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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:20
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Rail and Utilities? These are so-called natural monopolies anyway. The problem you have, Spiff, is that you called for a lot more than that. You want all big companies to be owned by the State, IIRC. |
I supported this idea several years ago, but I think I've stopped supporting it before I joined 'Poly 
I admit that I'm quite liberal on the definition of "utilities": it encompasses the energy sector, it can encompass most of the finance and telecommunication sector, along with the usual ones (public transportation, education etc.). Besides, I think the State should be able to nationalize an activity that is instrumental to the overall economic well being (telecommunications are a good example) if the market fails at providing a fair access to all economic actors.
However, a computer game company is definitely not the matter of the State, no matter how big.
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:20
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
All companies are "responsible" in some fashion to their employees. But, if you cannot promote or pay differently based on performance, or fire or hire as needed, your company is doomed. |
A co-op doesn't prevent that (firing employees would probably be a last-resort thing however). Just like a democracy doesn't prevent the existence of a political hierarchy.
The hierarchy, however, will be acocuntable to the employees, instead of being accountable to the owners. As such, the company won't strive to squeeze the maximal financial rentability it can, but it will focus at providing its employees (managers included) with a good pay, and with good working conditions. If the manager is unable to reach the aims of the company (as expressed by the employees at the board of directors), then he becomes replaced. Nothing amazing with it, really.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Spiffor...I realize that your utopic vision does allow for more freedoms than all the others I've read about here, so this post only partially applies to your proposal...just so you know...
quote:
Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I can't own a computer or typewriter under communism?
You can, as long as you're not using them to produce value.
This is one of the things I find most absurd about the proposed system (Communism), by the way.
It's rediculous enough that the concept of "ownership" must be so artifically broken down and segmented
You may own the shirt, but not the loom that made it (even if you make one yourself--I'm guessing if this happened you'd be locked up, and your loom co-opted by the state as a heinous machine capable of enslaving another).
You may own the computer, but only if you PROMISE not to use it to make a profit.
You may enter into a business to make money, but ONLY if you don't hire another person to help you (ie, a contract worker, with no stake in the business) -- EVEN IF they are a 10,000% willing participant in the arrangement.
All these layers of artificial constructs and constraints seem both supurfulous and silly to me.
If it's okay to own the shirt, then it's okay to own the loom. Same mechanism. Same principle.
There's nothing inherently immoral about the loom, just as there's nothing inherently immoral about the shirt.
To ascribe it with such characteristics is pure....silliness.
To pretend to be shocked at its evil nature is equally silly.
To pretend that "the market" does not exist is an equal folly. You may drive it underground, but it WILL exist so long as human beings exist, which I"m hoping is a right long time yet.
Also to pretend that the market is somehow bad or immoral is rediculous.
It's no more bad or immoral than electricity.
As a mechanism, it lacks the capacity to be bad or immoral....it simply "is."
As a means of establishing the value of any particular good or service, there's nothing better. You can pretend otherwise till the cows come home, but there's yet to be a demonstrably better price setter. Until someone can show me one, I'll stand by my conviction.
Individuals don't OWE society anything. Society exists BECAUSE of individuals, not the other way around. Society is/was our first construct. The Market was a close second, even if we didn't realize its full power for scores of centuries. Society is, and should be, a pay to play proposition, and it is, for the most part. Pay your taxes, reap some benefits.
It should NOT be about restricting individual choice and freedom unless the restricted actions impede the choices and freedoms of another, and for the most part in Western nations, this is the way it is.
To dream up a "utopia" in which there are tons of restraints and restrictions on who can own what, and for what specific purposes implies a mind-boggling beureaucracy that sticks its nose CONSTANTLY into the private lives of its citizens....supposedly for their own good.
This "Watcher Society" is a must-have element in every communist paradise I've seen so far, as it is the ONLY way one can make sure that nobody is "exploiting" their fellow man, and it, more than anything else, is the REASON that the society will invariably become one where those in power rule from a base of fear, rather than the rule of law.
And of course, there's "no need" for anyone to watch the Watchers, because they will be above temptation and corruption. No matter the vast power they wield to destroy the lives of those they lord over, they will be beyond reproach, and their actions always guided with the purest of motivations.
Has such purity EVER existed in any human society?
I think not, and yet....we are expected to believe that "this time" it surely will! (after the revolution, of course, when all the malcontents are dealt with in the kindest way possible).
