A few questions on incentive and competition [Archive]

TheJew

31st May 2012, 02:43

homegrown terror

31st May 2012, 15:55

If a surgeon makes the same salary than a janitor but works a lot harder then that surgeon

have you ever done physical, manual labor? how dare you say that said janitor doesn't work as hard as a surgeon? sure, one is more physical and one more intellectual, but why would you think either example is harder? it all depends on the individual's personal talents, hence the "from each according to his abilities" part of the credo.

You can say that if the surgeon doesn't work to his fullest then he doesn't get food, but then no one would want to become a surgeon if they knew they would need to work harder for the same compensation. So how do you give people an incentive to do harder jobs like being a surgeon?

do you think the high pay is the only reason people become doctors, engineers etc? sure it's an incentive, but a large proportion, if not a majority, go into such fields because of a genuine drive and interest, and equal compensation wouldn't quell that drive so much as you seem to think.

in short, get your head out of your ass. sure, a lot of people are shitty by nature, but people have a lot more potential for greatness than you give them credit for.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

31st May 2012, 17:24

have you ever done physical, manual labor? how dare you say that said janitor doesn't work as hard as a surgeon? sure, one is more physical and one more intellectual, but why would you think either example is harder? it all depends on the individual's personal talents, hence the "from each according to his abilities" part of the credo.

do you think the high pay is the only reason people become doctors, engineers etc? sure it's an incentive, but a large proportion, if not a majority, go into such fields because of a genuine drive and interest, and equal compensation wouldn't quell that drive so much as you seem to think.

in short, get your head out of your ass. sure, a lot of people are shitty by nature, but people have a lot more potential for greatness than you give them credit for.

Go easy bro, this is the learning forum.

Also, let's not be moralists here. A doctor deserves greater remuneration than a janitor for several reasons:

a) They study longer and so have a shorter working life than a janitor
b) Their service rendered is specialised and carries greater responsibility. In this sense, the relative productivity of the janitor or the doctor is un-important. In Capitalism, due to the reserve army of labour, a janitor's labour is replaceable with ease, a doctor's with great difficulty. Under Socialism the same too, due to the issue of specialisation, skills-training etc.

Having said this, there is certainly an issue that some doctors' (i.e. Consultants, Surgeons etc.) motivation is that of money, status, prestige etc (note, NOT explicitly money, but factors related to). Of course, i'm not questioning the ability of a doctor to perform his or her duties; in a sense, if he/she is capable then they do not need to be this great moral hero. However, I do think that the six-figure salaries that the highest level consultants and surgeons get is somewhat leading to a problem of morals, especially when foundation doctors often have to go through the same rigorous training and often cannot get past a certain promotion level, simply because they haven't studied medicine at Imperial College or wherever. Having said that, I see no reason why janitors and doctors should be remunerated equally.

Of course under a system of 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need', things are different. But we have to recognise that reaching this ideal is a very long-term, very hazy goal. I imagine that money will not simply be replaced by 'communism', but that the eradication of money and the achievement of communism will go through some sort of economic and financial transition: i've always been intrigued by labour credits. But that's an issue for another day.

Whilst money exists, doctors clearly should be remunerated to a greater level than unskilled workers, working in relatively un-dangerous jobs. When money doesn't exist, that'll cease to be a problem, since (as the theory goes) there will be enough produced for everybody's needs to be fulfilled.

TheJew

1st June 2012, 02:16

Go easy bro, this is the learning forum.

Also, let's not be moralists here. A doctor deserves greater remuneration than a janitor for several reasons:

a) They study longer and so have a shorter working life than a janitor
b) Their service rendered is specialised and carries greater responsibility. In this sense, the relative productivity of the janitor or the doctor is un-important. In Capitalism, due to the reserve army of labour, a janitor's labour is replaceable with ease, a doctor's with great difficulty. Under Socialism the same too, due to the issue of specialisation, skills-training etc.

Having said this, there is certainly an issue that some doctors' (i.e. Consultants, Surgeons etc.) motivation is that of money, status, prestige etc (note, NOT explicitly money, but factors related to). Of course, i'm not questioning the ability of a doctor to perform his or her duties; in a sense, if he/she is capable then they do not need to be this great moral hero. However, I do think that the six-figure salaries that the highest level consultants and surgeons get is somewhat leading to a problem of morals, especially when foundation doctors often have to go through the same rigorous training and often cannot get past a certain promotion level, simply because they haven't studied medicine at Imperial College or wherever. Having said that, I see no reason why janitors and doctors should be remunerated equally.

Of course under a system of 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need', things are different. But we have to recognise that reaching this ideal is a very long-term, very hazy goal. I imagine that money will not simply be replaced by 'communism', but that the eradication of money and the achievement of communism will go through some sort of economic and financial transition: i've always been intrigued by labour credits. But that's an issue for another day.

