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Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

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Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#121

Post by kunimu »

theseus7 wrote: post #109
ifhd wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Seize the means of production wait no, you aren't suggesting communism. I don't think switching to a property tax system is the way to go. Wouldn't it end up hurting people as you just see rents rise?

Communism is anti-worker because it leads to rampant rent-seeking by political organizers responsible for coordinating the provision of collectively owned capital goods, which is a necessarily a complex problem, since a capital good could refer to any manufactured good which is 'durable' and not immediately consumed. However the base means of production for any economy as recognized by the Physiocrats and all classic…

>Communism is anti-worker because it leads to rampant rent-seeking by political organizers responsible for coordinating the provision of collectively owned capital goods

Can you expand on what you mean by this, please? If I understand it correctly, you're saying that organisers of the means of production would draw benefit which is not distributed to the collective of people who "own" the means of production. How would they do this?

I think it is important also to note that capital requires circulation, as in M-C-M', which not only requires money but also the value-form - these two things are what the Communists desire to render useless through the collective control of means of production.

There are strong currents in Communism which are anti-bureaucracy, and insist on models which do not place the economic organisers of a lower-stage Communist society to be above others in terms of access to goods. As I understand it, within Communist society a line is drawn between end goods and goods which will be used for further production.

What is the justification for separating natural resources from other forms of capital? They require labour to extract, transport and refine so in my view they are as much capital as outputs from previous industrial processes.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#122

Post by baursak »

kunimu wrote: post #121
theseus7 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism is anti-worker because it leads to rampant rent-seeking by political organizers responsible for coordinating the provision of collectively owned capital goods, which is a necessarily a complex problem, since a capital good could refer to any manufactured good which is 'durable' and not immediately consumed. However the base means of production for any economy as recognized by the Physiocrats and all classic…

>Communism is anti-worker because it leads to rampant rent-seeking by political organizers responsible for coordinating the provision of collectively owned capital goods Can you expand on what you mean by this, please? If I understand it correctly, you're saying that organisers of the means of production would draw benefit which is not distributed to the collective of people who "own" the means of production. How wou…

It's an issue of central planning and information arbitrage I guess. Unless the entire society is equally involved in economic central planning (which is absurd), a small group of people will be doing it, thus having access to more information, which is power.

Which is not to say that is not a problem in capitalist society or something that strong democratic foundations cannot alleviate.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#123

Post by wvenable »

snowwrestler wrote: post #118
wvenable wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather it should be sold as an exception to the rule. I've said this before: Society has already made it's choice. Society doesn't want people dying in the streets. Once you've made that decision, universal healthcare in some form or another just flows from that. The US has a form of it right now, it's just extremely perverse and expensive.

Water, food, clothing, and shelter are all more important to people not dying in the streets than health care, and we don't have government single-payer versions of any of those. So I agree with the parent: it's not enough to just say that health care is important, therefore it should be single payer. There are too many counter examples for such a simple argument to pass muster. Discussions of health care policy need…

> Water, food, clothing, and shelter are all more important to people not dying in the streets than health care

And nearly all governments provide countless services from welfare, public housing, shelters, the foster care system, food stamps, etc for that as well.

Society has already made the decision about socialized healthcare; the only real question is how to implement it. The current implementation where you have socialized healthcare but deny it's existence is the worst possible and least efficient system.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#124

Post by kunimu »

baursak wrote: post #122
kunimu wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Communism is anti-worker because it leads to rampant rent-seeking by political organizers responsible for coordinating the provision of collectively owned capital goods Can you expand on what you mean by this, please? If I understand it correctly, you're saying that organisers of the means of production would draw benefit which is not distributed to the collective of people who "own" the means of production. How wou…

It's an issue of central planning and information arbitrage I guess. Unless the entire society is equally involved in economic central planning (which is absurd), a small group of people will be doing it, thus having access to more information, which is power. Which is not to say that is not a problem in capitalist society or something that strong democratic foundations cannot alleviate.

Of course not everyone can be directly involved with the allocation of resources, however as with all scarce resources decisions need to be made from time to time on which usage would best benefit society; in this case, I'm an advocate for democratic management of such resources. I don't think that power only comes with information, the power comes when people are given extra abilities to deal with that information (such as using personal preference to dictate allocation) so I think that protections are needed.

I think the problem with central planning stretches further; the goal of the Communists is to avoid alienation from one's labour, the non-commodity of labour-power, however having labour being externally imposed (whether by the capitalist and the "market" within capitalist society, or by the central planner within Socialist society) is alienation by definition. Therefore some change in the method of planning is required. Marx wrote that there are four forms of alienation, one which I think is important here is alienation of the worker from the act of production; the Communist movement aims to reject this alienation through making the whole productive capacity of society available to all such that the worker can in almost all cases direct his own labour, all production is social therefore, as all workers contribute.

So the kind of planning in higher stage Communism is much past the idea of a government planning, rather, as Marx wrote (to what some consider a contradiction), society regulates general production. To quote,

>For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#125

Post by baursak »

kunimu wrote: post #124
baursak wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an issue of central planning and information arbitrage I guess. Unless the entire society is equally involved in economic central planning (which is absurd), a small group of people will be doing it, thus having access to more information, which is power. Which is not to say that is not a problem in capitalist society or something that strong democratic foundations cannot alleviate.

Of course not everyone can be directly involved with the allocation of resources, however as with all scarce resources decisions need to be made from time to time on which usage would best benefit society; in this case, I'm an advocate for democratic management of such resources. I don't think that power only comes with information, the power comes when people are given extra abilities to deal with that information (…

Sure, Marx was smart and all, but practically, what it comes down to, is a few options.

- Capitalist markets

- USSR style central planning

- Anarchist-leaning gift economy, not scaleable beyond n=1000 or so

- Market socialism strains like mutualism or ParEcon, both of which have major issues of their own

- Any mix of the above, e.g. "Socialism with Chinese characteristics", which has been the best economic performer of the last 30 years or so.

In other words, at some point you need to come down from pie in the sky Marx quotes and make physical implementations, which is always more difficult than theory.

So if central planning is problematic, what do you choose then?

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#126

Post by kunimu »

baursak wrote: post #125
kunimu wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not everyone can be directly involved with the allocation of resources, however as with all scarce resources decisions need to be made from time to time on which usage would best benefit society; in this case, I'm an advocate for democratic management of such resources. I don't think that power only comes with information, the power comes when people are given extra abilities to deal with that information (…

Sure, Marx was smart and all, but practically, what it comes down to, is a few options. - Capitalist markets - USSR style central planning - Anarchist-leaning gift economy, not scaleable beyond n=1000 or so - Market socialism strains like mutualism or ParEcon, both of which have major issues of their own - Any mix of the above, e.g. "Socialism with Chinese characteristics", which has been the best economic performer…

I think that framing the situation in terms of a set number of options is implicitly restrictive on further research in the field of how an production should be organised. I can't bring myself to support any of the options you mentioned; capitalist markets, gift exchange, market socialism, what China is doing (or even what its stated policy is) all maintain the law of value - that is, there is commodity production (the creation not only of useful things but also values, which manifest as exchange values). This was even true in the USSR in which the economy was partially planned; the worker was alienated from his labour and direction and even from other workers.

I don't know if what you say is true, but for me to settle for anything less than what I described in the quote would be to ignore the fundamental critique of capitalism, that is, the production process of capital, and exchange - these things remaining untouched.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#127

Post by xapata »

taejo wrote: post #119
xapata wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incompetence is just as plausible as conspiracy.

What incompetence? It's working out just fine for the employers.

Most people want to help "the people" but differ on definitions of who the people are and what is best for them.
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