Under communism, would there only be one type of apple juice?

[mollymae]

Serious question, I swear I'm not trolling.
To make it broader: In a hypothetical communist society, if I were to stay in one place, would there be any variety in the type of food products I recieve? Hygiene products? Clothing?
Not different "brands" of course but just more variety?

[Tablo]

If people want more variety then I'm confident there will be.

[Crusade]

That depends on the will of the people.

[ZombieGrits]

Do you really care that much about apple juice? lol
Anyway...
As for something like apple juice (which doesn't have much variety in the first place, I might add) I don't think so, but if different varieties of something are required, like different types of toothpaste for people with sensitive gums or something, then it will be made. Since production will be vastly more efficient I don't see why they couldn't just make a variant of an item as need dictates.

[manic expression]

Here's a list of the types of cigars made in Cuba:

http://www.topcubans.com/cuban-cigars/allbrand.php

Yes, there is room for lots of variety in socialism. It doesn't happen all the time, of course (for various reasons), but variety is both possible and desirable. And that's before we talk about classless society.

[Psy]

I fail to see how it would be possible to get all the apple juice produce to agree on a standard so there would be probably be differences between apple juice in that regard.

Were standardization makes sense communism would have standardization yet even then there would be variety within different models all following the global standard. For example a communist world would probably have a standard for portable music players/recorders yet there probably won't be a single model since for example not everyone would need the function to record and having different models is not a problem as long as all the models follow the same standard.

[CartCollector]

EDIT: Sorry I thought you said "socialism" not "communism." Some of these might not be possible in communism because of its stateless nature.

Well it depends on the post-revolution economic system. If you have a centralized planned economy then you probably would. It would make things easier for planners. If you have a gift economy, people would produce just to serve other people, so I believe that in that scenario there would be many, many types of apple juice, all suited to the consumer's taste. In market socialism, it would depend on the decisions of the worker's councils. They might all choose to produce the same type of apple juice, they might not.

[OldMoney]

Why do you want different types of the same product? Im sure there will be different varietys of apple juice avaliable, made from different varieteys of apples or different missing processess, if theres a demand. There can be different apple concoctions, like apple rassperry twist or something like that, but as far as the same apple juice being distibuted under different labels, what would you want that for?

[Bilan]

Yes, there will be "The Peoples Apple Juice" and "The Proletarian Red Delicious Crush".

[AK]

Don't forget "Glorious Juice of Juche Idea".

[Invincible Summer]

Don't forget "Glorious Juice of Juche Idea".

Or in common parlance, "Joochjuice."


For serious though, there would probably be diff types qualitatively (e.g. low sugar, normal, certain apples, etc) but otherwise, I'd imagine there just being like... maybe a handful of different types.


Brands are just labels on the same product. People swear that Coca-Cola brand carbonated beverage tastes better than the generic type, but it really doesn't... at least around here.

[AK]

Or in common parlance, "Joochjuice."


For serious though, there would probably be diff types qualitatively (e.g. low sugar, normal, certain apples, etc) but otherwise, I'd imagine there just being like... maybe a handful of different types.


Brands are just labels on the same product. People swear that Coca-Cola brand carbonated beverage tastes better than the generic type, but it really doesn't... at least around here.
Something else to mention is that the different varieties of juice would still exist as a result of the workers presumably continuing to produce the different varieties of juice that exist today - just without brand names and whatnot.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I think it's important to have variety, I absolutely will not drink Tesco or Asda own brand juice, it has to be from Sainsburys or the Co-op, other brands just taste like water. Everyone has personal preferences, Communism isn't some grey society where we all live off white label produce and tap water, people often forget that in the Communist society there will be vast amounts of material wealth available. We're not just Communists as a matter of principle, we're Communists because we actually have a lot to gain by achieving our goals, the choice to eat and drink whatever we want to, for example.

[Dimentio]

Serious question, I swear I'm not trolling.
To make it broader: In a hypothetical communist society, if I were to stay in one place, would there be any variety in the type of food products I recieve? Hygiene products? Clothing?
Not different "brands" of course but just more variety?

That probably depends on the type of economic system that communist society is employing. If we say it is a planned economy, there would probably be a few big brands. If its a technocratic system, it is basically so that the citizen herself would decide what types of apple juice she want the system to produce for her. If its a mutualist system, it would be small cooperatives making apple juice.

If the society is environmentally friendly, it is probable that if you for example live in Illinois that you cannot acquire apples from Florida that easily (but the same is true about capitalist environmentalism).

[punisa]

Yes, there will be variety. But not in a sense of today's variety where differentiating takes part in form of packaging, advertising and all that nonsense.
Apple juice? perfect example !
You'll have:
apple juice from America,
apple juice from France,
apple juice from Serbia,
apple juice from New Zeland etc etc...

Since they will be produced in different climates/regions, they'll also taste different.

