What "Socialism" ISN'T

[Triana]

[DireStrike]

1. "Socialism provides no incentive!"

Capitalism provide no incentive, only the threat of privation and an unwinnable shell game.

You don't need to incentivize the small handful of people that control the means of production in order to get things done. You don't have to meet their ever-spiralling demands. Just take away their unearned, undeserved control over that which provides for everyone. Run it in an open and democratic manner.

[Triana]

4. +1

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. For anyone who says "Socialism promotes being lazy"....

I tell them,"Oh sure. The Soviet Union was a major threat because it was lazy."

[FrodosPet]

32. What is a "Soviet Union"?

Oh yeah, I remember from way back when. That was Russia and a bunch of colonies.

They were RICH in natural resources, but still they had long lines for basic items like food and clothing.

They DID have freedom of speech. You were free to praise socialism, Marx, and Lenin all you wanted. Beyond that, you wanted to consider your words carefully, unless you were anxious to go fix Gulag roofs in Siberia.

[Half-Century Man]

33. That was Stalin's corruption of Communism.

Communism is an extremist version of socialism. The Soviet revolution was brought upon by the extreme economic disparity of Imperial Russia. Kinda sorta like what American capitalism is doing now.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

34. The Soviets failed because it became a joke....

The people were sick of the "comrade" crap. The myth that everyone was equal, including your boss at your job. Everything was overseen by party officials who had absolute power to enforce the ideology. It was run like a Theocracy with the "religion" being whatever came out of the Central Committee in Moscow.

The shortages were the result of the rest of the world refusing to sell them ANYTHING or to buy anything but vodka and caviar. I'm old enough to remember the "5 year plans" where people were lacking the basics like refrigerators. We could have made a fortune selling them that stuff but the plan was to sanction EVERYTHING and make the people suffer so they would blame the system.

Compare and contrast Communist Russia with STILL Communist China.

[Javaman]

36. really poor example. nt

[ronnie624]

2. The concept of profit, is completely at odds with the Laws of Thermodynamics,

which dictate a loss at every level of the conversion, utilization and dissipation of matter and energy. There can NEVER be a surplus from ANY kind of thermodynamic system, and that includes ALL aspects of human economic activity. Profit is really a mortgage on the future labor (energy) of the working class, held by our society's elites. It is inherently wasteful, unjust and illogical.

[Triana]

5. +1

[hfojvt]

8. fortunately the sun

is part of our thermodynamic system and for some reason is blasting a whole bunch of energy into space.

[ronnie624]

11. Wha? Huh? n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. "Full of hot air."

[hfojvt]

25. well that's just ridiculous

clearly there must be SOME room for excrement, ergo ALL of the space is NOT taken by hot air.

http://www.gmpiv.com/Philosophy/LifeandGeology.html

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. That's the reason they're called "gas bags".

[seveneyes]

20. Heating a vacuum

is harder than boiling the oceans.

[reACTIONary]

9. And, in a like sense, the concept of...

...refrigeration is completely at odds with the Laws of Thermodynamics.

[ronnie624]

12. Lol. n/t

[unblock]

10. does "thermo" relate to "hot" goods?

[ronnie624]

13. *

[unblock]

14. i didn't know thermodynamics related to the economy. does the law of gravity also relate?

because those with great wealth certainly seem to attract more wealth....

[ronnie624]

15. Examples of thermodynamic systems:

https://www.google.com/search?q=thermodynamic+system+examples&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=276kUv7iFsnHkAfiooDoAQ&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=671

So basically, everything that happens is a thermodynamic system.

[unblock]

16. that's nice, but i'm not buying that you can simplistically apply physics laws to economics.

in particular, the economy is always getting great influxes of "energy" in the form of resources extracted from the earth.
plus, the economic value of an idea can easily exceed, sometimes vastly, the energy that went into producing it.

[ronnie624]

19. "economic value"

has no real value at all in the physical world. Money and other forms of capital are part and parcel to economic theory, and are thus only imperfect symbols that mean nothing to anything but humans.

[unblock]

30. you're thinking of financial value. economic value is measured in resources.

[ronnie624]

31. economic value

Economic value is a measure of the benefit that an economic actor can gain from either a good or service. It is generally measured relative to units of currency, and the interpretation is therefore "what is the maximum amount of money a specific actor is willing and able to pay for the good or service"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_%28economics%29


Does Economics Violate the Laws of Physics?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-economics-violate-th

Here is an excellent essay:

Thermodynamics for Economists

http://markbc.net/doomer-economic-commentary/thermodynamics-for-economists/

[unblock]

35. money is a convenient yardstick, but it is technically incorrect.

it's used for its convenience because it's a commonly understood (if artificial) resource. but it's theoretically inaccurate.

from further down in the wiki page:

Said another way, value is how much a desired object or condition is worth relative to other objects or conditions. Economic values are expressed as "how much" of one desirable condition or commodity will, or would be given up in exchange for some other desired condition or commodity.


thanks for the physics links. i've had numerous discussions on this topic with my father, who is a professor of physics, and remain of the opinion that thermodynamics is useful to economics only as a simple (and generally inappropriately applied) analogy, but it's always good to read more.

