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Communism - much criticised by the Western countries but could it work given the right situation?
People say that if there is no incentive then no-one will work - but surely that is wrong.
Agreed, people may work less but they would still need to earn their pay check.
I imagine some kind of wage and price controls would be needed, and some limitations on freedom, but what are the main problems in stopping it from working?
All big industries could be nationalised and the smaller ones would have to abide by specific regulations - ie: laws against hoarding , speculating, and wages etc..
What will go wrong here?
any ideas, thanks
The primary failure of communism is worker self-interest.
How about government owned land - can't rent be kept down under this kind of system?
and if we can keep the rents down, then perhaps we can compete against overseas labor to some degree?
I can see rent being fairly inflexible too, after all there is only so much supply of it - so how can this be dealt with?
What I mean by rent is free wealth not what one pays for an apartment which mixes the value of the building with ground rents.
I am sort of third rail if you want an idea of my position. It was once a quite common position nearly universally agreed upon by all early economists, though now nearly extinct. Its the concept of unearned income and luxuries as being the tax base(like Adam Smith suggested but oh how we love to pretend to love him). If we did that our cost of living would make us very competitive because capital or labor would be tax free.
The neo classical economists created a paradox that suits them. First they state that there is no unearned income and no free lunch. That is the essence of “Efficient Markets Hypothesis.” Marx's labor theory of value, a view shared by the classical economists as well, was that an object was worth the labor put into it.
The "marginal revolution challenged this. Yet this had moral implications not just value implication and becomes an argument similar to deciding if black is a color or not. A neo classical economist would say it functions as a color whereas the classical economist would say its an act of omission and does not contribute to human productivity. However if the neo classical economist insists that marginal utility determines value and not labor, one must accept that people make money doing nothing. How "no free lunch"? Labor free income seems like a free lunch to me.
Taxing goods and services is a dead weight tax. Value added taxes have got to be the worst kind of all which is akin to a tax on seed rather than deferring it to a mature state. What kind of idiot can look at an animal raising its young and being for a VAT? Nature itself condemns such lunatics.
Tax unearned income and the costs will always be born on the rentier and cannot be passed on to consumers.
2. A thing which is limited in quantity, even though its
possessors do not act in concert, is still a monopolized article.
But even when monopolized, a thing which is the gift of nature,
and requires no labour or outlay as the condition of its
existence, will, if there be competition among the holders of it,
command a price, only if it exists in less quantity than the
demand.
And yes, despite the protestations of many an arm chair economist, not all taxes can be passed on to the consumer. Its VAT taxes that do that and in spades.
...
2. A tax on rent falls wholly on the landlord. There are no
means by which he can shift the burthen upon any one else. It
does not affect the value or price of agricultural produce, for
this is determined by the cost of production in the most
unfavourable circumstances, and in those circumstances, as we
have so often demonstrated, no rent is paid. A tax on rent,
therefore, has no effect, other than its obvious one. It merely
takes so much from the landlord, and transfers it to the state.
This, however, is, in strict exactness, only true of the rent
which is the result either of natural causes, or of improvements
made by tenants. When the landlord makes improvements which
increase the productive power of his land, he is remunerated for
them by an extra payment from the tenant; and this payment, which
to the landlord is properly a profit on capital, is blended and
confounded with rent;
J S Mill Principles...
So one ought to tax the ground rents and treat income from land improvements as tax free profits.
Both Marx and the usual rentiers hated this idea. That's another reason why it must be right.
I find it curious that Marx confounds the amount of land with the gap in productive capacity of land. How much doesn't matter. You could have a million acres of 5 unit land with no rent because its all the same. However in the same large country an urban center may appear and it may become a 10 unit property. Thats 5 units of freebie.
Serious students of current affairs know well that the American masses are not socialist, but conservatives. U.S. billionaires tend to be socialist and collectivist, the more, the more money they have.
...
