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Not really. Those are reasonable examples of what it takes to try to "force" an entire country out of capitalism "for their own good". Socialism as a part of a

Not really. Those are reasonable examples of what it takes to try to "force" an entire country out of capitalism "for their own good". Socialism as a part of a general economic or ethical philosophy - embedded within the liberal democratic system - is not quite as bad on its own. The fundamental ideas behind the movement led to things like universal public education, national investment in the sciences and arts, as well as universal public healthcare. These are all things which almost every modern nation recognizes as good ideas. Where it goes off the rails is when you formulate an entire political theory that can be summed as "We shall get a moral and dependable dictator to forbid people from engaging in Capitalism or owning excessive property, thus forcing everyone to work for the common good. This will eventually lead to people naturally working for the common good, because that's what humans naturally do.". The main problem with that one is obvious by word #8, but it contains a few extra fallacies beyond that. Now, it's perfectly possible to embed socialized literature grants and "literary tenure" within a capitalist system if democratic society believes that is the best way of generating valuable literary works that are not likely to produce an immediate return of investment in the open market. We can even do that simultaneously with a publishing industry producing literary works with a focus towards profitability. Scientific research and some forms of artistic creation already work this way. As for completely replacing capitalism, as opposed to just having a mostly-capitalist mixed economy? Well, I can't see it happening in a scarcity society, but I can imagine it happening in a post-scarcity one. Suppose we get to the point where robots farm food for us, robots gather natural resources for us and robots keep basic infrastructure working for us. Now, suppose that at one point we mostly trade in "services" and "ideas" (software, books, music, movies, 3D printable designs for all our physical stuff). At what point there does capitalism becomes silly? "Oh, I don't need money to live, I am designing this car to get paid so that I can buy the 3D printable design of my bed. Oh, wait, someone open-sourced the design for the bed I wanted, neat, let me print it. Guess I can open-source my car design too." "But hey, does that mean you are never making another car design?" "Are you kidding? I love designing cars and what else would I do with my time? Besides, I get a kick out of seeing people driving the car I designed!". The beauty is that we wouldn't even need most people to think that way, just a small fixed count from the population. Things like reputation and competition for real state might have to be solved differently in a society without capitalism, but lets be honest, capitalism is a poor system for solving those two anyways, as evidenced by rent prices in the Bay Area and "Am I a failure if I am not worth $1Bn by age 22?" questions on Quora. Now, capitalism is probably still the best system we know of to solve resource allocation and promote technological innovation in the conditions of contemporary human society. But those conditions are subject to change. So, yes, "we need capitalism because people need to exchange and accumulate [physical, non-duplicable, scarce] goods freely" is true at the moment. But so would have been at a time: "we need the King to keep all the feudal lords and their peasants united in peace and organized in the case of barbarian invasions". (Note: This rant turned longer than I expected. Also, HN might be the weirdest place on the net to do a Commie rant ;) )

logicchains 12y ago
>Well, I can't see it happening in a scarcity society, but I can imagine it happening in a post-scarcity one. The thing is, scarcity in the economic sense is defined in terms of peoples' wants, which seem to be able to expand indefinitely. Short of discovering an infinite energy source, there will never be enough energy to completely satisfy everybody's wants. So a method will be needed of deciding whose wants get satisfied. This method can be exchange based: you do x for Joe, because Joe either did something for you or did something for someone else and has a scarce token (money) to prove it. Or, it can not be exchange based: somebody makes you do x for Joe, because Joe himself doesn't have anything to offer you to make you want to do x for him. >Suppose we get to the point where robots farm food for us, robots gather natural resources for us and robots keep basic infrastructure working for us. I think it's an open question whether we can get robots that are capable of doing almost everything for us without requiring those robots approach human intelligence levels. If the robots that do all our work for us need to be as smart as us to do so, then they probably wouldn't be willing to work for free.
- lazaroclapp 12y ago
  > The thing is, scarcity in the economic sense is defined in terms of peoples' wants, which seem to be able to expand indefinitely. It's unclear to me whether this is true. For most of history, "infinitely expanding people wants" was not a thing, at least in terms of material wants. Maybe because it was not believed to be possible? But there are plenty of examples of autocratic rulers in pre-industrial times who extracted less resources from their subjects than it's believed they could. So, did they balance that against some risk or the effort required? Or were they simply uninterested in maximizing their personal wealth beyond a point? I feel even in modern capitalist society, above a certain threshold (which varies from person to person and according to circumstances) people are more motivated by status and recognition than material wants... > If the robots that do all our work for us need to be as smart as us to do so, then they probably wouldn't be willing to work for free. Does being as smart as us require being as self-aware as us? Does it require free will? Does it beget human needs and values? If 000, my scenario holds. If 100, we might be faced with a serious moral dilemma. If 110, who knows what our relationship with such beings would be. If 111, I've re-invented slavery and it should be abolished again at once, but I sort of doubt the answer to all three questions will be true. All other configurations are hard to imagine.

logicchains 12y ago

>Well, I can't see it happening in a scarcity society, but I can imagine it happening in a post-scarcity one. The thing is, scarcity in the economic sense is defined in terms of peoples' wants, which seem to be able to expand indefinitely. Short of discovering an infinite energy source, there will never be enough energy to completely satisfy everybody's wants. So a method will be needed of deciding whose wants get satisfied. This method can be exchange based: you do x for Joe, because Joe either did something for you or did something for someone else and has a scarce token (money) to prove it. Or, it can not be exchange based: somebody makes you do x for Joe, because Joe himself doesn't have anything to offer you to make you want to do x for him. >Suppose we get to the point where robots farm food for us, robots gather natural resources for us and robots keep basic infrastructure working for us. I think it's an open question whether we can get robots that are capable of doing almost everything for us without requiring those robots approach human intelligence levels. If the robots that do all our work for us need to be as smart as us to do so, then they probably wouldn't be willing to work for free.

lazaroclapp 12y ago
> The thing is, scarcity in the economic sense is defined in terms of peoples' wants, which seem to be able to expand indefinitely. It's unclear to me whether this is true. For most of history, "infinitely expanding people wants" was not a thing, at least in terms of material wants. Maybe because it was not believed to be possible? But there are plenty of examples of autocratic rulers in pre-industrial times who extracted less resources from their subjects than it's believed they could. So, did they balance that against some risk or the effort required? Or were they simply uninterested in maximizing their personal wealth beyond a point? I feel even in modern capitalist society, above a certain threshold (which varies from person to person and according to circumstances) people are more motivated by status and recognition than material wants... > If the robots that do all our work for us need to be as smart as us to do so, then they probably wouldn't be willing to work for free. Does being as smart as us require being as self-aware as us? Does it require free will? Does it beget human needs and values? If 000, my scenario holds. If 100, we might be faced with a serious moral dilemma. If 110, who knows what our relationship with such beings would be. If 111, I've re-invented slavery and it should be abolished again at once, but I sort of doubt the answer to all three questions will be true. All other configurations are hard to imagine.