5 ms·

It still beats having a central planner from the politburo tell you to work in the mines for zero compensation.

sofixa 3y ago
You know that's not how central planning worked, right? You were told to live in a specific place, with a few (narrow) options on where to work at (unless you were (un)specialised, then there was sometimes zero choice), for meagre but sufficient compensation. You could have a place to live, food to eat. The place to live might be a room in an apartment shared with other families, the food to eat might be bread with bread, and there were little things you could buy outside of necessities, but you were compensated and it was near certain you would have a roof over your head, and baring drastic mismanagement/crisis, enough food. If that's better than some having more money that they could possibly use, many having access to amazing amenities and luxuries, but a lot struggling to eat enough quality food and not being able to have a roof over their head is IMO a philosophical question. Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" or do you prefer some to have amazing lives, but others to suffer?
- dtx1 3y ago
  And by everyone you of course mean everyone that wasn't arrested because he thought maybe bread with bread and a shared appartment is kinda shitty.
  - gruppe_sechs 3y ago
    *murdered
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  The question of preference at the end is moot. Those with the power long ago made the decision that 'a few people should have a amazing lives while vast numbers of people suffer needlessly' is the way that society should be structured and structured it thusly. This is/was even true in countries with central planning as you've described above. There is/was always a select group of people at the top for whom the rules didn't apply and had all the luxuries that could desire.
- gruppe_sechs 3y ago
  You forgot the part where the central planners herded millions of people into Gulags, starved tens of millions more to death, then executed a few million more for good measure. Other than that, spot on though.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    GULAG is an acronym for a state organ, it can’t be pluralized.
    - gruppe_sechs 3y ago
      Maybe in the original Russian, but the English word "gulag" can refer to an individual camp and not just the organisation that ran them: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gulag https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gulag
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    you mean like the Plains Indians in America? yeah, ugly.. they "solved war" that way.. Almost all the "great nations" of the modern times did exactly that to minority language groups, at some stage of development. Many Wrongs Do Not Make It Right -- it is what happened, however. I would add that many genocides occurred in the longer time frame of history, which is the alternative to mass forced migrations, in the eyes of the Great Powers.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" or do you prefer some to have amazing lives, but others to suffer? This isn't the choice. Socialism (actual socialism) repeatedly starves its populations. Capitalism repeatedly creates situations where new things are created that make everyone's lives better, and existing things get cheaper and better over time. I.e. you can't just ignore the opportunity cost of innovation and prioritisation via a decentralised market. An innovation-focused dichotomy is: should we spend lots of effort trying to precisely spread around what we have today, while still having a privileged class based on politics, or should we encourage people to do things that raises the floor and the ceiling for everyone, and have a privileged class based on value they created?
  - iscream26 3y ago
    > Capitalism repeatedly creates situations where new things are created that make everyone's lives better, and existing things get cheaper and better over time. > everyone's lives better > things get cheaper and better over time. Oh, fuck off with that bullshit. Capitalism may appear to thrive when living in a first-world country, but only does so through exploitation and cutting corners. More to the point, isn't it funny that despite capitalism being pretty much the de facto economic system of the world only a few countries are actually deemed worth living in? No, some abstract 'informed exchange of currency' didn't magically cause things to appear out of thin air. People make things, and they are almost certainly underpaid and overworked. Behind every AI model there are X poorly paid workers around the world that curated the data that it needs to function. Behind every piece of clothing there are Y poorly paid workers in Bangladesh that made it. And behind every rechargeable battery there are Z Congolese kids risking death inside a mine in search for cobalt. We might try to (and often do) look away, pretend that those are the unfortunate results of corporate blunders that seldom happen, but they're not. Invisible exploitation is what makes the kind of lifestyle that is available in first-world countries possible.
    - agent327 3y ago
      Is there no exploitation in communist nations? I should actually phrase that the other way around: is there, or has there ever been, a communist nation that did not exploit people to the max, even killing them if that was the most convenient option? As for cutting corners, check out some videos on tofu dreg projects, it will enlighten you on corner cutting in a communist system.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  Ah, ye olden 'capitalism, or dystopian despair!' Strangely one of those things that culturally, we can't get past. It's a false dichotomy at best, and completely ignores the costs of implementing capitalism.
  - agent327 3y ago
    If you take away capitalism, you are still going to need a system. The alternatives are either anarchism (and I don't fancy living in a Mad Max-style world), or some form of dictatorship: either communism, or outright dictatorship, or theocracy, or some neofeudal BS. In all of them there is a single strong man at the top who will tell you what to do, and kill you if you don't. Capitalism at least gives you the freedom to make your own choices. All the others (except anarchism) don't.