Whilst money exists, doctors clearly should be remunerated to a greater level than unskilled workers, working in relatively un-dangerous jobs. When money doesn't exist, that'll cease to be a problem, since (as the theory goes) there will be enough produced for everybody's needs to be fulfilled.

And there lies the problem, if surgeons and other higher skilled jobs receive more compensation than unskilled laborers, than that leads to them getting more wealth and therefore leading to another elite class defeating the whole propose of socialism/communism.

homegrown terror says that a surgeon and a janitor do the same amount of work, and while an argument could be made to the case, I doubt surgeons would agree, leading to the same problem of incentive. So how do you give highly skilled laborers like surgeons an incentive to work as hard as they can without leading to elitism?

And can someone answer the original question on competition? And homegrown terror remember that I'm not trying to argue, so you don't need to insult me. I am simply trying to get a better understanding of communism.

jookyle

1st June 2012, 05:39

So, surgeons and janitors. TBH, someone who spends their whole life cleaning up the public spaces we use day after day so we're not walking in garbage, vomit, and spoiled milk certainly has much more credit due to him then he gets in capitalist society, where he's seen as unimportant because of the size his pay check. Human beings are equal and just because a janitor doesn't spend as much time in study as a surgeon would doesn't mean his quality of life shouldn't be as good. Communism is about achieving a modern egalitarian society. He's a person who contributes to society, you could even argue on a bigger scale than the average doctor would. Think about how many patients a doctor sees to how many people walk in the hall of a mall that a janitor just cleaned cause I kid pissed all over the floor.

As far as competition, it's a myth of liberalist thinkers to say that with out competition, financial competition, that there's no incentive. People were inventing and innovating before markets were ever existed. The guy who figured how to create sure as hell wasn't doing it for profit. Scientists who spend their lives researching new ways to do things really aren't doing things for profit, most live pretty averagely after living years like shit. The competition comes in when the capitalist wants to take the innovation or discovery from one person, and patent, market, and sell it before the other capitalists do.

burujowa

1st June 2012, 06:30

And there lies the problem, if surgeons and other higher skilled jobs receive more compensation than unskilled laborers, than that leads to them getting more wealth and therefore leading to another elite class defeating the whole propose of socialism/communism.

Moderate income inequality doesn't create an "elite class" and the purpose of socialism isn't for everyone to make the same. It's not a problem unless they can turn it into capital.

Revolution starts with U

1st June 2012, 06:44

*To an old 50s commyercial jingle*
Dif-ferenc-es
in wealth don't matter
if access to production and consumption
lie fir-m-ly in equal hands
because you can't leverage wealth over them :lol:

EDIT: And at that point it's no longer really "wealth" per se, as just differences in the quantity of goods.

ckaihatsu

1st June 2012, 07:16

In a capitalist society competition forces competing companies to try to outperform their competitors. This leads to two things: variety and new technology. Having many different companies leads to a variety of products for consumer consumption. The competition also forces companies to attempt to attempt to make new more innovative products which leads to advantages in technology. Note that I am not a right wing republican trying to say that capitalism is better. I have no desire to argue, I am only stating how capitalism creates a variety of products and forces technological advancements. What I would like to know is what mechanisms a communist society would use to achieve the same results.

This is something of a misconception. While capitalism is unique as a historical dynamic in that it is constantly forcing labor for the sake of primitive accumulation -- even when both are no longer necessary -- this does not necessarily mean that it is directing this labor and "development" in any kind of *positive*, societally helpful direction.

In fact, when capitalism gets to the point of overproduction it is actually assisted more at that point by the *destruction* of capital and infrastructure, thus providing objective incentives for (world) war and rebuilding.

Moreover it's too simplistic to say 'competition = variety' and 'cooperation = monotony'. I could just as well say 'competition = endless pointless intrigues' and 'cooperation = utopian feelgood togetherness' -- both sets are overgeneralizations while containing some truth as well.

As a counterpoint I'll note that much of capitalism is monopolistic, yielding big-business cartels that serve to *limit* competition so as to stay top-of-the-heap -- the lack of innovation in energy sources and automobile engine development come to mind immediately as good examples here.

Finally, I'll mention that much research & development is actually done by government and/or government-funded sources, and/or is spun off of *militaristic* developments -- U.S. interstate highways and the Internet being the prime examples here.

I have seen some posts answering the question of incentive but I have found their answer unsatisfactory. If a surgeon makes the same salary than a janitor but works a lot harder then that surgeon is going to be angry and therefore will probably not work to his full capacity. You can say that if the surgeon doesn't work to his fullest then he doesn't get food, but then no one would want to become a surgeon if they knew they would need to work harder for the same compensation. So how do you give people an incentive to do harder jobs like being a surgeon?

I have many other questions, but I think I will save them for another day. Thank you for your help.

