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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Marriage in a nutshell is an economical alliance to create the environment and social security to procreate and raise children. With the emancipation of women and their increasing integration in job and business, and with fiscal subsidies for single parents in many countries, it is increasingly losing its purpose already now, under capitalism. That's why in many developed countries the number of weddings per year is massively in the decline, despite temporary pikes.
Under communism, the economical need to create said alliance is gone and thus, marriage will most likely either vanish completely, or will transform more in the direction towards what cohabiting is today. |
Interesting take but I just don't see marriage vanishing any time soon. On cohabitation, I don't see a huge difference as many cohabitants intermingle their lives to the same extent that married people do
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Sir Ralph
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Long live teh Schwampel!
Dec 2001
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Btw, did the commies ever contemplate simply declaring marriages null and void in the USSR? |
No, at the countrary, marriage was deemed very important.
This is not a contradiction, mind you that the USSR did not consider itself a communist country, but merely a socialist. The official doctrine was, that they were building communism (creating the economical basis, educating citizens etc. etc.), but even the most optimistic knew, that ideal communism would not be achieved in their lifetime by a long shot.
There were other silly attempts to try out features of communism nonetheless. At one point, basic food (= bread) was by law handed out without cost. Of course this attempt failed, because people started to feed animals with that cheap bread. A short time after, this wastage was cancelled by introducing a very moderate price for bread again. It did not cover cost to produce, however.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
link
When I was in the US, I frequently saw homeless people, many of them begged for scraps of food.
So unless this is a pathetic attempt at dismissing a widely known social problem, I have no idea what else you could be getting at. |
I cannot deny your stats but my experience with homeless in calgary has left me somewhat jaded. Calgary and Alberta is experiencing an employmnet BOOM. Any warm body can get a job and a lot of the employers (construction) don't care where you slept or if you are particularly clean. yet day after day I see the same homeless folks on nearby street corners. They might qualify as "hungry" but yet they seem to have plenty of money for cigarettes. Feeding addictions seems more important than feeding themselves. I'm not even sure how hungry they are as there are several shelters in Calgary and my understanding is that they feed the number that comes through the door
Now -- don't get on your high horse saying " flubber is saying all homeless are addicts"-- I AM NOT saying that as it would be incorrect. But a significant portion of homeless here do suffer addictions and/or mental illness such that if you handed them a crisp $20 each and every day, there is no guarantee that they would eat well that day. More likely it would mean a mini-bender which would decrease the liklihood they would eat since the shelters generally bar the obviously intoxicated.
Now is the US experience a ton different? Here it seems that the more affluent Calgary gets and the better the shelters become, the more people you can see on the street.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
The difference is that nannies only do it for money, but parents have chosen to do it for free. |
Obviously-- The same can be said for
mowing a lawn
finishing my basement
laying sod
have sex
etc etc.
All are things you can pay someone else to do or do yourself within your couple. What's your point?
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
I don't see anything wrong with subsidizing bread (free is obviously a problem). |
Not to threadjack but don't farmer supports/subsidies lead to grains being sold at prices that are inadequate to actually support the farmer? Doesn't this mean that food is in a very real way already subsidized? ( since without subsidies farmers would need a much higher price plus many farmers would exit the market)
Agree that giving anything free can be a problem. As soon as you give something "free", people value it less and will likely waste it
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
Most of the begging for food, is just to get money to feed their addictions. |
hmm but are they begging for food so that they don't HAVE to use their money for food?
here, I have never had a beggar ask for food-- they always ask for money. One guy asked for money since he "hadn't eaten in two days"-- I fished into my bag and gave him an orange. After I turned the corner, I watched him for a while . .. he never ate the orange. I don't know about you but if I hadn't eaten in days I would tend to eat pretty immediately once I did have food. He put it in his knapsack.
Maybe he was allergic to citris or was saving it for later but I tend to think he was simply lying.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
Yes, but the subsidy makes up for it. |
Isn't that what I said ?? ( putting a but in there makes it sound as if you thought you said something different-- bottom line is that grain is cheaper than it would be in a freer market)
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
I don't know if all of those benefit society. I'll give you "mowing your lawn" though. Let's say you enjoy mowing your lawn and you planted grass just to mow your own lawn. That's not the same kind of work as having a job where you have to mow lawns all day long. Maybe you like to mow lawns you you have chosen that for a career, but you still have to do it all day long, and sometimes you won't want to go to work, but will have to anyway. |
Is there a point in that litany of the obvious ? Seriously what are you trying to say. Is a person required to do things that benefit society?
oh and I kinda do enjoy mowing my lawn. Its just brainless activity with immediate feedback since you so quickly see the improvement
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Sir Ralph
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Long live teh Schwampel!
