71–80 of 153 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you provide evidence that a centralized economy is inefficient?
Bureaucrats and the growth of bureaucracy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It definitely didn't share Marx's original concepts of decentralized states and communal distribution. But almost every implementation of Marxism in recent history involved totalitarianism and ignored the part about decentralization of power post-revolution. So it's a fair statement, if taken as the commonly held meaning.
Well, I think the commonly held meaning is nonsense, and that it's commonly held doesn't really change that. "almost every implementation of Marxism in recent history involved totalitarianism and ignored the part about decentralization of power post-revolution" Then how are any of these an actual implementation of Marxism? There have been implementations of totalitarianism claiming the label of Marxism, sure. You mig…
They would also have been familiar with the primitive currency used by the groups they conquered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe-monies
Granted, this was in the most recently conquered area of Incan expansion. The blood had hardly dried before the Spanish came but the subjects of the Inca would have been familiar with these concepts.
I also think that it wrong to talk about the descendants of these people as though they don't exist any more. Indigenous culture is quite strong and in the Andes. There was a change in power but it wasn't like turning out a light switch. Even the Inca, themselves, (who were really just a noble class) were able to self identify and organize a rebellion in the late 1700's, 200 years after the initial conquest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It definitely didn't share Marx's original concepts of decentralized states and communal distribution. But almost every implementation of Marxism in recent history involved totalitarianism and ignored the part about decentralization of power post-revolution. So it's a fair statement, if taken as the commonly held meaning.
But almost every implementation of Marxism in recent history involved totalitarianism and ignored the part about decentralization of power post-revolution. I recently came across a very interesting thought, which is that this observation (which I also believed until coming across that thought) is induced by a kind of selection bias. The original article in which I encountered this thought is here: http://www.pieria.c…
"First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice. Marx, its founder, concluded that the only way to abolish the class monopolies was to centralize and consolidate all industrial and commercial interests, all productive and distributive agencies, in one vast monopoly in the hands of the State. The government must become banker, manufacturer, farmer, carrier, and merchant, and in these capacities must suffer no competition. Land, tools, and all instruments of production must be wrested from individual hands, and made the property of the collectivity. To the individual can belong only the products to be consumed, not the means of producing them. A man may own his clothes and his food, but not the sewing-machine which makes his shirts or the spade which digs his potatoes. Product and capital are essentially different things; the former belongs to individuals, the latter to society. Society must seize the capital which belongs to it, by the ballot if it can, by revolution if it must. Once in possession of it, it must administer it on the majority principle, though its organ, the State, utilize it in production and distribution, fix all prices by the amount of labor involved, and employ the whole people in its workshops, farms, stores, etc. The nation must be transformed into a vast bureaucracy, and every individual into a State official. Everything must be done on the cost principle, the people having no motive to make a profit out of themselves. Individuals not being allowed to own capital, no one can employ another, or even himself. Every man will be a wage-receiver, and the State the only wage-payer. He who will not work for the State must starve, or, more likely, go to prison. All freedom of trade must disappear. Competition must be utterly wiped out. All industrial and commercial activity must be centered in one vast, enormous, all-inclusive monopoly. The remedy for monopolies is monopoly. Such is the economic programme of State Socialism as adopted from Karl Marx."
Benjamin Tucker, State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)
Tucker is not exactly the most popular american philosopher of all time, especially not among the political classes, so it would seem unlikely that the american political system would conspire to see to it that his predictions would come true.
...seriously, no one said bitcoins?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It definitely didn't share Marx's original concepts of decentralized states and communal distribution. But almost every implementation of Marxism in recent history involved totalitarianism and ignored the part about decentralization of power post-revolution. So it's a fair statement, if taken as the commonly held meaning.
Well, I think the commonly held meaning is nonsense, and that it's commonly held doesn't really change that. "almost every implementation of Marxism in recent history involved totalitarianism and ignored the part about decentralization of power post-revolution" Then how are any of these an actual implementation of Marxism? There have been implementations of totalitarianism claiming the label of Marxism, sure. You mig…
They may not necessarily be an 'actual implementation' of what Marx intended, but even early on, those outcomes were predicted as a logical conclusion of Marxism by other philosophers.
