What does a socialist/communist economy look like?
Chris Carnage
Most people, when they think of a socialist/communist economy think of monstrous state-owned enterprises labouring under the mostly inept and often corrupt leadership of a vast bureaucracy led by megalomaniac dictators.
To be sure, that is a model that has been tried in RL under the brand of communism, and whether it is worse to its workers than a sharp-edged impersonal capitalist system trained to funnel the productive capacity of entire populations to the ever-increasing personal wealth of an ever-decreasing number of capitalists is a matter for debate, but not in this article.
Why do we think this way of the socialist/communist economy? I guess for those of us in the traditionally liberal-democratic societies a few generations of propaganda and some RL exemplars of extraordinarily bad practice don't hurt. Never mind the mass poverty and exploitation of the third world inflicted by global corporations that would amount to genocide if committed by a leader unfriendly to the first world, but I digress...
There are other economic models that fall into the broad socialist/communist framework. Allow me to expound on one such model, the syndicalist commune.
One might find, in the failure of the capitalist system (predicted by crazy people), that some workers will become disaffected with the degree to which their productive capacity is captured by capital (ignorant nincompoops that they are). It is entirely possible that in such circumstances one may find that communes form spontaneously around groups of such disaffected workers who find that bypassing the capitalist market economy and forming communes that effect the rightful distribution of the product of their labour all are not only better off in a material sense but also form a sense of community that the individualism required for successful capitalist domination frowns upon as inefficient and counter-productive.
In e-life this may take the shape of military communes, where workers do not work for a meagre wage but take a rightful share of the fruit of their labour. In time one might expect that the military commune may become the dominant form of production across the world. Crazy I know, but let me dream a little further.
Imagine that the military commune takes such a dominant hold that the entire market system collapses. Would-be capitalists sell their goods for less than the cost of production (unimaginable). The market system, so revered by the capitalist establishment, becomes a laughing stock. The price signals that are intended to render perfect efficiency instead promote perverse incentives and irrational behaviour. Government revenues shrink to miniscule proportions and government expenditure turns to unsustainable draw-downs of shrinking reserves to fund the social goods that capitalism refuses to supply on account of their unprofitability. The role of government withers and weakens daily.
Such a state is unimaginable, no? Yet here we are, with military communes the dominant form of production and prices of manufactures lower than the cost of the raw materials to produce them in most markets. Tax revenue has shrunk to such a level that the government draws upon ever-decreasing reserves while the fundamental function of government, the security of the people, is increasingly delivered by non-governmental organisations.
Welcome to the socialist economy my friends. I wish I could say I had done something to precipitate its realisation but I have not. It has arisen from good sense and pragmatism.
Long live the revolution!
Comments
TL😉R
Chris Carnage you bore me
TL😉R
Chris Carnage you arouse me
Need more pix
Sadly, our tax is more than capable of keeping us more than afloat - when we have all our regions 🙁 well thought out none the less.
LOL how's that socialism working out - in a capitalist model?
Ahh kid you amuse me.
The kid is just trying to convice you about the need of Socialism? hahahahahaha Hey kido? Greece had had for over 30 years of Socialists to run on government ! Even George A.Papandreou -the last prime minister of Greece who entered Greece into IMF and a long long period of poverty, and who has now escaped to USA in order to save himself as all Greeks are ready to Jail him and convicted him for the betrayal against his country and against the Greek People.
Socialists in Greece have made a "big deal" as they have robbed every single Public Fund of Pensions, Wages, and all packages that EU and other countries were sending with economic help and as in literature is called that thing: "they ate them" meaning that they have stolen them, and none did anything to stop them, even the countries that were lending the money.The thing is, that Greece now is becoming better from the day that the Socialistic Government of George A.Papandreou has left.
socialism has its place alongside capitalism - take medicare, HECS for uni students and other such governmnet programs, Without these aussie education and health would be of a much lower standard and affect our productivity and competiveness in a capitalist world negatively. there is no clear line that differentiates the two in any successful modern economy.
communes and equal wages for all clearly does not work but neither does a puely capitalist beast. Pure capitalism would have to do away
with government as government does not operate to generate profits. that would eliminate democracy
but meeh..
@tsakali - I'm not trying to convince anyone of the need for socialism, I'm pointing out that the eRep economy is ALREADY dominated by spontaneously formed syndicalist communes. I had nothing to do with it and neither did Papandreou, it just happened because it makes sense.
Communist economy looks like shit. I have been living within this stuff for 22 years.
1993 called and asked for their ideology back.
TL😉R
Chris Carnage you arouse me
We don't need a lesson in communism, we know its for idiots.
I prefer to think we are in a pirate economy rather than a classic socialist economy right now. Small communities band together for mutual gain forming companies in which they have a share and undermine government systems. Frankly, it just a small scale version of a government really - the difference being that equity is easier to administer.
But the article did make me laugh. The syrup of irony flows thick.
I really liked this article.
TJ and Kevin Krudd, I'm truly sorry to have offended you. I just didn't realise that you worked for a market wage rather than in a commune. An unforgivable oversight on my part, you are both hereby excused from reading my articles in future.
Snyderr - seems like you live in one of the "...RL exemplars of extraordinarily bad practice" I mentioned. Sorry mate.
Majester - agree, not a classical planned socialist economy but very close to classical syndicalism
I was just thinking...
In an unregulated economy, monopolistic corporations will have the tendency to become like state-owned monstrous enterprises anyway, and more likely than not, they will have the government in their pocket, becoming dictators themselves.
Chris Carnage, I used to live. But thank god people managed to change the situation. The mantras about blessed communism cannot be held for a long time in the heads of RL people.
And I am about to vomit looking at sickle and hammer in the decorations.
Free men, free minds, free markets.
Socialism is as dangerous now as it ever was, it just attacks in a more subtle fashion than the brutal communist/facist dictatorships of the 20th century. It didn't work for the Nazis or the Soviets, and it wouldn't work today.
Source: Economics
i like how people assume that communism is bad because the leadership is bad
in RL communism doesnt work because greed is a very powerful motivator
in erep however who gives a fuck about pretend money, its possible that it could work, and infact did in v1 of erep, infact entire countries had effective and well managed communist governments
^ some people really have a hard time separating eRep and RL. Oh, and Plato must have been a dick in RL.
here is a funny but true thing my old man used to say if you were to interview the top 10 mass murders eg stalin hitler etc they would all describe them selves as Socialists
Market failure is mainly Plato's doing. It is kind of ironic though, that workers feel their own labout for manager work is worthless - happily sell their output at low value, then complain about wage levels even though they usually exceed the value of their production.
Go figure.