You (communists in general) tell me that I'm being shamelessly exploited by the guy who owns the company I work for....that I'm being bled dry at the altar of capitalism.
I say, I HOPE TO GOD that man keeps right on exploiting me for YEARS to come! Not only do I enjoy the work I do there, but I believe that I am compensated fairly for my time and work. I am an utterly willing participant in my so-called "exploitation" and think the term is offensive when used to describe my work environment.
You tell me that I can labor privately and make a living, but if I hire someone to help (no matter how willing they may be), I'll be exploiting them and this is amoral and wrong.
I tell you that the person I hire will have a brain, and be capable of making informed decisions, and IF I am not offering a sufficient incentive to come to work for me, then surely he will not! It would make no sense for him to.
And that is the beautiful mechanism of the market. Simple. Pure. Beyond debate.
What I take issue with most of all is the fact that the Communist folks feel this urgent, insatiable NEED to control the lives of others.
Somehow, they feel that the poor, defenseless average man is incapable of defining his own wants and desires, and that these must be mandated by the benevolent and all-knowing state.
Somehow, the poor, downtrodden average man is incapable of negotiating a good deal for himself, based on his own wants and desires (things that the state seems to believe they know better than the individual himself, which is a beautiful trick of mind-reading, I must say!).
I say this is nonsense spouted by people who have the desire to control the lives of others, and will say whatever is necessary to sway people to their position, and then to chain them to the alter of an all powerful state machine, and using history as a guide, my perception of communism falls pretty closely in line with the historic realities.
So when the big red horse is trotted out for the umpteenth time, I can't help but wonder what's changed. And then Kid shows up, and I realize the answer is:
Not much.
Not much at all...
-=Vel=-
PS: For the record, of all the proposals I've ever read, Spiffor's seems far and away the most palatable. The only big thing I take issue with is the fact that I can bust my arse for ten years writing a book, but the moment I hire my first full time employee (who wasn't around for ANY of that other stuff during the past ten years), he gets an automatic 50% stake in my company).
I'm doubting that the same thing would apply if we were talking straight capital investments. That is to say, if I invest a quarter of a million dollars to start a business and my partner invests eighty-five cents, I doubt you'd give him an equal say in the business, so why should my labor, over and above the new guy's not count?
But that's another story...
-V.
Last edited by Velociryx on 20-05-2005 at 15:44
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:20
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quote:
Somehow, they feel that the poor, defenseless average man is incapable of defining his own wants and desires, and that these must be mandated by the benevolent and all-knowing state. |
The poor man is actually much, much weaker in a negociation than the one who has options.
I'll be using an extreme example to show what poverty can do to your bargaining power:
Tell me Vel, if you were poor to the point that you couldn't guarantee food and shelter to your children (ie, all your money-worthy stuff has already been sold long ago, and the banks won't lease you a penny). Let's assume that the only job opportunity in your area is to work under the orders of an utter ***** (outrageously low pay, way too much work, dangerous working conditions). What would you do? Would you accept being exploited by the bastard, or will you let your kids starve to death?
Sadly, this situation is not an hypothetical in most countries in the world.
Let's hit closer to home with another example. Let's say you have been working for 30 years at an office job, as an oridnary clerk. You're not exceptionally skilled, and your "general" skills (skills that can be used at other workplaces) have dulled with time: you are good with your company's firmware, and with your company's working methods. But it would be very difficult to adapt to a new job (especially considering that when you're 50-60 years old, your learning abilities are weak)
Now, the company decides to lower its human costs. There will be a slew of people who'll get fired, and a slew of people who'll get their wages cut. For the company, you're typically among the expandables. You, OTOH, have grown dependent of the company to offer you and your family the standard of living you're used to.
The HR guy calls you in his office to negociate how you will contribute to the downsizing effort. Do you really think you're strong enough to rboker a good deal for yourself?
In developed countries, there is an increasing trend of having two kind of workers: indispensable (skilled) ones, and expandable ones. The companies heavily invest in their "indispensable" workforce, because these employees are a strong asset, and they don't want to lose such an asset (especially to the hands of the competition). Many skilled jobs are like that.
The pendant is the "expandable" workforce: cashiers, masons, low-level clerks, dish-washers, assembly line workers, MacJobs etc. Who cares if such a person is disgruntled? Who cares if she wants to leave? She'd be very easy to replace, and she has much more to lose by leaving the job than the company has to lose. As a result, this "expandable" person is extremely weak in negociations.
