Thread: Communism

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

So we're not talking about some unknown undeserving blob out in the street. We're talking about our loved ones.

Well, that is true, but the same principle applies in a family. If you are providing for your children, you want to maximize the value that may be gotten from them, so you will most likely work them pretty hard with chores and such. It's all about utility vs. cost.

Excluding awful carelessness (like the previous poster who hinted that children were a result of inebriation), we can look at the economic equations of child rearing as balancing the perceived cost vs. the perceived utility. The perceived utility has to be split into practical utility and sentimental utility. Every child has some cost associated with it. Now, hopefully every child will have some sort of sentimental utility that offsets their inherent cost. (we discussed this previously by categorizing children as luxury items, e.g. they cost more than they are worth but you keep them around because you enjoy them) Apart from the sentimental utility, all but the most spoiled children will have some practical utility as well. You can make them cook, clean, take out the trash, paint the fence, change your oil, etc. There is no limit to the usefulness except your imagination.

It's easy to see that the reason people have children is that a child's practical and sentimental utility exceeds its cost. If not, it seems sensible that people would recognize a bad investment and cut their losses. This is different from communism where people's needs are met even if they have ZERO utility.

On a curious aside, this brings up an interesting argument about how many children one should produce. Surely after having many children, you reach a point of diminishing returns both in practical and sentimental terms, eh?

Originally Posted by jockeys

Well, that is true, but the same principle applies in a family. If you are providing for your children, you want to maximize the value that may be gotten from them, so you will most likely work them pretty hard with chores and such. It's all about utility vs. cost.

Excluding awful carelessness (like the previous poster who hinted that children were a result of inebriation), we can look at the economic equations of child rearing as balancing the perceived cost vs. the perceived utility. The perceived utility has to be split into practical utility and sentimental utility. Every child has some cost associated with it. Now, hopefully every child will have some sort of sentimental utility that offsets their inherent cost. (we discussed this previously by categorizing children as luxury items, e.g. they cost more than they are worth but you keep them around because you enjoy them) Apart from the sentimental utility, all but the most spoiled children will have some practical utility as well. You can make them cook, clean, take out the trash, paint the fence, change your oil, etc. There is no limit to the usefulness except your imagination.

It's easy to see that the reason people have children is that a child's practical and sentimental utility exceeds its cost. If not, it seems sensible that people would recognize a bad investment and cut their losses. This is different from communism where people's needs are met even if they have ZERO utility.

On a curious aside, this brings up an interesting argument about how many children one should produce. Surely after having many children, you reach a point of diminishing returns both in practical and sentimental terms, eh?

Do you HAVE children? It takes WAY more effort and time to get children to do this kind of thing than it does to do it yourself.

It's a LOT easier and faster to hire someone or do it yourself than to have children do this.

The Emotional/sentimental value is a good point though.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Do you HAVE children? It takes WAY more effort and time to get children to do this kind of thing than it does to do it yourself.

It's a LOT easier and faster to hire someone or do it yourself than to have children do this.

The Emotional/sentimental value is a good point though.

No, and this is why. At this point in my life, the sentimental utility of a child is not enough to offset their cost. Maybe when I'm older, I'll feel different.

As to getting kids to do chores, quit feeding them if they won't work. That's what my folks always did... forgot to take out the trash? Guess I'm going to bed without supper. Definitely helped to jog my memory the next time it was trash day.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

Thats the thing about "communism" and why it won't work. If people excel, and invent a better mousetrap say they expect to be rewarded. Communism says the individual is unimportant and the whole is all. So if you have twenty dollars each should have one, if your mousetrap makes an extra ten you only get fifty cents and so does everyone else. YOU are not rewarded for your effort any more than those who made no effort are.

That is true only if the sole motivation of why people do or do not do something is material reward. Obviously this is not the case in real life. Consider this forum as a proof.

