General Discussions

**serandfae** · 10-12-2007, 12:58 PM

So, why not follow the pristine communist example of social engineering--that is, if you're a high enough party member you can have whatever you want, and if you aren't you have to go to the Mafia to get food and diapers for your kid?

**seolman** · 10-12-2007, 01:26 PM

Every man made system has it's flaws and greed always enters into the mix.

Democracy - should be one man one vote - but it takes so many millions to get elected in most 'democratic' countries only those who cater to the rich will be able to stand for election.

Socialism - it would be great if everyone had the same access to health care and other services - but many aren't prepared to wait, so a capitalist system emerges and support for the socialist ideal wanes.

Communism - some people are just more equal than others (Animal Farm says it all - another theory that doesn't work due to human greed).

Monarchy - depends on who is ruling at the time - benevolent vs. tyrant.

There is nothing wrong with Capitalism per se - it's the capitalists who determine the outcome of their system. Garnering profits under a system with little or no government control can lead to the greedy and unscrupulous taking advantage of others (such as boiler rooms or ponzi schemes). It's just another system with flaws like any other. Some argue more government control is needed to protect the ignorant from the sharks. Others argue business should be left alone and buyers should be more careful and laws enforced to prosecute the sharks. It's a debate that will continue, but the major problem in almost any system is human greed and lust for power. You cannot legislate a conscience so IMHO some sort of checks and balances are necessary due to the level of sophistication con artists have achieved and the heavy influence money has on the political system.

**Learning Newbie** · 10-12-2007, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

Let's pretend of all the people here at the forum I'm the true seo master expert guru. I know it's a stretch, but pretend that's my ability. According to communism I should spend all my time optimizing everyone's sites because that's my ability. Meanwhile everyone else gets to sit back and watch me work.

But I think this is a limited view. The tip of the iceberg. Let's pretend

You are the SEO czar.
Adam is the layout wizard.
LadyNRed is the markup coder.
Tripy is the PHP programmer.
Forrest creates and supplies all the photos.
Serandfae is the reality check
Seolman is the humorist
Whym hosts everything

Suddenly, it stops being you doing all the work while everybody else slacks off, and we have a pretty darn good team here. Everybody is contributing to their best ability, and everybody at least in this group will pull their full weight because they know like and respect their team members. And because they know together they're a formidable team.

This really isn't very different from capitalism, I'd argue the differences are more subtle than they seem. (I'll also remind everyone the USSR was a dictatorship and not real communism. People were assigned jobs, usually for no good reason.) Both systems depend on a division of labor - the difference comes down to how that happens. One strong benefit of communism is that we put an end to the situation where the smartest people become lawyers instead of teachers because society puts more $$$ value on the less important profession.

Also I think people are wrong to assume communism can't work because people are lazy. This ignores workaholics. Many people are willing to work much harder and longer than the rest of us, and get personal satisfaction out of it. Under capitalism, a lot of them do not get promoted because they're so important, they can't be moved out of their current job. And yet they continue to be the cornerstone of their office. So the reason workaholics are what they are usually isn't money, they're driven by something else. I've never seen any convincing argument why this would be different under communism, and I've rarely seen people address the question.

I'd be curious what people think of the thought above?

**serandfae** · 10-12-2007, 06:11 PM

Well, only if there were 147 of us, max.

I'm the reality check?

Y'all are so doomed....hee hee, heh....

**vangogh** · 10-13-2007, 12:04 AM

John what happened? I left last night what had turned into a conversation of three and look how many new voices we have.

My point with the seo is still valid. You can break it down as far as you want into specific tasks, but it's still in the end the same people who end up doing the majority of the work. Maybe the task seems smaller in theory, but there would end up being more smaller tasks and just as much work.

In a system where people really work according to their ability and get according to their need the incentive is to not have ability, but rather to have need. People with ability will learn quick enough never to show their ability and the end result is the overall system produces less and every individual ends up with less.

Capitalism, while again not perfect, is designed to reward those who produce the most with the most. That's the difference. The people with the most ability might end up doing the most work, but they are also getting the most return on their work. If you're producing the most you are also increasing the overall wealth of the system the most.

You can look at a company like Microsoft and say they're a monopoly and they use underhanded business practices. I'd even agree with you. But they also keep a lot of people employed and not just at Microsoft. Think or all the products and services that don't exist without Microsoft. That's a lot of wealth getting put back into the economy that improves the lives of many people.

The idea of the workaholic is an interesting one and perhaps it's true that some will work just as hard under any system. I doubt it would be enough people to keep the system going. There's also no guarantee the workaholics would be working on things that increased production. I know I'm capable of putting a lot of time into things that aren't particularly useful to anyone, but me.

