have all seen what effect the stealth bombers had.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Japan were major imperialists prior to WW2. They had all of Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria and lots of islands that I don't keep track of. They treated the Koreans and Manchurians more or less like slaves. Their know-how did not disappear just because they were defeated in the war.Quote:
Most of the major Western power riches which were gained that way were destroyed during the WWI and WWII. Japan have not done all that imperialist/colonialist/slavery stuff, but despite that it's one of the major innovative nations in the world.
After the war they did absolutely everything that the USA asked of them politically and they work fanatically hard. Hence they were able to create an export industry that did not start out as an inventor, but moved gradually towards that.
You mixed the cause and the consequensis here. We produce mainly raw materials because of the free trade and capitalism.Quote:
I think that is because the main business in Russia is still exporting raw materials and not production. Production requires innovation to stay competitive.
No market, then people will be teleporting them or something. Again as I said, let's wait till your thoughts are enough to create material stuff, and there are people who are ready to voluntarily work for other's welfare. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Doomer
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Marcus
"Yeah, it's George Bush's fault!" (c)
Japan were major imperialists prior to WW2. They had all of Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria and lots of islands that I don't keep track of. They treated the Koreans and Manchurians more or less like slaves. Their know-how did not disappear just because they were defeated in the war.Quote:
Most of the major Western power riches which were gained that way were destroyed during the WWI and WWII. Japan have not done all that imperialist/colonialist/slavery stuff, but despite that it's one of the major innovative nations in the world.
After the war they did absolutely everything that was asked of them politically and they work fanatically hard. Hence they were able to create an export industry that did not start out as an inventor, but moved gradually towards that.
That's true - my grandparent's passports belonged belonged to kolkhoz chairman - they were not allowed to move - especially because they have been deported and were considered "enemies of the state" by KGB.Quote:
Those peasants had not even have the passports so they were unable to leave their place of living.
If UK and other colonial powers colonized places with a lot lower living standards than their country - USSR did the opposite - they looted places that were richer than their country - Baltic States, Finland, Poland, Germany, Austria, etc...
That's why I put word "market" in quotes.Quote:
There will be no market if communism would be everywhere
If there will be no money and no market in capitalist sense, etc.
How new products will appear in stores?
How they will be manufactured and who will decide what to manufacture, what to replace, and what new to introduce?
Nowadays free market does that quite good - people "vote" with their wallets.
And Hanna - you mentioned sweatshops - but nowadays they are mostly in undemocratic and totalitarian states like China.
And after USSR collapse - we do not have to work in sweatshops - at least my family lives a lot better than we did under Soviet occupation.
Not quite. Today's export of raw materials is a business which is among the few surviving the crush of the USSR. The USSR had exported raw materials, especially oil to sustain the state at least since Khrushev's time. It reached the peak of production by the end of its existence in 1991:Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus
File:Top Oil Producing Counties.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raw materials were practically the only thing that West purchased from USSR - they did not need any other goods (maybe with some exceptions) produced in the USSR.Quote:
You mixed the cause and the consequenses here. We produce mainly raw materials because of the free trade and capitalism.
And how comes that other former USSR countries (that do not have oil or gas) can maintain higher standard of living than Russia without raw material export?
I guess if it would be an easy answer - we would have communism everywhere by now :)Quote:
Originally Posted by nulle
Part of communism is going to be restored in Russia, since Russia's head sanitary inspector Onischenko has proposed reintroducing the Soviet practice of compulsory prisoning for alcoholics. Now this practice is in action in Belarus.
That explains why I saw only 1 alcoholic in over 2 months in Belarus.
The police were practically charitable to him though - that was the amazing thing. Asked him if he was ok etc. He collapsed on the street and was very drunk.
They might have saved beating him up until they got to the prison, what do I know...
Really? Why do we have so many migrants from the former Soviet Union?Quote:
And how comes that other former USSR countries (that do not have oil or gas) can maintain higher standard of living than Russia without raw material export?
I think the chief doctor means special prison camps the ones where doctors torture their aloholic pacients with sulfa (sulfadiazine injections). My schoolmate was in such a camp for a year term, he said sulpha was real hell.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Are you serious? That is disgusting!
And a serious comment: People might think I have taken the position of the USSR in this discussion. I am doing that because I think that many people who are not Russian have misguided or incorrect information about the USSR, based on propaganda and exaggerations. I think it helps if a native English speaker (more or less) who has no sense of old patriotism etc invested, like me, takes the opposite perspective. Plus I genuinely do think there were some good sides to the USSR.
USSR is not the same as communism though. It was more a rather rigid type of socialism... or maybe "state capitalism" as my dad said. If there is ever a country that manages to achieve communism, it probably won't look anything like the USSR. It would probably be a very small country and a people with quite different national characteristics from the Russians.
However this kind of thing really makes me dislike aspects of the USSR!
Freezerbox Magazine - Inside the Zone
Ruthless, uncaring and incredibly unfair treatment of good people who had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Their own citizens. This was the kind of stuff that came out in the 1990s with a new horrible story every week. Growing up. I had considered myself marginally socialist before then, without even reflecting on it much. But this kind of stuff made me turn my back for a very long time!
While talking about world peace, solidarity and lots of rosy ideals, decent people were allowed to die in what almost certainly must have been an experiment in the effects of radiation.
I know that the USA has been doing stuff like this too, including cruel experiments on their own citizens. But I do think that the USSR did this on a bigger scale than the USA did, and more respect for its own citizens. (The US tends goes abroad for their evil deeds.) The USSR did stuff like this right in their own backyard and people had no fair chance to find out the truth and do something about it, or even protest.
Are you serious? What's the difference between the presence of the US in Afghanistan and the presence of the USSR in Afghanistan?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Trust you Croc to jump on the one sentence that stands out.
Yeah, I think the USSR should have left Afghanistan alone. I have mentioned that several times here in this forum.
Definitely a cause I sympathised with in my teens - I even had a little button for it on my school bag for a while. "Sovjet ut ur Afghanistan!" But it's over 20 years ago now. It's hard to muster up strong feelings about it.So much has been happening since then.
But at least it was next door, so they had some kind of half reasonable excuse of ensuring stability at their borders, whereas the USA has no excuse that makes any sense unless you factor in regional politics or the Afghanistan oil pipeline. I don't buy for a second that anyone in the US is so stupid that they thought they'd finish moslem terrorism by taking over Afghanistan.
But if you compare the USAs invasions in the last 20-30 years, with the record of the USSR, I think it's pretty obvious who is the most aggressive. They USSR did not operate at a rate of a new war or invasion every 2-3 years like the USA has been for a very long period of time.
The USSR had done it more effectively. One wave of a magic wand, and the entire Eastern Europe has now new communist governments. Any uprising in Checholosvakiya or Hungary, would have to welcome the Soviet Army. The US with all its aggressiveness has yet to achieve that outstanding record. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Oh yes, but it certainly seems we are trying :angel: We are the "Empire of Good" don't ya know.Quote:
The US with all its aggressiveness has yet to achieve that outstanding record.