4 ms·

Not quite. There is still a direct correlation between work and benefit, as in if you work more, you make more, but you keep more. In Communist economies, that

Not quite. There is still a direct correlation between work and benefit, as in if you work more, you make more, but you keep more. In Communist economies, that isn't true. If you work more, you make more, but you don't get to keep more.

emodendroket 9y ago
And working your field doesn't provide for your life? The relationship between a peasant's effectiveness at his work and the rewards he reaps is actually more, rather than less, direct than that relationship for someone stocking shelves, because if he produced more food he'd be able to keep more of it -- what was being rewarded was the result rather than the number of hours he spent in the fields.
- macspoofing 9y ago
  >And working your field doesn't provide for your life? Under communism, all surplus (or even the full total) is appropriated by the state. So working more and harder nets no extra benefit on the peasant. The incentive then is to exert as little effort as you can. NPR's Planet Money had a really good podcast on this recently [1] I speculated that feudal peasant may have been subject to the same kinds of incentives as everything they produced belonged to the local Lord. >because if he produced more food he'd be able to keep more of it Under certain communist regimes (Soviet Union and Mao's China), that wasn't necessarily true. The state appropriated everything. [1]https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/02/07/583999476/episode-337-the-secret-document-that-transformed-china https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/02/07/583999476/epis...
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    The subject of this discussion is feudalism, so I'm not sure why you've launched into a rebuttal talking about China and the USSR in the 1960s. It isn't true that "everything that [peasants] produced belonged to the local lord."
    - macspoofing 9y ago
      I literally just wrote: "I speculated that feudal peasant may have been subject to the same kinds of incentives as everything they produced belonged to the local Lord." You're the one who launched into some weird capitalist whataboutism.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Right, but that speculation is based on a misconception of the nature of feudal production. The capitalist comparison is relevant since it's the system we live under today and your original post strongly implied, although it did not outright state it, that the problem you were describing is unique to societies which aren't capitalist (in fact I can remember hearing in middle school the exact same argument as an explanation of the eventual triumph of the First World over the Second, which I think is at best a wild oversimplification).
hn0 9y ago
> There is still a direct correlation between work and benefit, as in if you work more, you make more, but you keep more. This correlation isn't all that direct in my experience.
- macspoofing 9y ago
  >This correlation isn't all that direct in my experience. What do you mean? That's certainly the case for hourly jobs where more hours equals more money.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    The relationship between hours worked and work done is not direct and, more importantly, the route to advancement into better-paying work is rarely just being really efficient at your job.
    - macspoofing 9y ago
      >The relationship between hours worked and work done is not direct Whose arguing that? All I argued: If you work 60 hours @ $10/hr you make more money than if you work 40 hours @ $10/hr. That is a fundamental difference between a market-based economy and a marxist one. In the latter, that equation does not hold. >the route to advancement into better-paying work is rarely just being really efficient at your job. Again, whose arguing that? I made a simple, shallow observation. You're trying to tie in some fuzzy nebulous concepts of 'better-paying work' and 'efficiency' and 'career advancement'. It has nothing to do with anything. Yes, some people work 80 hours and make less than other people who work 1 hour. Not the point here.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        People not working "enough" hours isn't a structural problem if they're producing enough. If your argument is just that "people will spend more hours at work if their incentives are aligned exactly to making them do that," then I don't disagree, but I also don't find it revelatory.

emodendroket 9y ago

And working your field doesn't provide for your life? The relationship between a peasant's effectiveness at his work and the rewards he reaps is actually more, rather than less, direct than that relationship for someone stocking shelves, because if he produced more food he'd be able to keep more of it -- what was being rewarded was the result rather than the number of hours he spent in the fields.

macspoofing 9y ago
>And working your field doesn't provide for your life? Under communism, all surplus (or even the full total) is appropriated by the state. So working more and harder nets no extra benefit on the peasant. The incentive then is to exert as little effort as you can. NPR's Planet Money had a really good podcast on this recently [1] I speculated that feudal peasant may have been subject to the same kinds of incentives as everything they produced belonged to the local Lord. >because if he produced more food he'd be able to keep more of it Under certain communist regimes (Soviet Union and Mao's China), that wasn't necessarily true. The state appropriated everything. [1]https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/02/07/583999476/episode-337-the-secret-document-that-transformed-china https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/02/07/583999476/epis...
- emodendroket 9y ago
  The subject of this discussion is feudalism, so I'm not sure why you've launched into a rebuttal talking about China and the USSR in the 1960s. It isn't true that "everything that [peasants] produced belonged to the local lord."
  - macspoofing 9y ago
    I literally just wrote: "I speculated that feudal peasant may have been subject to the same kinds of incentives as everything they produced belonged to the local Lord." You're the one who launched into some weird capitalist whataboutism.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Right, but that speculation is based on a misconception of the nature of feudal production. The capitalist comparison is relevant since it's the system we live under today and your original post strongly implied, although it did not outright state it, that the problem you were describing is unique to societies which aren't capitalist (in fact I can remember hearing in middle school the exact same argument as an explanation of the eventual triumph of the First World over the Second, which I think is at best a wild oversimplification).

hn0 9y ago

> There is still a direct correlation between work and benefit, as in if you work more, you make more, but you keep more. This correlation isn't all that direct in my experience.

macspoofing 9y ago
>This correlation isn't all that direct in my experience. What do you mean? That's certainly the case for hourly jobs where more hours equals more money.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  The relationship between hours worked and work done is not direct and, more importantly, the route to advancement into better-paying work is rarely just being really efficient at your job.
  - macspoofing 9y ago
    >The relationship between hours worked and work done is not direct Whose arguing that? All I argued: If you work 60 hours @ $10/hr you make more money than if you work 40 hours @ $10/hr. That is a fundamental difference between a market-based economy and a marxist one. In the latter, that equation does not hold. >the route to advancement into better-paying work is rarely just being really efficient at your job. Again, whose arguing that? I made a simple, shallow observation. You're trying to tie in some fuzzy nebulous concepts of 'better-paying work' and 'efficiency' and 'career advancement'. It has nothing to do with anything. Yes, some people work 80 hours and make less than other people who work 1 hour. Not the point here.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      People not working "enough" hours isn't a structural problem if they're producing enough. If your argument is just that "people will spend more hours at work if their incentives are aligned exactly to making them do that," then I don't disagree, but I also don't find it revelatory.