    - sofixa 3y ago
      I don't know why you're mixing political and economic systems. The two are often related, but not intricately linked. Capitalism and democracy are orthogonal, and there have been plenty of capitalist but undemocratic (e.g. fascist) regimes out there, like there have been democratic countries with social democratic (aka not unfettered capitalism) economic systems.
      - agent327 3y ago
        You have to, because people do not work for free ("each to the best of their ability, and taking according to their need") if they can freeload. The only way to get them to be productive members of society is either a carrot (the capitalist system, which offers an improved standard of life for those who work hard), or a stick (the communist system, which offers imprisonment or death if you do not work hard). That force is political in nature. You cannot have a communist system without it also being a dictatorship. So I'd say that having a capitalist system is a requirement for also being a democracy. Moreover, the rapid fall of the fascist nations suggests that having a capitalist system is, in fact, also conducive to not having a dictatorship: economic freedom leads to people wanting political freedom as well. The problem with capitalism is that people misunderstand it to mean that some billionaire owns 'everything' - whereas it really is YOUR freedom to choose how YOU lead your life. I'm all in favor of curbing predatory practices, but all too often 'taxing the rich' turns out to mean 'taxing the middle class'. The drive towards ever-heavier taxation, where tax rates only ever go up, and never down again, can only be fought by striving for more capitalism.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  >Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" There's the argument that in a planned economy, things can be terrible for pretty much everyone, like in Venezuela or North Korea. You also have to account for the central planners choosing to repress people for political purposes. Maybe you can give us a specific example of a centrally planned society which worked OK according to you? Here's a compendium of case studies to get you started: https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Niemietz-Socialism.pdf https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Niemietz-Socia...
  - luzojeda 3y ago
    They are terrible for everyone except Maduro, his family and friends and the same about Kim Jong Un in North Korea. I many times suspect that people who yearn for communism/socialism just wish to be those who come out on top from the revolution such as the Castros, the Chavez, Maduro, Guevara, Ortega, etc.
- blitz_skull 3y ago
  Are you serious? No one is being FORCED to suffer in the United States. Such is the beauty of our freedom. No thanks, I’ll take the system that allows me to move up or down generally in correlation with my effort and work ethics.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > Are you serious? No one is being FORCED to suffer in the United States. Such is the beauty of our freedom. People have multiple jobs and can't afford healthcare and are living paycheck to paycheck or don't have parental leave or paid sick leave or paid time off do that because they want to, right?
    - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
      They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get born into a wealthy family

You know that's not how central planning worked, right? You were told to live in a specific place, with a few (narrow) options on where to work at (unless you were (un)specialised, then there was sometimes zero choice), for meagre but sufficient compensation. You could have a place to live, food to eat. The place to live might be a room in an apartment shared with other families, the food to eat might be bread with bread, and there were little things you could buy outside of necessities, but you were compensated and it was near certain you would have a roof over your head, and baring drastic mismanagement/crisis, enough food. If that's better than some having more money that they could possibly use, many having access to amazing amenities and luxuries, but a lot struggling to eat enough quality food and not being able to have a roof over their head is IMO a philosophical question. Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" or do you prefer some to have amazing lives, but others to suffer?

dtx1 3y ago
And by everyone you of course mean everyone that wasn't arrested because he thought maybe bread with bread and a shared appartment is kinda shitty.
- gruppe_sechs 3y ago
  *murdered
Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
The question of preference at the end is moot. Those with the power long ago made the decision that 'a few people should have a amazing lives while vast numbers of people suffer needlessly' is the way that society should be structured and structured it thusly. This is/was even true in countries with central planning as you've described above. There is/was always a select group of people at the top for whom the rules didn't apply and had all the luxuries that could desire.
gruppe_sechs 3y ago
You forgot the part where the central planners herded millions of people into Gulags, starved tens of millions more to death, then executed a few million more for good measure. Other than that, spot on though.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  GULAG is an acronym for a state organ, it can’t be pluralized.
  - gruppe_sechs 3y ago
    Maybe in the original Russian, but the English word "gulag" can refer to an individual camp and not just the organisation that ran them: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gulag https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gulag
- mistrial9 3y ago
  you mean like the Plains Indians in America? yeah, ugly.. they "solved war" that way.. Almost all the "great nations" of the modern times did exactly that to minority language groups, at some stage of development. Many Wrongs Do Not Make It Right -- it is what happened, however. I would add that many genocides occurred in the longer time frame of history, which is the alternative to mass forced migrations, in the eyes of the Great Powers.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" or do you prefer some to have amazing lives, but others to suffer? This isn't the choice. Socialism (actual socialism) repeatedly starves its populations. Capitalism repeatedly creates situations where new things are created that make everyone's lives better, and existing things get cheaper and better over time. I.e. you can't just ignore the opportunity cost of innovation and prioritisation via a decentralised market. An innovation-focused dichotomy is: should we spend lots of effort trying to precisely spread around what we have today, while still having a privileged class based on politics, or should we encourage people to do things that raises the floor and the ceiling for everyone, and have a privileged class based on value they created?