I actually happen to *agree* with you on this point, and I *don't* think that we should attempt to view all types of labor as being equivalent -- and this is regardless of the political economy in place. This topic was covered comprehensively a year ago at this thread:

The doctor argument against communism

http://www.revleft.com/vb/doctor-argument-against-t147012/index.html

The synopsis, as far as I'm concerned, is that a society could civilly administer exit surveys for all types of occupations in order to come up with a mass ranking of difficulty (or hazard) according to occupation -- total labor credits would be arrived at by multiplying labor hours worked by the difficulty/hazard of each position, according to the surveys.

I developed a model that uses a system of circulating labor credits that are *not* exchangeable for material items of any kind -- this is in acknowledgment of communism being synonymous with free-access.

communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/

Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived

Propagation

labor [supply] -- Workers with past accumulated labor credits are the funders of new work positions and incoming laborers -- labor credits are handed over at the completion of work hours -- underfunded projects and production runs are debt-based and will be noted as such against the issuing locality

What I do not understand is how incentive to work and competition would work in a communist society. In fact, there would be no competition.

And can someone answer the original question on competition?

Instead of making a shibboleth of competition it might be better to focus on free-access (to industrial mass-produced goods and services) and an equitable approach to liberated labor.

[H]ow do you give highly skilled laborers like surgeons an incentive to work as hard as they can without leading to elitism?

[I]f surgeons and other higher skilled jobs receive more compensation than unskilled laborers, than that leads to them getting more wealth and therefore leading to another elite class defeating the whole propose of socialism/communism.

The checks-and-balances in a post-commodity world should be between mass-consumption / mass-demand, and liberated labor for mass-production. If the consumer society tends to value surgery (for example) so highly, it will wind up requiring more education, training, and practice, and will allow those fulfilling mass-demand to garner proportionately more labor credits for time worked, thereby conferring more labor-organizing power going forward, and thus more political ability in the society.

Society would have an interest *against* this, and would want to *automate* as many services and functions as possible so that it *wouldn't* create pockets of elitist power over itself. Lower-level-function roles, like janitor duties, could be dispensed with more-easily through automation than higher-level, decision-making, responsibility-type specialized positions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roomba

communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/

ckaihatsu

2nd June 2012, 05:53

Also, f.y.i., here's a particular generic treatment on the subject of competition and cooperation....

Humanities-Technology Chart 2.0

http://postimage.org/image/1d4ldatxg/

wsg1991

2nd June 2012, 07:04

So, surgeons and janitors. TBH, someone who spends their whole life cleaning up the public spaces we use day after day so we're not walking in garbage, vomit, and spoiled milk certainly has much more credit due to him then he gets in capitalist society,
.

doctors do deal with vomit , urine and shit too you know ? occasionally disgusting cases ? did you know that bowel obstruction patients can vomit shit ?
ever had an Urology exam ? sticking a finger in someone ass than seeing the color of fecal matter is part of some medical tests ,

your answer has not even a close clue of what happening in reality

i did post a thread about a strike happening in Tunisia , by medicine university professors
http://www.revleft.com/vb/medical-professors-and-t172278/index.html

medicine study isn't easy nor for every one , many rich people wanna-be doctors simply cannot enter public universities (we got only public here ) no matter how much money they invest in there highshcool because they are not gifted enough . Great number of people want to be doctors , a small percentage are actually mentally capable of so ,

a part of the strike that they want better wage , as public is suffering greatly from the low wages they offers here
a private doctor get payed 4 times minimum what the public doctors get
also each year , the number of offered teaching positions are more than the number of candidates , why ? because teaching positions have less salaries than ordinary hospital doctors , plus he still must work at the local Hospital . it's appears than many subjects are taught by volunteers not official professors , so the quality of education offered suffers

your flawed system has 2 major problems

*no body would actually study hard to get further skills levels , as the professors strike shows ,
you can't vilify people who refused to work in the triple payed minimum private sector because they refused get harder \ more qualification job without a reward .
*even if you study , you will prefers easier branches such as nutrition specialist

a good way to solve this thing is allowing mild wealth differences that isn't transferred to his family when he dies nor allowed to turn into capital
and to provide equal education to every one , that way your janitor got his chance and that was his choice and his abilities
a practical solution is to create job ranking as ckaihatsu proposed , were the most hazardous \ higher specialized \ critical would be payed better

also the individualist character of the human behavior is acquired in the his first year , it's a part of mental development . you can artificially prevent that by kidnapping babies and preventing them from acquiring this characters , you can create a system that better use it to interest of the group , and not heavily centers around it , as the capitalist system is doing

Qavvik

2nd June 2012, 07:48

Hate to break it to some of you, but public sanitation is actually commonly considered one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in the history of man. :tt2:

Anarcho-Brocialist

2nd June 2012, 08:20

wsg1991

2nd June 2012, 08:44

Rah rah rah, Surgeons! Breaking news, buddy; I'm an engineer, I studied 8 years for my degree, but can I go without sanitation? Yes, of-course I could, although, I'll be dead, and possibly horridly diseased due to enormous amounts of bacteria before I die. Let's take my profession, which requires a high aptitude in regards to physics, I get compensated 45k (civil engineering doesn't pay well, folks), with-out my low paid job, (compared to a surgeon) would he/she have the stable infrastructure to provide such dangerous operations? NO! Let him make his building while I watch it fall on his head. What about the farmer?!?! Without the farmer producing crops, how would we have clothing, or, how will the doctor be fed?!?! Or, what about the miner who extracts the raw materials (iron and carbon) for his stainless steel utensils? Or, how about the factory worker who assembles the products?

You see where I'm going with this, aren't you? The surgeon relies on many factors to even perform his job. Not one is more important than the other. For if we all hoarded our capabilities for personal use, we'd go no where.

Sorry to seem hostile, it's just I hear this STUPID question all the time.

i don't know the difficulty of civil engineer studying , if comparable to specialization of Doctors \ surgeons , and have the same hazardous level , i see no reason why should they payed less

i did supplied you with a very similar situation what you will see in your Utopian society how public sector doctors , who are lot less influenced by financial factors , refuses to became professors , as this more skilled job offers no rewards

maybe it's just a misunderstanding because higher education in my country is public , and by ranks , the best student got to choose first

btw i would rather join the army as i am physically capable . perhaps you will leave you to some of those wanna-be-doctor lousy students types to treat you ,

ComradeOm

2nd June 2012, 10:48

Sorry to seem hostile, it's just I hear this STUPID question all the time.You should try answering it rather than building strawmen then

The question is not "can I go without sanitation?" or 'can we survive without janitors' or even 'are janitors more important than surgeons?'. It is 'whose labour contributes more value to society?' If you were to measure the value of the labour that one surgeon and one janitor expend over, say, an eight hour shift, who would have contributed the most?

Of course it would be the surgeon who saved X number of lives or performed Y number of operations. That's not to devalue the contribution of the janitor - and certainly not to suggest that he/she is redundant, no more than the nurses or maintenance or the farmers who grew the doctor's breakfast or whoever - but it's hard to think of a measurement or a society that would value the work of the janitor (over the same eight hours) more than that of the surgeon

And that's natural. That's what you would expect. Not all jobs are equal; if they were then you wouldn't have to study for years to become a surgeon. You wouldn't need that vast medical knowledge and have spent countless hours honing your skills. Being a surgeon is an exceptionally highly skilled job because it's an exceptionally difficult one yet of immense value to society. Janitors also contribute to society but, when measured by labour expended, clearly not to the same degree

And that is why in a socialist society people will be compensated according to value added to society. You get back what you put in. A surgeon will get paid more than a janitor. In theory this will no longer apply in a communist society where abundance is such that it is no longer necessary to make the distinction

Anarcho-Brocialist

2nd June 2012, 16:34

You should try answering it rather than building strawmen then

The question is not "can I go without sanitation?" or 'can we survive without janitors' or even 'are janitors more important than surgeons?'. It is 'whose labour contributes more value to society?' If you were to measure the value of the labour that one surgeon and one janitor expend over, say, an eight hour shift, who would have contributed the most? What method are you using to discover such findings? To put this theory to test, we would have to assay two things : 1) The effects/development of human life without proper sanitation. 2) Life's saved thanks to a surgeon. To put a price on the two is impossible. Sure, we could use the method of use-value in regards to the equipment in which the surgeon uses, and the janitor as-well. Also, we could use Labor Theory of Value. The question then is, what is the value of surgery? Or, the value of a clean roads, buildings, etc?

Of course it would be the surgeon who saved X number of lives or performed Y number of operations. That's not to devalue the contribution of the janitor - and certainly not to suggest that he/she is redundant, no more than the nurses or maintenance or the farmers who grew the doctor's breakfast or whoever - but it's hard to think of a measurement or a society that would value the work of the janitor (over the same eight hours) more than that of the surgeon I disagree. The Black Plauge which killed anywhere between 40 - 60% of the European population during 1348-1350, which also had reoccurred up until the 19th century. I don't know about you, but that's when the janitor is worth pretty damn much, or to me anyways.

And that's natural. That's what you would expect. Not all jobs are equal; if they were then you wouldn't have to study for years to become a surgeon. You wouldn't need that vast medical knowledge and have spent countless hours honing your skills. Being a surgeon is an exceptionally highly skilled job because it's an exceptionally difficult one yet of immense value to society. Janitors also contribute to society but, when measured by labour expended, clearly not to the same degree Indeed, it does require more skill. Although, is the job obtainable with knowledge alone? Many minds and countless hours of work make modern medicine possible. Then, we can of course, look at coal miners. Without coal, most cities would go without energy. Since their contribution to society is the basis of a modern society (energy to power the factories, homes, offices, hospitals, etc) do you suppose that their work is less valuable due to the lack of education required to become a surgeon? The same notion applies to truck drivers, train conductors, captains, aviators, and oil riggers, who make it possible to transport goods to an area lacking a specific material.