What does Marxism have to offer? Power. Seeking power, and having money to buy it with, all one has to do is to capture the centres of intellectual formation, which is what university founders did at the beginning of the 20th century. That's why to the question, "Have you ever heard of Henry George?" every student of economics answers in the negative.
Marx and the socialists discredited, contaminated and destroyed the American progressive movement, the only ones who understood capitalism's fate.
Keep in mind the old landed gentry appear in our time as real estate investors and the financial sector collecting mortgage interest.
In 'theory' Communism is a wonderful idea, unfortunately because of the way people are it is never going to work - animal farm anyone? If people could be trusted to take just their fair share then great but as we all know people are ALWAYS going to try and take more than their fair share, in effect Communism wont work because it is in the make up of human beings to be greedy so and so's!!
In 'theory' Communism is a wonderful idea, unfortunately because of the way people are it is never going to work - animal farm anyone? If people could be trusted to take just their fair share then great but as we all know people are ALWAYS going to try and take more than their fair share, in effect Communism wont work because it is in the make up of human beings to be greedy so and so's!!
But you see, the alternative to communism is the system in which people are encouraged to take more than their fair share, and are entitled to it and even praised for it as long as they have the greed and the guile to take more than their fair share. Everyone in the free market capitalism tries to take more than their fair share, and some succeed, but only at the expense of those who get less than their fair share, whom they do not care about. It is that promise or hope for more than your fair share that drives the capitalist machine.
What free market capitalist can be "trusted to take just their fair share"? Every reason you can expound to assert that "communism will never work" is an equally valid reason why free market capitalism will not work.
The third system would be Monarchy. A benign monarchy is perfectly within reach, which would be the best of all worlds. The monarch is already guaranteed all the wealth and power he could want, so instead of concentrating on his own advancement, can pay attention to the wellbeing of his subjects. And he also possesses the power to obstruct the greediest of his subjects from challenging his power. Which is precisely why it is the capitalists, not the communists, who are most eager to dethrone the monarch -- so they can assume his position of tyranny.
But you see, the alternative to communism is the system in which people are encouraged to take more than their fair share, and are entitled to it and even praised for it as long as they have the greed and the guile to take more than their fair share. Everyone in the free market capitalism tries to take more than their fair share, and some succeed, but only at the expense of those who get less than their fair share, whom they do not care about. It is that promise or hope for more than your fair share that drives the capitalist machine.
What free market capitalist can be "trusted to take just their fair share"? Every reason you can expound to assert that "communism will never work" is an equally valid reason why free market capitalism will not work.
The third system would be Monarchy. A benign monarchy is perfectly within reach, which would be the best of all worlds. The monarch is already guaranteed all the wealth and power he could want, so instead of concentrating on his own advancement, can pay attention to the wellbeing of his subjects. And he also possesses the power to obstruct the greediest of his subjects from challenging his power. Which is precisely why it is the capitalists, not the communists, who are most eager to dethrone the monarch -- so they can assume his position of tyranny.
Now this is understanding. Parasites often find themselves having to defend and care for their host. Once an oligarchy becomes so concentrated, anticompetitive practices actually reduce their estate. So then they become statesmen. That is the endless cycle of capitalism.
And again, if capitalism never fails, then why have they always failed? What system was Rome using when it died? Romo-Marxism?
The third system would be Monarchy. A benign monarchy is perfectly within reach, which would be the best of all worlds. The monarch is already guaranteed all the wealth and power he could want, so instead of concentrating on his own advancement, can pay attention to the wellbeing of his subjects. And he also possesses the power to obstruct the greediest of his subjects from challenging his power. Which is precisely why it is the capitalists, not the communists, who are most eager to dethrone the monarch -- so they can assume his position of tyranny.
good post, but as gwynedd pointed out, the monarchs tend to die out as the aristocracies become too 'aristocratic' and complacent.
I suppose a 4th system could be theocracy but that has a poor record too.
Now this is understanding. Parasites often find themselves having to defend and care for their host.
Parasites live off their host with no benefit to the host and in most cases harm is done to the host.
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