reposting from a branched sub-thread:
"First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice. Marx, its founder, concluded that the only way to abolish the class monopolies was to centralize and consolidate all industrial and commercial interests, all productive and distributive agencies, in one vast monopoly in the hands of the State. The government must become banker, manufacturer, farmer, carrier, and merchant, and in these capacities must suffer no competition. Land, tools, and all instruments of production must be wrested from individual hands, and made the property of the collectivity. To the individual can belong only the products to be consumed, not the means of producing them. A man may own his clothes and his food, but not the sewing-machine which makes his shirts or the spade which digs his potatoes. Product and capital are essentially different things; the former belongs to individuals, the latter to society. Society must seize the capital which belongs to it, by the ballot if it can, by revolution if it must. Once in possession of it, it must administer it on the majority principle, though its organ, the State, utilize it in production and distribution, fix all prices by the amount of labor involved, and employ the whole people in its workshops, farms, stores, etc. The nation must be transformed into a vast bureaucracy, and every individual into a State official. Everything must be done on the cost principle, the people having no motive to make a profit out of themselves. Individuals not being allowed to own capital, no one can employ another, or even himself. Every man will be a wage-receiver, and the State the only wage-payer. He who will not work for the State must starve, or, more likely, go to prison. All freedom of trade must disappear. Competition must be utterly wiped out. All industrial and commercial activity must be centered in one vast, enormous, all-inclusive monopoly. The remedy for monopolies is monopoly. Such is the economic programme of State Socialism as adopted from Karl Marx."
Benjamin Tucker, State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh, you simply changed the meaning of the word; it clearly states "paid" and not "feed". You are fully aware that you can offer work in exchange for things rather than gold or fiat money? From the other link we'll find >Free workers were even recruited from neighbouring satrapies at harvest time (Dandemaev and Lukonin, 1989: 157). Paid free-born labourers worked on the Babylonian canals, and free non-citizen farmers…
I apologize if my previous reply came across as too curt. But I think a sharp distinction needs to be drawn between two work systems that are quite different: A. Market based, in which a certain reward is provided for performing a certain amount of work. Workers are generally free to come and leave, and respond accordingly to variations in wages. B. Command based, into which workers are essentially corralled by threa…
Although if I may digress and make a small comment. The market economy could be argued somewhat "command based" too. The difference being that you are given money to buy the food and shelter you need (rather than being given them directly). And then you have the entire "debt economy" when it comes to "laboring until their obligation is fulfilled".
While I now understand your argument, I saw the issue more as the state at least acknowledged an exchange, and a right for the worker to receive some compensation. Perhaps not the most valuable. But something, in a time were you could easily have slave labor; "payment" in its simplest form without any connotation to specific economic models.
Speaking of slave labor however. There was a part about slaves (in one of the articles I quoted). It stated that more skilled labor (doctors, nurses and teachers) were kept as slaves. Now, in a market economy those kinds of skills would (should) be especially rewarding in the model A you are talking about.
When I think about it, I can't say that lower skill work really would seem to differ in the two models you mentioned. In today’s world you could find lower skill work that pays more than simply keeping a person alive (e.g. in many European countries), but generally speaking this is not true in all (most?) places.
But I digress. Again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It definitely didn't share Marx's original concepts of decentralized states and communal distribution. But almost every implementation of Marxism in recent history involved totalitarianism and ignored the part about decentralization of power post-revolution. So it's a fair statement, if taken as the commonly held meaning.
But almost every implementation of Marxism in recent history involved totalitarianism and ignored the part about decentralization of power post-revolution. I recently came across a very interesting thought, which is that this observation (which I also believed until coming across that thought) is induced by a kind of selection bias. The original article in which I encountered this thought is here: http://www.pieria.c…
But to apply some historical facts to the theory:
From its founding, the Cheka was an important military and security arm of the Bolshevik communist government. In 1921 the Troops for the Internal Defense of the Republic (a branch of the Cheka) numbered 200,000. These troops policed labor camps; ran the Gulag system; conducted requisitions of food; subjected political opponents to torture and summary execution; and put down rebellions and riots by workers or peasants, and mutinies in the desertion-plagued Red Army.
The Cheka existed from 1917 to 1922. Even if the US was scared of communism, nothing like the CIA existed to undermine the revolution in Soviet Russia. And yet, violently putting down riots by workers and peasants was necessary. It takes a special kind of ideological arrogance to blame the USA for that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Workers were paid in wine and grain That's not pay, it's logistics. Even on the worst forced labor projects they're still usually feeding the prisoners.
Ya: free to go but free to starve isn't much of a choice. Outright slavery isn't necessary.