Wine is another great example, even on a small region you can get all sorts of wine types which differ greatly in taste and flavor.
The way it gets produced is also another element that will create diversity.
Same goes for tobacco too, and hundreds of other products...

There will be as much diversity in communism as today, maybe even more.
The only thing that will be lacking is artificial incentive that manipulates you into buying certain product.

There is no reason to think about communism as some sort of world where we start from scratch or something along those lines.
Capitalism already produces some great stuff, our mission is to take it over from the privileged few and give it to the masses :star2:

[mollymae]

Do you really care that much about apple juice? lol

Hey, there ain't nothing wrong with questioning a political ideology for the sake of a nice glass of apple juice. :cool:

Thank you for your informative replies.

[Dimentio]

I am addicted on Glocken Gold multi-vitamine fruit juice myself :lol:

[Little Bobby Hutton]

if youd rather thousands starve to death so you can have mnore thn 1 type of apple juice, your a moron.

[Outinleftfield]

There is limited time and energy in deciding anything. If every little aspect of production is made uniform across the world that's not efficient because of the time and energy spent going to meetings to figure out every little detail. Any standardization would only be for aspects that are really important. In fact you'd probably find that for a lot of things no two products are the same when comparing different factories, fields, or even across time. Does it matter if 10 milligrams of sugar are added or 11? No. Then you'd probably see this vary a great deal. In fact people would probably pay less precise attention to details that are unimportant. "How much sugar? That looks about right just throw it in!" so each individual item itself might be different, within certain specifications so you know you're not going to pick up a can of apple juice and have it taste like shit(unless you just hate apple juice) but still with a great deal of unpredictable variety in flavor (probably more likelihood of variety for things like pop though than juice).

Of course this depends not only on need but aggregated personal preferences. If a large number of people are really anal about each can of apple juice having say 10 milligrams of sugar(don't know if that's a normal amount but for the sake of example) then it will be planned that each apple juice has that specific amount but I don't see people really caring that much.

Capitalists often extol the virtues of the free market is deciding things according to people's preferences but ignore the fact that this is heavily weighted based on money. In communism production would be more representative of people's preferences, not less.

[Red Commissar]

It seems that by the sake of advertisements they had in some self-described Marxist states, there was variety to people's tastes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-6n0jlN0Eo

:blink:

Meh, just wanted an excuse to post that.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well, communism can only exist in a society of over-abundance. So I suppose it would stand to reason that there would be more than one variety of apple juice in such a society.

(Although I agree with a previous poster in that I don't see a terrible amount of variety in apple juice today. The only real difference I can distinguish is between cider and juice.)

[The Vegan Marxist]

We can't forget about making different brands of lemonade. We'll have have the usual colors, but when it comes to the red lemonade, we'll have specials on it. Two different brands: Leninade & Stalinade! :thumbup1:

[Martin Blank]

This is similar to the old "Commie Coke-or-Pepsi" argument from the 1980s. The answer to this is the same as it was then: There will be as many varieties as there are varied tastes. Necessity is the mother of invention, not profit. And labor is its father.

[Crusade]

if youd rather thousands starve to death so you can have mnore thn 1 type of apple juice, your a moron.

But V8 is so much better than minute maid :(

[Wolf Larson]

Serious question, I swear I'm not trolling.
To make it broader: In a hypothetical communist society, if I were to stay in one place, would there be any variety in the type of food products I recieve? Hygiene products? Clothing?
Not different "brands" of course but just more variety?

Fetishized consumption manipulated by advertising campaigns. No thanks. Freedom is the freedom to choose from a handful of products a capitalist made and has inoculated society with all manner of lies, half truths and exaggerations in order to sell his product? Do you have a choice in the type of apple juice that's produced right now? You pick from a small selection of apple juice a capitalist has made for you. Under a socialist system where workers control production we would choose what and how much to make. Many socialists these days have veered away from the centralized command economy under the control of some elite bureaucratic class and have leaned more towards the people deciding what they want in a less centralized manner.

"Rational action as such is the relating of ends to means; economic rationality, specifically, assumes means to be scarce. But human society involves more then that. What should be the ends of man, and how should he choose his means? Economic rationalism, in the strict sense, has no answer to these questions, for they imply motivations and valuations of a moral and practical order that go beyond the logically irresistible but otherwise empty exhortation to be economical".

Karl Polany-

What did Polany mean by that? People will value what is most useful but in modern capitalist society whats most useful isn't always whats valued. Through 24/7 advertising campaigns our wants and needs are manipulated in the name of profit. Without capitalism our wants and needs would go back to being more organic, less synthetic, less fake. Polany meant there's no way to know what people really want until the people figure out what they want under natural conditions. Conditions which do not exist under capitalism nor would they exist under a bureaucratic centralized form of collectivism under the control of an elite minority. Without capitalism our perception of what we want and need will change and it will be within our power to make/produce whatever that may be only if workers actually have control of a socialized and decentralized economy/workplace which has been melded with the political system. Am I making sense?