And that is why in a socialist society people will be compensated according to value added to society. You get back what you put in. A surgeon will get paid more than a janitor. In theory this will no longer apply in a communist society where abundance is such that it is no longer necessary to make the distinction What value? Value depends on varying factors. For instance, the janitors stops working to create a demand for his trade, sickness breaks out in response, then what is the value of a janitor? The same can apply for the surgeon, the coal miner, the engineer etc. Everyone has an equally important contribution to society, without each contribution, society fails. To assert this job is more valuable than another is fallacious, since the surgeon relies on the janitor, the farmer, the miner etc.

wsg1991

2nd June 2012, 17:18

.

and i am waiting your answer

best students will simply avoid medicine and choose easier jobs as happens in REAL LIFE , i did mention an example how doctors are refusing to became professors since no reward in that
btw i hope you get treated then by wanna-be-doctor-lazy students , that will change your mind .

don't count on doctors to join your revolution ( or any skilled worker anyway )

Anarcho-Brocialist

2nd June 2012, 17:49

and i am waiting your answer

best students will simply avoid medicine and choose easier jobs as happens in REAL LIFE , i did mention an example how doctors are refusing to became professors since no reward in that
btw i hope you get treated then by wanna-be-doctor-lazy students , that will change your mind .

don't count on doctors to join your revolution ( or any skilled worker anyway )
I'm a skilled laborer, and if there is a revolution, I'll be in it.
Answer to what? People want huge monetary rewards? You mustn't know doctors travelling to remote parts of the world providing medical treatment for free. Doctors without Borders, various Hospital initiatives etc. Generalizing (they want huge rewards) doesn't make much of a point.

i hope you get treated then by wanna-be-doctor-lazy students , that will change your mind/ :laugh: :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: brilliant statement :rolleyes:! Do you disregard the notion, of, I don't know, the need for every important task to have a functioning society? It is apparent that you do. I'm not going to hope a doctor constructs a house that falls on your head, or a bridge that collapses that causes hundreds of vehicles to drift away in a river, or no janitorial services which leads to disease. Why don't I? It's lucid, that's a horrible pretext for an argument.

homegrown terror

2nd June 2012, 18:01

Of course it would be the surgeon who saved X number of lives or performed Y number of operations.

what about the millions of people who the janitor prevented from NEEDING a surgeon by cleaning up contagious bacteria and viruses?

ckaihatsu

2nd June 2012, 18:15

What method are you using to discover such findings? To put this theory to test, we would have to assay two things : 1) The effects/development of human life without proper sanitation. 2) Life's saved thanks to a surgeon. To put a price on the two is impossible. Sure, we could use the method of use-value in regards to the equipment in which the surgeon uses, and the janitor as-well. Also, we could use Labor Theory of Value. The question then is, what is the value of surgery? Or, the value of a clean roads, buildings, etc?

If you seriously mean to use some kind of method to quantify the relative (use-) value of different kinds of labor, it wouldn't be easy. It's the reason why I don't support any kind of market socialism. Even attempting to just keep track of simple vectors of labor-type *inputs* -- as for all of the components in a computer, for example -- would be daunting enough, tracing them backwards, just according to relative labor hours.

We shouldn't burden our politics with needless complications, if we can help it -- the model I referenced in post #8 quantifies each labor *role*, relative to other labor roles. I can see from the thread that it may lead to political complications on a role-vs.-role basis, unfortunately, but maybe with a mass-scale statistically-neutral surveying system in place most potential controversies would even themselves out.

harte.beest

2nd June 2012, 18:25

What about all the millionaire's and billionaire's who barely work and inherited almost all their money. Why do people who claim they love capitalism, and claim communism is unfair always forget to mention those people. Their financial advisor's do all their work for them (if you can call it that) and they benefit. Maybe we should care less about the Janitor vs Surgeon example and focus more one the Surgeon vs. Trust Fund baby example

4 of the top 10 richest people in America are Sam Walton's spoiled brats. Sam Walton (founder of Wal-mart) didn't work harder then any surgeon and his kids sure as hell didn't do anything to deserve that money

If we get rid of the Sam Walton's of the world, then we'll have plenty to compensate the surgeons ;)

Anarcho-Brocialist

2nd June 2012, 18:25

If you seriously mean to use some kind of method to quantify the relative (use-) value of different kinds of labor, it wouldn't be easy. It's the reason why I don't support any kind of market socialism. Even attempting to just keep track of simple vectors of labor-type *inputs* -- as for all of the components in a computer, for example -- would be daunting enough, tracing them backwards, just according to relative labor hours.