I am not disputing whether communism will work or not, just that sociology and economics is much more complicated than the usual simplistic arguments about cost and benefit. Not only people's decisions are not purely rational, but even when a decision is rational, the values that go into it are extremely subjective.

And every person I've seen who has been against social security is only until they get to benefit from it, at which point they would gladly accept whatever benefits they can get - I guess the principles against a bad system are overweighted by the ones that if it exists may as well get some use of it.

Social security is a pyramid scheme that will eventually collapse under its own weight, just like every other pyramid scheme has before it. That's a whole different topic.

The reason communism will not succeed, in my opinion, is because once people get a taste of absolute power, they will not let it go. The USSR had this. After a "communist" system was put in place, did Stalin step down? No...he just kept on doing what he was doing.

Another reason it won't work, is it's hard for people to follow an ideal without a figure-head, if you will. People need a leader. Ideally, communism is entirely without a single leader.

Socialism is a much more realistic political program. I am not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's easier to achieve (and many nations such as France, Italy, Sweden, etc. have) and the USA is not far from it. We'll get frighteningly closer if Hillary gets the big seat as well. I think if that happens, I'll go join our friends in the great white north for a few years until the damage she does can be undone. That's also another topic.

Capitalism, in it's true open-market form, is the way to go, if you ask me. But then again, nobody's asking me, so take it for what it's worth.

(Side note: Fascism isn't the extreme version of conservativism. And don't give me the tired old lines your history/poli-sci teachers gave you. They just prove me right. Bake on that one for a while.)

There was never communist system in place in any country. As far as I'm aware, all official doctrines in 'communist countries' were that they are at the socialism state, moving towards the next stage - communism.

I don't know enough philosophy to comment on what really communism is, whether it needs leaders or is supposed to be completely decentralized. And I don't really see how the statement about power precludes any other political system. Capitalism is as far as I understand economic, not political system. But free market is an ideal - as long as you have political structures that can change the rules, the economic entities will try to influence them for their own benefit.

But at the end of the day each society decides what their political and economic system will be. If Hillary Clinton becomes a president that means that enough people voted for her and want her to be. Just like when George W Bush won the election. The rest can vote again next time, or go to the great white north (if said north will have them) and wait till stuff changes.

Taking this in the "hijack" direction...

I think the best thing that I, as a Republican, can hope for is Hillary winning the Democratic nomination. I would love to see the landslide that would ensue for McCain. It'd be a sight to behold.

You're right. Capitalism is an economic philosophy, not so much a political one. However, political philosophies influence economic and social ones, so a political philosophy that would permit free-trade capitalism is already on the right track. I like Republicanism (not what most people think) moreso than a Democratic state.

I think we got a pretty good thing now, although I'd like to see states with some more rights and government with a few less. I'm happy enough though.

Originally Posted by kasperitis

Socialism is a much more realistic political program. I am not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's easier to achieve (and many nations such as France, Italy, Sweden, etc. have) and the USA is not far from it. We'll get frighteningly closer if Hillary gets the big seat as well. I think if that happens, I'll go join our friends in the great white north for a few years until the damage she does can be undone. That's also another topic.

living in a socialist country I can assure you that the USA isn't anywhere near being a socialist country.
Btw, Hillary will have to try really hard if she wants to do as much damage as dubya.

Originally Posted by Bruno

living in a socialist country I can assure you that the USA isn't anywhere near being a socialist country.
Btw, Hillary will have to try really hard if she wants to do as much damage as dubya.

You have a point, but I feel that we're talking about different kinds of damage. Hillary's damage scares me. Dubya's damage can be undone in a year.

uhmm, i'm puzzled what are you really afraid of? what is that long term screwup that Hilary Clinton can do that will never be undone?

And if you are afraid of the power of the president, perhaps the political system isn't good enough. I mean you can't love a system only because you like the people who are currently in power. It goes both ways, really.
If George W Bush can claim more power for the presidency that power stays there for when the other side gets to rule.