Dec 2001
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
I don't think the reason that TVs were so expensive was because bread was so cheap. The USSR was jacking the price up for TVs because bread was so cheap. The price of TVs was so high because the USSR couldn't make them efficiently and most resources were devoted to making weapons. |
Bread and TVs (or cars for that matter) are only placeholder words for basic goods and luxury goods. And the former (basic food, rent, normal clothing) were subsidized by the latter (TV sets, cars, delicacies, fashion clothes etc). The purpose of this was, that everyone was guaranteed to have basic goods affordable.
If you (the socialist government) make one side cheaper, you have to finance that by making the other side more expensive. In its basics, the pre-communist (socialist) economy was still very capitalistic. Workers wouldn't work without wage and everything had to be paid for.
So if you make basic goods ("bread"), cheaper by law, you have to give the baker or bread factory a compensation for the losses it makes by selling their product cheap. Where to take this money? Let's check the possibilities:
a) with tax money. Obviously pretty dumb. If you subsidize basic goods (which everyone needs) with taxes (which everyone pays), you didn't make them cheaper.
b) by borrowing money. Doesn't work on the long run, and was one of the reasons why the whole thing crashed.
c) by, gulp, making other goods more expensive. You can have your minimal needs for little cost, but if you want to be "teh 1337 d00d" and have a color TV, you pay for it, and dearly.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
The "will work for food" signs are popular here, but people just hand them money, and don't have them do any work. |
The guys here that want labour work just stand around in an area within a block or two from a homeless shelter. These folks are NOT the same individuals that have their hands out on the street corners
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
I think they should have to do their share. |
Theres the rub-- what is their share? I remember an old thread where you indicated that in your society, Mrs flubber would be REQUIRED to work? Is that where you are headed?
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Kidicious
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Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Bread and TVs (or cars for that matter) are only placeholder words for basic goods and luxury goods.
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OK
quote:
And the former (basic food, rent, normal clothing) were subsidized by the latter (TV sets, cars, delicacies, fashion clothes etc).
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No. It's a matter of resource allocation and supply, the money is only the means of allocation. TVs were scarce, so they needed to carry a high price, otherwise there would be shortages. This could be because there were not enough factories to make TVs or it could be because there is some input resource needed to make TVs that was in short supply. Now they may have needed that resource to make bread and so may have subsidized bread by making the resource available to farmers first, but this we don't know. We only know that the bread is sold at below cost. If this is what you are saying that didn't work, why are you saying that. Shouldn't the bread have been susidized.
quote:
If you (the socialist government) make one side cheaper, you have to finance that by making the other side more expensive. In its basics, the pre-communist (socialist) economy was still very capitalistic. Workers wouldn't work without wage and everything had to be paid for.
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I don't call using money capitalism. All of the resource allocation is planned, or at least most of it.
quote:
So if you make basic goods ("bread"), cheaper by law, you have to give the baker or bread factory a compensation for the losses it makes by selling their product cheap. Where to take this money? Let's check the possibilities:
a) with tax money. Obviously pretty dumb. If you subsidize basic goods (which everyone needs) with taxes (which everyone pays), you didn't make them cheaper.
b) by borrowing money. Doesn't work on the long run, and was one of the reasons why the whole thing crashed.
c) by, gulp, making other goods more expensive. You can have your minimal needs for little cost, but if you want to be "teh 1337 d00d" and have a color TV, you pay for it, and dearly. |
You're confusing the fact the the resource allocation was planned. So making bread cheaper did not make the supply of TVs shorter. The supply of both bread and TVs was set, and then the prices were planned to do two things.
1) distribute the goods efficiently (meaning fairly etc.)
2) bring in the money back into the system for continued use.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
Well if house work is not the same as having the resonsiblities of a real job, then yes. Imagine a planned economy where only the men had to have jobs. Of course that wouldn't work. You're talking about laying off almost half the workforce. |
I'm not talking about laying ANYBODY off. I just say that a person that does not wish to work and who have means of support should have that choice. I'm not advocating sit-on-your-ass welfare.
Currently in reality, Mrs. Flubber works part-time-- it seems to work well for us and I would have STRONG objection to anyone telling us we have to organize our life some other way.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
It seems acceptable to have one parent work part time to be available to get things done at home. |
My question is why does it have to be "acceptable" and to whom? Why shouldn't Mrs Flubber NOT work all if that is here wish and the family unit is willing to get by with less resources?
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14-06-2005 19:39
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