We shouldn't burden our politics with needless complications, if we can help it -- the model I referenced in post #8 quantifies each labor *role*, relative to other labor roles. I can see from the thread that it may lead to political complications on a role-vs.-role basis, unfortunately, but maybe with a mass-scale statistically-neutral surveying system in place most potential controversies would even themselves out.
Indeed, can you answer ComradeOm question for me. He says
whose labour [surgeon or janitor]contributes more value to society? Who possess greater value? To answer this depends on variables. One is, there is no janitor, and we have an epidemic where disease is rampant, what is then the value of his labor? Or, someone needs a heart transplant, then what is the value of the surgeons labor?

wsg1991

2nd June 2012, 18:27

I'm a skilled laborer, and if their is a revolution, I'll be in it.
Answer to what? People want huge monetary rewards? You mustn't know doctors travelling to remote parts of the world providing medical treatment for free. Doctors without Borders, various Hospital initiatives etc. Generalizing (they want huge rewards) doesn't make much of a point.

allow me to remind that civil engineer get picked the eight here , medicine first that mind remind the fact that even if every one to have the same level of education , you still not gonna make it anyway ,
you seem to know that medicine studies are harder ,
you know what in the case of your Utopian society , i might just switch to civil engineering i might perform much better than you , it's pretty doubtful you on the other to make it to the third year out of 13 , or you might be nicknamed serial killer

btw you might want to read my full comment next time , perhaps i should remind the simple fact that public physicians are payed less than private , actually they can make up to 20 times in my city since we have medical tourism . they did refuse that . but humans can't go that far as you see , public doctors refuses to became professors , since no reward in that

that's gives you an idea about people who are minimally affected by money , refuses to go further

doctors without borders ? it's astonishing the level of stupidity comparing charity work to real job .

should i remind again with the simple fact that not every is suited for a job , that's why national exams was created , as each specialty require
level of ability . we can't simply allows last student in his year to manage delicate task such as human life , even if you are OK with it ,
that's why to skilled jobs always come with reward , if not people will simply refuses to take it , and leaving i wanna-doctor-type ,

You see how dolphins do the trick when they gave fish , sorry human mind works that why as well , the bullshit talk about 'prestigious job is not real ,

in REAL LIFE even rich students who invest heavily in privates teachers don't make it ,
the same also applies in promotions , in REAL LIFE , people will no longer seek promotion unless you force them

i suggest you find any real incentive to make people study , or pursue higher skill job .

ckaihatsu

2nd June 2012, 18:40

I'm a skilled laborer, and if there is a revolution, I'll be in it.
Answer to what? People want huge monetary rewards? You mustn't know doctors travelling to remote parts of the world providing medical treatment for free. Doctors without Borders, various Hospital initiatives etc.

Also, I don't think we're concerned with the *existence* of different kinds of skilled (liberated) laborers being there -- those who care the most, and who are the real 'artistes' of their profession obviously are / would be doing it more-or-less for those being helped, and for its own sake, then as now.

But the pragmatic political question is "Would it be enough?"

If we rely on an enlightened voluntarist ethos too much -- even in an oppression-free post-capitalist context -- we could be both straining our social cohesion of politics-in-common, *and* still coming up short in terms of how much (liberated) labor is actually needed.

The market mechanism is good to the degree that it *professionalizes* and *bureaucratizes* various labor roles, removing them more-or-less from petty political considerations or jockeying -- this is the ideal of the civil service, for example.

As revolutionaries we're supposed to be able to do this *one better*, and *build* on the professionalization / bureaucratization function to *surpass* both the hands-off market function, *and* a groupthink Stalinistic subjectivity, to actually bring liberated labor roles and enlightened social relations to the world.

Voluntarism alone may not be enough, and that's where the valid question of incentives comes in. My model provides growing labor-organizing political power as the measured reward for the contribution of skill-weighted labor hours.

Anarcho-Brocialist

2nd June 2012, 18:43

allow me to remind that civil engineer get picked the eight here , medicine first that mind remind the fact that even if every one to have the same level of education , you still not gonna make it anyway, What?

you seem to know that medicine studies are harder ,
you know what in the case of Utopian , i might just switch to civil engineering i might perform much better than you , it's pretty doubtful you on the other to make it to the third year out of 13 , or you might be nicknamed serial killer This makes no sense in regards to the argument. Can the doctor perform his job without the rest of the community supplying his needs? Also, can you determine the value of his work? And if so, please provide that information.