Edit: is "pr*ck" such a bad smear word that it gets censored 
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Master Spiffor! I agree with nearly everything you said in your post! You are correct...it is quite possible that any of those things (and worse!) can happen, but are not the following also true:
* A worker, no matter how unskilled, will almost NEVER find himself with only ONE job option (as your first example indicated). This MIGHT hold true for someone living in some extremely rural location with no means of transportation, no friends, no family, no means of getting away from the area. This tends to be true because there are LOTS of unskilled jobs, and by extension, lots of unskilled workers to fill them, so while your job at any particualr location may be somewhat tenuous, if you lose it, it's generally pretty easy to get another low-skill job.
* Further, people do not exist in a vaccuum. That is to say, we are dynamic. When I was sixteen, I was only qualified to work in low skilled jobs. I did not come from a family of wealth or affluence, and yet...despite my relative lack of opportunity, I was able, all by my powerless self, bootstrap my way AWAY FROM the unskilled type job, and into a highly technical field. I did not need a state babysitter to assist me in this (no student loans taken, no nanny state paying for my education). I did not need a rich uncle's trust fund. I did it by virtue of focus and hard work. In this, I am hardly unique.
Your second example brings up two distinct points that are worthy of much discussion. The first is the elderly worker who has been with the same company for a number of years. While this situation USED TO BE true in almost every case, in our modern economy, it is all but unheard of. Thus, is it not more likely that said worker will have job hopped repeatedly over the course of his career, and his learning skills will be a good deal sharper than your worst case scenario might indicate? Secondly, having had 30+ years of productive earning, is it beyond the realm of possibility that this worker has perhaps done even a smidgeon of retirement planning (above and beyond what pension plan he may be enrolled in, and his various other benefits)? In short, while this MAY BE some cause for concern for 0.0000000002% of a given nation's population, is that truly sufficient cause to throw out the entire economic system and rebuild it from scratch, especially when there are simpler solutions to address this specific issue?
The essence of what I'm saying is that the problems you describe DO exist in the current system. Yes. There's no denying it.
However....
The specific cases you mention reside "at the margins" as it were, and impact a relatively small number of people (people who are apparently incapable of learning new skills, or elderly workers who have not planned for their impending retirement).
I contend that this subset of people constitutes an insufficient number to rip down an entire economic sub system and rebuild it from scratch when there are other means at our disposal for caring for people that fall into these categories.
-=Vel=-
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Kidicious
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Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:20
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
* A worker, no matter how unskilled, will almost NEVER find himself with only ONE job option (as your first example indicated). This MIGHT hold true for someone living in some extremely rural location with no means of transportation, no friends, no family, no means of getting away from the area. This tends to be true because there are LOTS of unskilled jobs, and by extension, lots of unskilled workers to fill them, so while your job at any particualr location may be somewhat tenuous, if you lose it, it's generally pretty easy to get another low-skill job.
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 You're wacked.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Kid...one question regarding your last post. Do you understand that human constructs/inventions (such as electricity and economic systems) exist to serve the needs of human beings, and not...I repeat NOT the other way around?
The reason I ask this question is that by virtue of your utopian society being predicated on forced work camps because it is "more efficient" and therefore, "better," you realize that you are putting living, breathing human beings into bondage to service the artificial construct that is the economic system, and by extension, the state which controls it utterly.
You do realize this, yes?
Further, do you not see the contradiction that occurs each time you talk about your "just" society AND your forced labor camps in the same breath, or do you see no disconnect between the two? If not, I would be curious to hear some explanation as to how the two can co-exist.
I'm sure your comrades might even be curious about that.
-=Vel=-
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:20
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Vel:
1. I wouldn't say that there are LOTS of unskilled jobs. Actually, I'm looking for unskilled jobs these days, and there definitely aren't tat many, at least in Stuttgart.
When I look for work on the internet, I find only proposal for skilled jobs. When I go to the job-center, most unskilled jobs are paid on a monthly 400€ basis (My survival income is 450€).
I have worked for 6€ a hour, and I felt it was very little. However, I've accepted to work again for the same people without demanding more, simply because they could easily find a replacement for me if I got to pissy. I have seen an offer on a 4€ per hour basis, and I'd have taken it, simply because I need the money (I was busy on the days where the job was to take place tho).