**Learning Newbie** · 10-13-2007, 03:05 PM

I think we're heading into uncharted waters. This is where I wish I hadn't spent so much time as a database programmer, and put my attention into something worth while to society. I was playing with some evolution software, like the game of life but aeons ahead. I can tell you anything you want to know about SQL Server 6.5 to 2005, but I can't build my own model to test these ideas we're talking about. That would at least lend some support to one theory or the other.

Workaholics are one example. And I know the programmer types I talk to and hang out with, minor promotions are the best they can hope for. Senior Developer is the top of the food chain. And it's true they make good money, but the project managers telling them what to do when make double, and do no actual work. It seems like capitalism would predict the programmers are rewarded because they're valuable to the company, but they're so valuable they can't be replaced or it would be too much upheaval. So they linger. A lot of them work on because they think they're Atlas, coding with the weight of the company on their shoulders.

That's the kind of motivation I'm talking about. Walmart knows this, they use the principal to cheat workers out of their overtime. As long as they don't hire enough staff, their people stay late (off the clock!) to finish up. In Walmart's case it's self preservation, if the people think the company will shut down and they'll loose their job. But with the programmers, I don't think that's it. I think it's more work ethic - they've been "tasked" with something and they're going to see it done.

But there's an entirely other set of motivation. You like marketing, you think it's fascinating. For the same reason I used to think economics was crap until I met you and Forrest and Adam, then I learned it's mass psychology, not math. Think for a minute about Chuck Berry, or any great musician, even a lot of actors. How many of them pushed and applied to get their career, and how many were "discovered"?

Why do kids play Little League Baseball for free? Why do parents volunteer as coach or umpire for free? Look what the lowest paid Yankee makes! Everybody has things they love to do. Course a lot of people love staring at pornography, but a lot of people enjoy doing things that are productive for society. Again I wish I knew some kind of breakdown. But coming back to you and marketing, I bet a lot of people following their hearts won't be able to hide their interest and aptitude.

**vangogh** · 01:20 AM

I was thinking about workaholics and in some ways I consider myself one. But if I didn't have to I wouldn't necessarily spend my time working on the things I do now.

I do like marketing, but in truth what I really like is learning. I love understanding how the physical world works and how the social world works and under any system I would still learn as much as I could about both.

But I don't really feel the need to share that learning. I'm always happy to answer someone's questions if I think I know the answer, but I'd also be fine learning all I could and never letting on that I know.

I think workaholics are driven for themselves and not necessarily for anyone else. I think it's capitalism that gives the motivation to share that work with the rest of the world.

I'm not the world's most proficient programmer, but if I was I would probably program all sorts of things for the challenge and the fun and I might even set my entire house to run off programs I wrote. I wouldn't feel the need though to share any of that programming with my neighbor. The joy is in the doing and chances are when I was done with one program I'd move on to the next one. What gets people to share their work is the profit motive.

Now I know people will share for things other than profit and I will too. Hopefully I've demonstrated that with my posting history here, but John I wouldn't spend extra time sharing with more than a few close friends and family members if I didn't think there was something in it for me.

I agree there are a lot of needless project managers, but they do a job even if it doesn't seem like it. It's not easy to get a group of people to work individually toward the same goal. Someone needs to guide them and that's supposedly what the project manager does. I agree though that many don't do that.

Kids play baseball because it's fun. Parents volunteer because they want to help their children. We all have things we love to do, but those things aren't always the most productive for society.

Yeah I enjoy marketing, but if you let me do what I loved I'd be playing baseball too.

I think it would be much easier than you think to hide interest and aptitude. I'm not saying I wouldn't do all the same things under a communist system. I likely would do many of them, but I wouldn't let on that I knew because doing so would enslave me to the system. I would just do them on my own.

**Learning Newbie** · 10-18-2007, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

I think workaholics are driven for themselves and not necessarily for anyone else. I think it's capitalism that gives the motivation to share that work with the rest of the world.

I'm not the world's most proficient programmer, but if I was I would probably program all sorts of things for the challenge and the fun and I might even set my entire house to run off programs I wrote. I wouldn't feel the need though to share any of that programming with my neighbor. The joy is in the doing and chances are when I was done with one program I'd move on to the next one. What gets people to share their work is the profit motive.

This is a really fascinating thought. And it seems true, based on my bit of observation anyway. Very good point!

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

Kids play baseball because it's fun. Parents volunteer because they want to help their children. We all have things we love to do, but those things aren't always the most productive for society.