Btw you might want to read my full comment next time , perhaps i should remind the simple fact that public physicians are payed less than private , actually they can make up to 20 times in my city since we have medical tourism . they did refuse that . but humans can't go that far as you see , public doctors refuses to became professors , since no reward in that I did, it didn't make any sense. Indeed, their are no rewards! But why do they do it? The love of teaching.

that's gives you an idea about people who are minimally affected by money , refuses to go further Not really, because if no one became a professor because the lack of money, no students could become doctors. Thus, your system is doomed to failure because you neglect the fact people love to teach.

doctors without borders ? it's astonishing the level of stupidity comparing charity work to real job. Isn't helping the poor, sick, and underprivileged in war-torn parts of the world a job? Also, what a horrible remark that was.

should i remind again with the simple fact that not every is suited for a job , that's why national exams was created , as each specialty require
level of ability . we can't simply allows last student in his year to manage delicate task such as human life , even if you are OK with it ,
that's why to skilled jobs always come with reward , if not people will simply refuses to take it , and leaving i wanna-doctor-type I never said they were. Like I said, provide me with the evidence to show the surgeons value is worth more than the janitors.

You see how dolphins do the trick when they gave fish , sorry human mind works that why as well , the bullshit talk about 'prestigious job is not real So if I go to the ocean and hold a piece of fish in my hand, they'll flip for me? Dolphins flip because they were trained to, they'd rather be free than in sea-world doing flips.

in REAL LIFE even rich students who invest heavily in privates teachers don't make it ,
the same also applies in promotions , in REAL LIFE , people will no longer seek promotion unless you force them No one takes promotions unless you make them? Well, I wish someone forced me into a promotion because I need the money!

i suggest you find any real incentive to make people study , or pursue higher skill job . For the sake of community, helping each-other etc, aren't those enough reasons? Doctors in previous times did that.

ckaihatsu

2nd June 2012, 20:10

If you seriously mean to use some kind of method to quantify the relative (use-) value of different kinds of labor, it wouldn't be easy. It's the reason why I don't support any kind of market socialism. Even attempting to just keep track of simple vectors of labor-type *inputs* -- as for all of the components in a computer, for example -- would be daunting enough, tracing them backwards, just according to relative labor hours.

We shouldn't burden our politics with needless complications, if we can help it -- the model I referenced in post #8 quantifies each labor *role*, relative to other labor roles. I can see from the thread that it may lead to political complications on a role-vs.-role basis, unfortunately, but maybe with a mass-scale statistically-neutral surveying system in place most potential controversies would even themselves out.

Indeed, can you answer ComradeOm question for me. He says Who possess greater value? To answer this depends on variables. One is, there is no janitor, and we have an epidemic where disease is rampant, what is then the value of his labor? Or, someone needs a heart transplant, then what is the value of the surgeons labor?

Yeah, again, this is the kind of comparison we should be seeking to *avoid*, because it gets us nowhere and only invites the practice of idealism.

The more we can *standardize* this kind of thing in the broadest-based, even-handed kind of way, the better.

ComradeOm

2nd June 2012, 23:14

What method are you using to discover such findings? To put this theory to test, we would have to assay two things : 1) The effects/development of human life without proper sanitation. 2) Life's saved thanks to a surgeonNo, that's your strawman again. It is not a matter of doing away with all sanitary measures or gauging the "effects/development of human life without proper sanitation". I'm going to repeat that again to be sure that you hear: it is not about 'what would the world be like if we didn't have X or Y' or whether X can "perform his job without the rest of the community supplying his needs". It's not about isolation and nobody is proposing that we do away with certain jobs

What it is about is measuring the value added over a set period of time by a person performing a certain job. Again, take a shift: let's say that the surgeon performs 8 heart transplants and the janitor sweeps 20 corridors. Tomorrow they'll do the same, and both tasks are necessary, but it is clear that the surgeon is contributing more to wider society in this time. Unless you believe that cleanliness really is next to godliness, of course

It's the same with any other example. A coal miner will produce X tonnes of coal in the same period and this is what is measured against the surgeon's output, not the entire electricity infrastructure that underpins the modern economy (:rolleyes:). You are not making meaningful comparisons

Now what you are suggesting is that the presence of interdependencies implies that all work is of equal value. Which is silly. Take another engineering analogy: if I am designing an engine I will use a whole range of components from cheap fasteners to expensive machined parts. Now fasteners are clearly necessary for the engine to function, and cannot be done without, but there's no question that the most valuable parts used - in terms of cost, lead time, tolerances, etc - are the polished camshafts and other components that have been machined/processed. This is where the real performance outputs are gained. Stating that a screw is the same as a camshaft is stupid; both are necessary but there are still clear differences in value

I disagree. The Black Plauge which killed anywhere between 40 - 60% of the European population during 1348-1350. It also reoccurred since the 19th century. I don't know about you, but that's when the janitor is worth pretty damn much, or to me anyways. It's unlikely that additional janitors would have made much impact on the Black Death's progress. Unless you're using 'janitor' as shorthand for 'all advances in medicine and sanitation since the 14th C' :glare:

cyu

3rd June 2012, 14:28

We had a similar recent discussion. If you want to read more, go to http://www.revleft.com/vb/moneyi-t171697/index.html

In fact, there would be no competition. In a capitalist society competition forces competing companies to try to outperform their competitors. This leads to two things: variety and new technology. Having many different companies leads to a variety of products for consumer consumption.