- iscream26 3y ago
  > Capitalism repeatedly creates situations where new things are created that make everyone's lives better, and existing things get cheaper and better over time. > everyone's lives better > things get cheaper and better over time. Oh, fuck off with that bullshit. Capitalism may appear to thrive when living in a first-world country, but only does so through exploitation and cutting corners. More to the point, isn't it funny that despite capitalism being pretty much the de facto economic system of the world only a few countries are actually deemed worth living in? No, some abstract 'informed exchange of currency' didn't magically cause things to appear out of thin air. People make things, and they are almost certainly underpaid and overworked. Behind every AI model there are X poorly paid workers around the world that curated the data that it needs to function. Behind every piece of clothing there are Y poorly paid workers in Bangladesh that made it. And behind every rechargeable battery there are Z Congolese kids risking death inside a mine in search for cobalt. We might try to (and often do) look away, pretend that those are the unfortunate results of corporate blunders that seldom happen, but they're not. Invisible exploitation is what makes the kind of lifestyle that is available in first-world countries possible.
  - agent327 3y ago
    Is there no exploitation in communist nations? I should actually phrase that the other way around: is there, or has there ever been, a communist nation that did not exploit people to the max, even killing them if that was the most convenient option? As for cutting corners, check out some videos on tofu dreg projects, it will enlighten you on corner cutting in a communist system.
zlg_codes 3y ago
Ah, ye olden 'capitalism, or dystopian despair!' Strangely one of those things that culturally, we can't get past. It's a false dichotomy at best, and completely ignores the costs of implementing capitalism.
- agent327 3y ago
  If you take away capitalism, you are still going to need a system. The alternatives are either anarchism (and I don't fancy living in a Mad Max-style world), or some form of dictatorship: either communism, or outright dictatorship, or theocracy, or some neofeudal BS. In all of them there is a single strong man at the top who will tell you what to do, and kill you if you don't. Capitalism at least gives you the freedom to make your own choices. All the others (except anarchism) don't.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    I don't know why you're mixing political and economic systems. The two are often related, but not intricately linked. Capitalism and democracy are orthogonal, and there have been plenty of capitalist but undemocratic (e.g. fascist) regimes out there, like there have been democratic countries with social democratic (aka not unfettered capitalism) economic systems.
    - agent327 3y ago
      You have to, because people do not work for free ("each to the best of their ability, and taking according to their need") if they can freeload. The only way to get them to be productive members of society is either a carrot (the capitalist system, which offers an improved standard of life for those who work hard), or a stick (the communist system, which offers imprisonment or death if you do not work hard). That force is political in nature. You cannot have a communist system without it also being a dictatorship. So I'd say that having a capitalist system is a requirement for also being a democracy. Moreover, the rapid fall of the fascist nations suggests that having a capitalist system is, in fact, also conducive to not having a dictatorship: economic freedom leads to people wanting political freedom as well. The problem with capitalism is that people misunderstand it to mean that some billionaire owns 'everything' - whereas it really is YOUR freedom to choose how YOU lead your life. I'm all in favor of curbing predatory practices, but all too often 'taxing the rich' turns out to mean 'taxing the middle class'. The drive towards ever-heavier taxation, where tax rates only ever go up, and never down again, can only be fought by striving for more capitalism.
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
>Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" There's the argument that in a planned economy, things can be terrible for pretty much everyone, like in Venezuela or North Korea. You also have to account for the central planners choosing to repress people for political purposes. Maybe you can give us a specific example of a centrally planned society which worked OK according to you? Here's a compendium of case studies to get you started: https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Niemietz-Socialism.pdf https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Niemietz-Socia...
- luzojeda 3y ago
  They are terrible for everyone except Maduro, his family and friends and the same about Kim Jong Un in North Korea. I many times suspect that people who yearn for communism/socialism just wish to be those who come out on top from the revolution such as the Castros, the Chavez, Maduro, Guevara, Ortega, etc.
blitz_skull 3y ago
Are you serious? No one is being FORCED to suffer in the United States. Such is the beauty of our freedom. No thanks, I’ll take the system that allows me to move up or down generally in correlation with my effort and work ethics.
- sofixa 3y ago
  > Are you serious? No one is being FORCED to suffer in the United States. Such is the beauty of our freedom. People have multiple jobs and can't afford healthcare and are living paycheck to paycheck or don't have parental leave or paid sick leave or paid time off do that because they want to, right?
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get born into a wealthy family