This is a topic I've been meaning to bring up. Much as I love plenty of sports, but especially baseball (I cheer for the Yankees, and whoever's playing against the Mets), this is a good example. Pro sports honestly contribute nothing to society. Neither does Britney Spears. And look how richly both are rewarded under capitalism. Now compare this to an elementary school teacher helping kids learn to read. I think capitalism has done an overwhelmingly terrible job reflecting value to society. Many of the things capitalism values most are harmful to society.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

I'm not saying I wouldn't do all the same things under a communist system. I likely would do many of them, but I wouldn't let on that I knew because doing so would enslave me to the system. I would just do them on my own.

Speaking of being enslaved to the system, how do you feel about wage tax? We call it income tax, even though it only applies to income made on work (sweat) but not on things like capitol gains? Don't you think it's fair to say it's a form of slavery for a government to take the first cut of your labor and productivity? Taxing land ownership is another story, because there's a finite amount of land for us all to share, and it makes sense when a company or individual takes a piece away from everybody they should reimburse everybody for this. But wage taxes are much harder to justify. Also, I think wage slavery, where much of the population lives check to check and depends for their food and shelter on their employer, while not truly slavery, is as bad for society as a whole as the communist arrangement.

Not that any of this will change anything, but it is a fair question to ask whether any economic system thrives on some type of slavery or other.

**vangogh** · 10-20-2007, 12:18 AM

John I'm going to disagree with you and say that sports and yes even Brittany contribute something to society. Not in the ordinary way you think of production, but entertainment is an essential part of society.

If there was nothing to entertain us it would be a rather dull place, a lot more depressing, and a lot less work being done.

Think of all the jobs that exist due to sports. With baseball there are 750 major players in the major leagues, but there are many many more in the minor leagues. Add in all the managers, coaches, assistants, trainers, etc. Now think of all the people who work in the stadiums and the organizations. Next consider all the industries built around sports, etc, etc,

That's a lot of people employed and a lot of money flowing through the economy. All those people pay taxes (except maybe Pete Rose) and those people also take use their pay checks to buy other goods and services allowing more people to have pay checks.

The wage tax issue is a tough one and I really can't claim to understand enough how they all work. Now if I'm not mistaken income taxes aren't part of laissez faire capitalism. They would seem more socialist to me of anything.

I certainly don't like paying them and watching so much hard earned money go away. At the same time I'm happy to support some of the social programs I hope the money goes to.

I don't like how people have to live from check to check, but that's also a more complicated issue. I know many people who live check to check only because they overspend in between the arrival of each check. I realize that's not the case with everyone though.

I've also known some people who probably didn't even deserve the check to check lifestyle they have since they did absolutely nothing productive to earn it. Again that's not everyone.

You might be right about some form of slavery existing in all economic systems. I would hope there's a system where it doesn't have to be present.

My favorite economic system is actually the fictional economy on Star Trek. Though that one is really confusing since in some places there's no currency of any kind and in others you do need some form of currency to buy a drink. I guess that's ok for a fictional economy where science has figured out how to produce enough so no one ever wants for anything and everyone has learned to respect themselves, each other, and the system.

**Elvin** · 10-20-2007, 01:11 AM

Do you think that capitalism running well? It is your own idea that communism is great idea in theory. Can you explain how communism is not practical? And can you tell me one thing that theory has no relation with practice? Then why we research on theory?

Quote:

Originally Posted by NullPointer

Given the alternatives, I support capitalism. I'm not sure any economic system in use is truely capitalist though.

Communism is a great idea in theory, its just that no one implemented the way it was intended.

**CSS4Life** · 10-20-2007, 06:03 AM

Communism hasn't been implemented as intended because humans are flawed. They are greedy. They are lazy. The government don't want to give up any power if the people change their decisions, and since it is almost impossible to gauge the entire public feelings to something, then a single human usually ends up having complete control over the country. This guy may or may not have the country's best interests at heart and his own interests might override the country's ones sometimes. Also bear in mind that the communist economic system cannot compete in a largely capitalist world, so the people usually end up falling behind in their quality of life. They become restless and the government realises that it needs to preserve itself so starts to use any money it gets to keep control. For example, it invests in a large military force. For this reason, pure communism as it was intended is not practical.

As for why we shouldn't research a theory, I can't say anything for definite.

However, for the religious people here, we're trying to obey God's laws and keep to them but end up failing miserably. Does that mean we shouldn't at least try?

For the non-religious, science is a theory. People suggest something and then others try to disprove it. In science, no-one can ever prove anything - only disprove it and come to a general consensus on an issue, where the theory is beyond reasonable doubt. You try to get closer to fact all the time using theories - scientists spend their entire lives working on THEORIES. Does that mean since they will never actually reach a fact, that they should give up? No of course not.

Dan