In short, Milton Friedman's idea that freedom is the freedom to choose from products capitalists make and design for you is not freedom at all. Nor is working to fill the bank accounts of these capitalists. Focus groups are evil by the way. You should watch century of self , a BBC documentary here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1122532358497501036&ei=v1epS5O2IpeeqQPi_MydDA&q=century+of+self&hl=en&client=firefox-a#docid=3676423646869922954

[Glenn Beck]

Yes, because there are different types of apples and also different methods for manufacturing apple juice.

[¿Que?]

Under capitalism, the apple's juices are appropriated by the capitalist and sold for a profit. The juice is the objectification of the apples sweetness. By appropriating the juice, the capitalist robs the apple of the full value of its juices, and the apple experiences alienation. In communism, the apple would retain the full value of its juices. Thus the apple would be truly free. It would be a transformation from an apple in itself to an apple existing for itself. This is known as Marx's apple juice theory of value :p

[Raúl Duke]

Serious question, I swear I'm not trolling.
To make it broader: In a hypothetical communist society, if I were to stay in one place, would there be any variety in the type of food products I recieve? Hygiene products? Clothing?
Not different "brands" of course but just more variety?

Yes, they'll be made by different co-operatives and/or individuals so in essence each co-op makes their "own product."

[pierrotlefou]

Or in common parlance, "Joochjuice."


For serious though, there would probably be diff types qualitatively (e.g. low sugar, normal, certain apples, etc) but otherwise, I'd imagine there just being like... maybe a handful of different types.


Brands are just labels on the same product. People swear that Coca-Cola brand carbonated beverage tastes better than the generic type, but it really doesn't... at least around here.
Not too different from now. Only a few companies own all the hundreds of "brands" in the grocery store.

[OldMoney]

opps

[Invincible Summer]

We can't forget about making different brands of lemonade. We'll have have the usual colors, but when it comes to the red lemonade, we'll have specials on it. Two different brands: Leninade & Stalinade! :thumbup1:

http://tijiuanahitsquad.com/pics/leninade.jpg

[AK]

http://tijiuanahitsquad.com/pics/leninade.jpg
Nutritional Information:
Lemon................................50%
Blood of the workers.............25%
Sweat of the workers............25%

[mollymae]

So if different co-ops make slightly different varieties of apple juice, is there a potential for competition here? Obviously it's not the same kind of competition as capitalism because there is no profit. But what if one co-op makes apple juice that is simply better--maybe they have access to better apples, or maybe they have a better recipe--and people prefer juice A over juice B, C, and D? Will people sometimes just have to make do with the inferior juices?

I know that this is a rather petty question in the grand scheme of things, but I'm just wondering :p

[Twin City Lines]

Yes, I believe variety and even brand names will continue under socialism. Here's why: It's true the Soviet Union had mostly generic products (there were some exceptions, like Vostok watches and Stolichnaya vodka), but that was partly or maybe mostly due to the fact that the Soviet Union rose almost directly out of feudalist Russia with little development of capitalism. In the "first world", we have well-developed capitalism, corporations, and brands. Now, for some truly standard products like bleach (5.25% sodium hypochlorite, 94.75% water by law), a generic label is fine. But are we really going to consilidate McDonald's and Burger King into one unified fast-food hamburger joint? There are too many people who prefer one or the other, and even though I like both Big Macs and Whoppers, I shudder to think about what a "compromise" hamburger midway between the two standards would be like.... Nationalisation of modern corporations isn't going to mean their melding into some faceless bureaucratic departments (though such departments will probably become the "parent company" of the corporations in their fields). However, with production for use and not for profit, the endless advertising and competition would come to an end. Occasional informational advertising of new products would be all that would be required in a socialist state. If demand for something drops, the solution would be to reduce production, not stimulate consumption through advertising. After all, do we really need to be making more work for ourselves?

[Raúl Duke]

So if different co-ops make slightly different varieties of apple juice, is there a potential for competition here? Obviously it's not the same kind of competition as capitalism because there is no profit.

Maybe, but under communism due to the absence of "money" (in a sense, I heard of talk of technocratic style credit systems where the credits are non-cumulative; like getting a "resource allowance" each day) one can't really accumulate capital/money/etc.

Under socialism a different check/balance might have to be put in place.

[Psy]

But are we really going to consilidate McDonald's and Burger King into one unified fast-food hamburger joint? There are too many people who prefer one or the other, and even though I like both Big Macs and Whoppers, I shudder to think about what a "compromise" hamburger midway between the two standards would be like....
I've been thinking about this and I doubt either McDonald's or Burger King would last more then 5 years under communism as planners most likely would rather McDonald's and Burger King get broken up as there is no advantage for food services being centralized at a global level and the workers that take over McDonald's and Burger King probably would quickly lose interest as would patrons as communism would open out the choices far beyond cheap fast food.

[ArrowLance]

Don't forget "Glorious Juice of Juche Idea".
Juicy Juche? 100% Liberation?