[ronnie624]

40. Thermodynamics is not an analogy.

Last edited Mon Dec 9, 2013, 03:03 PM - Edit history (1)

It is the study of the conversion and flow of energy. The laws that have been discovered therein, apply to every physical occurrence in the universe. Human economic activity is NOT somehow, magically exempt from them. They are written in stone. Period. A particular economic 'theory' might violate the Laws of Thermodynamics, but problems will most assuredly arise, when applying that 'theory' to the physical world; a fact that is clearly illustrated by the volatility of the global economy, the need for constant "adjustments" and regular infusions of public revenue, and the fact that so many people in the world live in poverty, while a tiny fraction own everything worth owning.

But the fact of the matter is, capitalism, as it exists, isn't really concerned with an equitable distribution of resources, goods and services. In its current form, its goal is to concentrate an ever increasing amount of the world's resources into fewer hands, which, of course, is exactly what is happening.

Our society places little value on understanding fundamental scientific principles, which is really a shame, because science and rational thought is where our salvation lies.

[Progressive dog]

42. Thermodynamics=all you ever need to know

about economics.
Seriously, there is a lot more to science than conservation of energy. There is a lot more to economics than energy. Thermodynamics existed before Einstein's energy= mass x (speed of light squared).

[ronnie624]

43. I agree on every point.

[unblock]

44. yeah, a it's core, we're all subject to the laws of physics; but that doesn't mean they're useful

in understanding everything because they're formulated at the wrong level of abstraction.

politics and economics and sociology could all be well understood if we had infinite information about every atom and particle on the planet (well, plus further information about the energy from the sun, at a minimum), but that's not really helpful in practice.

yes, a flower is subject to conservation of energy, but so many flowers just grow and grow because of all the energy added to the system from the sun. if you look at the entire solar system as a whole, entropy is increasing, but if you look just to the flower, entropy is decreasing. if your focus is just growing a plant, the conservation of energy concept isn't particularly helpful.

similarly for economics. given the destructive effects of weather and disease, and the beneficial effects of energy from the sun, resources from the earth, and ideas from people, the laws of thermodynamics don't apply in a direct and meaningful fashion. yes, entropy on the whole will inexorably increase, but that doesn't help us decide which governmental policy is the most cost-effective.

[FarCenter]

21. It's not easy to fail both physics and economics at the same time.

[ronnie624]

22. There's nothing to "fail" in mainstream economic "theory",

because it is all clap-trap.

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. K&R Nothing to add to the first two replies. n/t

[WillyT]

6. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[MoreGOPoop]

7. K & R

We are at the end of the Monopoly game and the MiKochtopus
has all the money. Time for a different game, eh?

[malaise]

23. Profound

Rec

[colsohlibgal]

27. Democratic Socialism Is The Way

After a time how could you find enough people to vote against it once lots of them found out that Limbaugh and Faux have been lying to them.

Such a system does not preclude some capitalism - you can still accrue a few million with the right system/product/whatever, but amassing ridiculous amounts like today are another matter. Nobody needs 500 million dollars in their personal vault, I always envision Scrooge McDuck wallowing in his piles of money.

[idwiyo]

28. k&r

[grahamhgreen]

29. Anyone can buy cheap goods in china and sell it at a profit,

It doesn't take a Walton or any special gifts of the hoarding class.

We do not need the Walton's, or people like them, IMHO.

[DFW]

38. Maybe anyone can, but not everyone does

If I knew how to do that and make $10 million in a year, I'd do it, too.

I knew a guy in Belgium who used to go to China, get a few dozen thousand pairs of shoes made, sold most of them and gave the rest away. He did this a few years, and indeed made over ten million dollars. I have no idea how that worked, or I might have done it too (though maybe not--I like my job, and don't need ten million dollars).

I don't begrudge the Waltons for running a successful business. I begrudge them for treating their employees like shit, and if that is the ONLY reason for their success, then they aren't so hot a success after all.

On the other hand if Bill Cosby or Oprah or the Beatles have hundreds of millions because a hundred million people love what their talent lets them do, fine with me.

[grahamhgreen]

41. Can we agree that the country would get along just fine without them?

[DFW]

45. If you mean the Waltons, then definitely

A conglomerate that makes billions either can pay its employees a decent living wage, or else shouldn't exist.

[ctsnowman]

37. Nailed it.

[sibelian]

39. ...maybe that's why "wealth redistribution" is resented.

As if capitalism isn't a form of unfair wealth distribution... in addition to being an unfair WORK redistribution...

Perhaps one could make a case that the natural resentment felt by workers towards often largely useless management structures is copied and pasted by culture onto a different target (the poor (ie.e "lazy&quot ) to redirect the natural loathing of laziness that results from the unfairness of a capitalist culture.

"Lazy rich fuckwits that wouldn't know a days work if it slapped them in the face with a fish. We can't get to 'em... but we can sure make it that some other bum doesn't get more than he deserves! That means my work still matters and I get to point all this frustration with laziness and unfairness at SOMEBODY!"

Human beings can put up with colossal amounts of abuse if it all seems to make sense somehow.