4 ms·

soviet-style housing is a bit extreme. But what's wrong with being equal ?

by petra 8y ago

sverige 8y ago
So far, all of the experiments to make everyone equal have resulted in soviet-style housing for the many and well-appointed dachas for the few -- and that's at best. I'm doubtful that future experiments will have a different result.
- petra 8y ago
  Maybe. In countries with socialized medicine, access to healthcare services is usually more equal than countries without socialized medicine. So if some equality can be created in such an important choice, maybe it could be achieved in the less important choice of counter tops, if someone we're to bother.
  - tomp 8y ago
    Why would "equal" matter though? E.g. if noone has access to medicine (probably some African countries), they're all "equal". But... The point is, "equal" is just a buzzword that needs to be deconstructed and analysed in each specific scenario. In medicine in particular, extremes are usually bad (completely private => expensive, completely public => inefficient), and middle ground (public & private) seems to be decent.
    - petra 8y ago
      People living in equal societies are happier, and less stressed. Maybe it's because differences in status translate to differences in the natural anti-depressant chemical, Serotonin.
      - htmk 8y ago
        No reason to force everyone to be equal, just create your equality paradise and open the doors to the world.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Kibbutz are pretty egalitarian. The New Testament describes the early Christians as living with everything in common ownership. Not every attempt to be equally valued has resulted in the disparities you suggest. The problem is top-down vs bottom-up ... eg https://www.quora.com/How-did-Karl-Marx-define-socialism/answers/57676367?share=1 https://www.quora.com/How-did-Karl-Marx-define-socialism/ans... . Genuine question, which bits of the Soviet projects were targetting making everyone equal -- all I've seen are the bits where a dictator rides the coattails of communist ideology to subdue the people. I'm still learning about this part of history, so am keen to understand which bits were started "properly" from a communist perspective. It strikes me that in all cases a portion of society wanted to impose communism, those who didn't want to give up their supremacy (of power or wealth) perverted that system. As (IIRC) Galbraith says (paraphrase?) "in Capitalism man exploits man, in Communism it's the other way around". The thing is that communism at least seeks to gain equality, capitalism seeks to exploit others up to the legal limits imposed.
  - varjag 8y ago
    > which bits of the Soviet projects were targetting making everyone equal Private property of means of production and accumulation of capital were outlawed. It was the best attempt to follow Marx tenets. > It strikes me that in all cases a portion of society wanted to impose communism, those who didn't want to give up their supremacy (of power or wealth) perverted that system. No. The latter were massacred in 1918. Then the remaining ones executed and sent each other to GuLAGs in several waves. Separation of wealth (even if minuscule on the scale of developed capitalism) appears to be an emergent property.
    - secabeen 8y ago
      That mainly seems to happen at the large scale. At the small, community scale, there are plenty of examples of communal societies with many decades of history that continue as an ongoing concern. For example, the Bruderhof's in New York and Pennsylvania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruderhof_Communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruderhof_Communities
icxa 8y ago
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
rjf72 8y ago
Imagine you take a million humans and you give them a million absolutely identical plots of lands. And each plot of land is, with work, capable of fully sustaining its owner. And you also gave each and every one of them all of the initial tools, training, and resources they'd need to achieve this. And we're also going to assume that these individuals will never experience any health issues or random catastrophes such as weather events, to minimize randomness in our little real life simulation. And now we set these people free to live as they will. How long will the complete equality last? It'd more likely be a matter of months than years. Some would work harder and produce more enabling them to grow in resources which could then be traded for other things - giving them more than others. Others would go in the opposite direction and behave irresponsibly, such as by indulgence in drink or drug, and find themselves falling further behind. Others would make decisions such as having more children than they could afford to provide for and find themselves in severe issues. Others would simply make better or more astute decisions in general leading them to pull ahead. It wouldn't take long before our entirely equal society was riddled with inequity. The point of this is that it's impossible for humans to be equal unless somebody enforces that equality. And this brings up two issues. The first is that the enforcer of equality is generally a group or organization that is going to be inherently unequal. Even a completely social system would require 'enforcers' of some sort lest the over achievers dare keep the fruits of their labor for themselves. The second is that you end up with radically warped reward scenarios. If you do better than average, you get stuff taken from you. If you do worse than average, you get stuff given to you. Failure is rewarded, success is punished. These distorted systems of motivation and the inherent control required to maintain equality are the very fundamental reason that the numerous systems of equality we've tried have all invariably ended up the same. Human society only functions by people spending a pretty good deal of their time doing x when they'd rather be doing y. It's not hard to see what happens when you remove any motivation whatsoever to actually do x. It even explains the ever recurring trend towards authoritarianism and cruel behavior - it's simply an effort to try to force people to do x after you remove all their motivation to do so, and it just doesn't work.

soviet-style housing is a bit extreme. But what's wrong with being equal ?

by petra 8y ago

soviet-style housing is a bit extreme. But what's wrong with being equal ?

