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... because only capitalism has made post-scarcity possible.

timthelion 9y ago
The monarchies of the late 19th century were technologically advanced, but that did not stop Europe from adopting democracy in the 20th century. The monastic system was the main scientific institution for over a milenia, both in Europe and China. Only an ignorant person argue that this system developed no new technologies. You say "only capitalism", but what are you comparing capitalism to? In the past 200 years, capitalism has been the only economic institution in the world, how do you know that other institutions would have been incapable of technological advancement? If your point is to compare capitalism to state socialism, then you would be far off the mark. The USSR was extremely technologically advanced. The hunger was due to other problems, mostly having to do with Stalin intentionally creating famines in order to weaken insurgency. "Is has been proposed that the Soviet leadership used the man-made famine to attack Ukrainian nationalism, and thus the man-made famine may fall under the legal definition of genocide.[57][58][54][59][28][60] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Causes I am not promoting state socialism though. I would like a future in which each person/family unit/group of friends owned a small amount of land, and robots that would help them. Quite the opposite of state socialism. In state socialism, wealth is concentrated in the hands of the government. State socialism is basically monopolistic capitalism, and I believe that the two systems share many problems. I want the distribution of wealth, not its concentration.
- PeachPlum 9y ago
  Communism works when the communist dictators don't commit genocide or run a brutal police state. Its such a good system it needs to be implemented and maintained by force.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    I didn't claim that "communism works" I said that it was technologically advanced and capable of attaining post-scarcity. As a counter to castle-bravo's claim that only capitalism is capable of developing the tech required to attain post-scarcity.
    - castle-bravo 9y ago
      Ah, there you got me wrong. I said that only capitalism has made post-scarcity even remotely possible. We're seriously discussing the possibility and implications of full automation within the next fifteen years; that never happened in the Soviet Union, their government collapsed first. In principle, any society with enough scientists and engineers could implement full automation. As a side note: post-scarcity is really only possible in virtual worlds like MineCraft. There's a limited amount of land, people's time is limited, people's attention is limited, and what other people will participate in is constrained by their desires and their ambitions. Unless somehow compelled, there's nobody who will set me up with a nice automated farm where I can live out my days playing mandolin and reading mathematics as I would like when they could set themselves up and not have to hear my racket across the fence. Though it's counter to our desires, we are forced to compete for resources ... even if most of us aren't struggling for survival.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > In the past 200 years, capitalism has been the only economic institution in the world This is not true.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    Ok, I'll admit that some remote tribes were not. But even the USSR was a market economy.
    - posterboy 9y ago
      if market is your model of choice, sure, and if your model of russia is simple enough, too.

The monarchies of the late 19th century were technologically advanced, but that did not stop Europe from adopting democracy in the 20th century. The monastic system was the main scientific institution for over a milenia, both in Europe and China. Only an ignorant person argue that this system developed no new technologies. You say "only capitalism", but what are you comparing capitalism to? In the past 200 years, capitalism has been the only economic institution in the world, how do you know that other institutions would have been incapable of technological advancement? If your point is to compare capitalism to state socialism, then you would be far off the mark. The USSR was extremely technologically advanced. The hunger was due to other problems, mostly having to do with Stalin intentionally creating famines in order to weaken insurgency. "Is has been proposed that the Soviet leadership used the man-made famine to attack Ukrainian nationalism, and thus the man-made famine may fall under the legal definition of genocide.[57][58][54][59][28][60] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Causes I am not promoting state socialism though. I would like a future in which each person/family unit/group of friends owned a small amount of land, and robots that would help them. Quite the opposite of state socialism. In state socialism, wealth is concentrated in the hands of the government. State socialism is basically monopolistic capitalism, and I believe that the two systems share many problems. I want the distribution of wealth, not its concentration.

PeachPlum 9y ago
Communism works when the communist dictators don't commit genocide or run a brutal police state. Its such a good system it needs to be implemented and maintained by force.
- timthelion 9y ago
  I didn't claim that "communism works" I said that it was technologically advanced and capable of attaining post-scarcity. As a counter to castle-bravo's claim that only capitalism is capable of developing the tech required to attain post-scarcity.
  - castle-bravo 9y ago
    Ah, there you got me wrong. I said that only capitalism has made post-scarcity even remotely possible. We're seriously discussing the possibility and implications of full automation within the next fifteen years; that never happened in the Soviet Union, their government collapsed first. In principle, any society with enough scientists and engineers could implement full automation. As a side note: post-scarcity is really only possible in virtual worlds like MineCraft. There's a limited amount of land, people's time is limited, people's attention is limited, and what other people will participate in is constrained by their desires and their ambitions. Unless somehow compelled, there's nobody who will set me up with a nice automated farm where I can live out my days playing mandolin and reading mathematics as I would like when they could set themselves up and not have to hear my racket across the fence. Though it's counter to our desires, we are forced to compete for resources ... even if most of us aren't struggling for survival.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> In the past 200 years, capitalism has been the only economic institution in the world This is not true.
- timthelion 9y ago
  Ok, I'll admit that some remote tribes were not. But even the USSR was a market economy.
  - posterboy 9y ago
    if market is your model of choice, sure, and if your model of russia is simple enough, too.