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:20
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
PS: For the record, of all the proposals I've ever read, Spiffor's seems far and away the most palatable. The only big thing I take issue with is the fact that I can bust my arse for ten years writing a book, but the moment I hire my first full time employee (who wasn't around for ANY of that other stuff during the past ten years), he gets an automatic 50% stake in my company).
I'm doubting that the same thing would apply if we were talking straight capital investments. That is to say, if I invest a quarter of a million dollars to start a business and my partner invests eighty-five cents, I doubt you'd give him an equal say in the business, so why should my labor, over and above the new guy's not count?
But that's another story...
-V. |
Vel, details, details. Commies are interested in equality, period. Justice and common sense are irrelevant. Commies in a sense are like the Borg. Single minded and very stupid.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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Spiffor: Depends on how you define the term and where you're looking.
General office work is technically "semi-skilled" except that it takes all of 30 minutes of study and perhaps a week of practice IF you don't already know how to type to obtain said skills. I know this to be true, because I've taught a dozen or so people enough office skills in under an hour to get them a basic office job (all of whom already knew how to type at least 30wpm).
While it's certainly true that some areas have a more abundant wellspring of low to semi-skilled jobs, I've never run across a city that didn't have several handfuls at once, and generally found a quite easy time getting work.
In fact, it's hard NOT to land a no or semi-skilled job if you put your mind to finding one. When I was much younger, and those were the kinds of jobs I was looking for, I used a multi-pronged approach that included standard walkins and app filings, knocking on doors to ASK if there was anything I could do (surprisingly, this landed me a TON of jobs that were entirely unadvertised...small businesses are generally hurting for help, but can't afford to advertise that fact), and temp/contract agencies (really easy way to get lots of good job offers).
I still do that to this day, in fact...using my old contacts to land the occassional at-home data entry job to pick up a few extra bucks when needed. Very handy.
Ned: I don't think any of the posters who have contributed here are stupid, but I do think that most are misguided, and overly caught up with the notion of inventing a wholly new system when there are other, easier remedies that could be applied and be just as effective, if not moreso.
SOME of the ideas fronted here though, if selected by the communist party leadership for enactment, would require a level of attrocity so vast that it'd make Hitler and Stalin look like choir boys, and THAT is scary....
-=Vel=-
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:20
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So let me make SURE I get this right, cos I definitely don't want to put words in your mouth:
You want to create a system where people are FORCED TO LABOR for you and your ruling elite (ie, the state tells you where you will work, and what job you will do--which, by extension means telling you where you will live, cos if I'm living in SC, and Kidicious Prime's goons tell me I'm off to work in the coal mines of Virginia, methinks that'd be a bit of a commute from here...thus, I would be forcibly relocated as well).
You want to create a system where people have no power of negotiation whatsoever (you get paid what the state SAYS you get paid, and you LIKE it, by golly!) (I mean hell, there may be some people who can't negotiate as well as others, so of course, the obvious solution is to reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator and remove the ability to negotiate from EVERYONE so it's all nice and fair. Equal. Right Kid? Am I learning now?)
You want to create a system of Justice for the people you enslave. A Democratic society (so long as nobody votes to change how your utopia works, or to free themselves from the bondage you have imposed....what happens then...do we demand a do over, or just "deal with them"--in the kindest way possible of course...I know that none of the revolutions mentioned here would EVER harm a hair on anyone's wee widdle head!)
So essentially, you're espousing state-mandated slavery for the entire populace (except for the watchers and the party bosses, who would have to be above such maltreatment in order to do their jobs properly, of course), and this is....more like it is now?
See...this is where I get confused, cos if it's already like that now, then why do you want to make it more like it already is? Are you an elitist or something? (sorry, just had to use a Kid phrase there!  )
Seriously....you have said (more than once) that you want to force people to work.
In order to do that, you NEED some sort of infrastructure to carry out and enforce your will.
Since the state will control the economy, it is logical to assume that the state will also control the means to enforce your will.
That being the case, the people are NOT working for themselves, but working because the state tells them to.
This ain't exactly rocket science Kideroo...it's what you SAID.
So if the people are being forced to work by the state, how is that freedom again?
Still waiting for the answers to my other questions too! 
-=Vel=-
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20-05-2005 02:30
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