So far, all of the experiments to make everyone equal have resulted in soviet-style housing for the many and well-appointed dachas for the few -- and that's at best. I'm doubtful that future experiments will have a different result.

petra 8y ago
Maybe. In countries with socialized medicine, access to healthcare services is usually more equal than countries without socialized medicine. So if some equality can be created in such an important choice, maybe it could be achieved in the less important choice of counter tops, if someone we're to bother.
- tomp 8y ago
  Why would "equal" matter though? E.g. if noone has access to medicine (probably some African countries), they're all "equal". But... The point is, "equal" is just a buzzword that needs to be deconstructed and analysed in each specific scenario. In medicine in particular, extremes are usually bad (completely private => expensive, completely public => inefficient), and middle ground (public & private) seems to be decent.
  - petra 8y ago
    People living in equal societies are happier, and less stressed. Maybe it's because differences in status translate to differences in the natural anti-depressant chemical, Serotonin.
    - htmk 8y ago
      No reason to force everyone to be equal, just create your equality paradise and open the doors to the world.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Kibbutz are pretty egalitarian. The New Testament describes the early Christians as living with everything in common ownership. Not every attempt to be equally valued has resulted in the disparities you suggest. The problem is top-down vs bottom-up ... eg https://www.quora.com/How-did-Karl-Marx-define-socialism/answers/57676367?share=1 https://www.quora.com/How-did-Karl-Marx-define-socialism/ans... . Genuine question, which bits of the Soviet projects were targetting making everyone equal -- all I've seen are the bits where a dictator rides the coattails of communist ideology to subdue the people. I'm still learning about this part of history, so am keen to understand which bits were started "properly" from a communist perspective. It strikes me that in all cases a portion of society wanted to impose communism, those who didn't want to give up their supremacy (of power or wealth) perverted that system. As (IIRC) Galbraith says (paraphrase?) "in Capitalism man exploits man, in Communism it's the other way around". The thing is that communism at least seeks to gain equality, capitalism seeks to exploit others up to the legal limits imposed.
- varjag 8y ago
  > which bits of the Soviet projects were targetting making everyone equal Private property of means of production and accumulation of capital were outlawed. It was the best attempt to follow Marx tenets. > It strikes me that in all cases a portion of society wanted to impose communism, those who didn't want to give up their supremacy (of power or wealth) perverted that system. No. The latter were massacred in 1918. Then the remaining ones executed and sent each other to GuLAGs in several waves. Separation of wealth (even if minuscule on the scale of developed capitalism) appears to be an emergent property.
  - secabeen 8y ago
    That mainly seems to happen at the large scale. At the small, community scale, there are plenty of examples of communal societies with many decades of history that continue as an ongoing concern. For example, the Bruderhof's in New York and Pennsylvania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruderhof_Communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruderhof_Communities

icxa 8y ago

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

rjf72 8y ago

Imagine you take a million humans and you give them a million absolutely identical plots of lands. And each plot of land is, with work, capable of fully sustaining its owner. And you also gave each and every one of them all of the initial tools, training, and resources they'd need to achieve this. And we're also going to assume that these individuals will never experience any health issues or random catastrophes such as weather events, to minimize randomness in our little real life simulation. And now we set these people free to live as they will. How long will the complete equality last? It'd more likely be a matter of months than years. Some would work harder and produce more enabling them to grow in resources which could then be traded for other things - giving them more than others. Others would go in the opposite direction and behave irresponsibly, such as by indulgence in drink or drug, and find themselves falling further behind. Others would make decisions such as having more children than they could afford to provide for and find themselves in severe issues. Others would simply make better or more astute decisions in general leading them to pull ahead. It wouldn't take long before our entirely equal society was riddled with inequity. The point of this is that it's impossible for humans to be equal unless somebody enforces that equality. And this brings up two issues. The first is that the enforcer of equality is generally a group or organization that is going to be inherently unequal. Even a completely social system would require 'enforcers' of some sort lest the over achievers dare keep the fruits of their labor for themselves. The second is that you end up with radically warped reward scenarios. If you do better than average, you get stuff taken from you. If you do worse than average, you get stuff given to you. Failure is rewarded, success is punished. These distorted systems of motivation and the inherent control required to maintain equality are the very fundamental reason that the numerous systems of equality we've tried have all invariably ended up the same. Human society only functions by people spending a pretty good deal of their time doing x when they'd rather be doing y. It's not hard to see what happens when you remove any motivation whatsoever to actually do x. It even explains the ever recurring trend towards authoritarianism and cruel behavior - it's simply an effort to try to force people to do x after you remove all their motivation to do so, and it just doesn't work.