Depends on what is competing against what. Products competing against products is one type of competition. Ideas competing against ideas is one type of competition. People competing against people is one type of competition. Individual cells or organs in your body competing against each other is one type of competition. Genes competing against genes is one type of competition.

From http://cjyu.wordpress.com/article/competition-within-cooperative-systems-gcybcajus7dp-30/

where competition is dominant, we have examples like warfare and corporations fighting for market share. In these examples, groups of people cooperate, but only within their own groups. Their groups then compete with one another, attempting to destroy the other group. Cooperation within each group (whether the army or the company) makes that group stronger, and more able to outcompete their rival. However, because competition is dominant, the resulting system is that many of those involved (the soldiers killed or the employees laid off) will end up suffering.

attempts can be made to build a system where cooperation is dominant, without harming any individuals. Take memetic competition, for example: societies with different memeplexes have different levels of success. When you have competition at the memeplex level and cooperation at the individual level, it doesn’t hurt individuals, merely memeplexes. The memeplexes that work poorly are simply allowed to go extinct, but individuals are taught / converted to the various more successful memeplexes.

it is possible to create competition between products, while maintaining cooperation between producers. In other words, producers share technology and “trade secrets” but they are free to produce different products. The products then compete for consumers – the ones nobody likes are allowed to go extinct. However, the benefits to society or industry resulting from the better products are given to all the producers, thus giving them an incentive to continue to cooperate, rather than hide their trade secrets or trying to sabotage their competition.

If a surgeon makes the same salary than a janitor but works a lot harder then that surgeon is going to be angry and therefore will probably not work to his full capacity. You can say that if the surgeon doesn't work to his fullest then he doesn't get food, but then no one would want to become a surgeon if they knew they would need to work harder for the same compensation.

And why should he be angry? The answer is basically that people are brainwashed from birth by parents and society to have that reaction. If you've ever been around a toddler, you'll quickly discover they have no concept of property. They'll run all around people's yards, take whatever they fancy and can get their hands on, throw it away when they're bored, etc. However, in order to fit into the society that their parents live in, their parents force them to understand and obey the concept of property. It isn't until much later that they develop an emotional attachment to the "injustice" of having their "property" violated.

From http://cjyu.wordpress.com/article/equal-pay-for-unequal-work/

There are plenty of psychological studies that show "rewarding" work results in people liking the work less, and focusing on only the reward as their goal:

There was an experiment documented in Elliot Aronson’s The Social Animal – some people were divided into two groups. In one group, the people were paid to do a certain activity. In the other group, the people were not paid to do the activity, but instead the organizers emphasized things like how much fun the activity was. At the end of the experiment, the people who were paid were much less likely to have found the activity enjoyable and would only do it again if they were paid again. The others were more likely to do the activity again of their own accord.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm also documents how giving someone a “reward” for work ultimately results in the person liking the job less and only going after the reward.

There is also this from http://bookoutlines.pbwiki.com/Predictably-Irrational

Ariely then ran another experiment. He read from “Leaves of Grass,” and then asked his students the following:

1/2 of the students were asked if they would be willing to pay Ariely $10 for a 10-minute poetry recitation

1/2 of the students were asked if they would be willing to listen to a 10-minute poetry recitation if Ariely paid them $10

The students who were asked if they were willing to pay offered $1 for a short reading, $2 for a medium reading, and $3 for a long reading.

The students who were asked if they’d accept pay demanded $1.30 for a short reading, $2.70 for a medium reading, and $4.80 for a long reading.

how do marketers get you to ride a rollercoaster? It’s just one activity among millions of others – why is this one so desirable that you’d actually want to pay to do it, instead of having to be paid to do it? The marketer is basically emphasizing how much fun the activity itself will be – not what result or reward you’d get afterwards.

In today’s system, you convince people to work by offering them money. You convince them to want money by advertising goods they can buy. Without product advertising, would people still want those goods (or money) as much? What then is the purpose of it all? To create a “desire” that wouldn’t have existed otherwise, so you can fill that desire – it seems to me to just be a system of creating unnecessary work. Now before you make the argument that advertising isn’t all that effective in getting people to buy what they don’t want, consider this: why spend so much effort on advertising? It supports all of network television – million dollar salaries for the cast of Friends. Companies wouldn’t spend so much if it didn’t work. If advertising is just informative, then why spend all that money on slick ads? Why not just a simple, boring blurb about your product? The answer, of course, is that “boring” doesn’t sell.

I would imagine different people would give their support to many different organizations. Each of these organizations would be supporting advertising for different activities. The more people supporting one organization, the more advertising you’d see for the jobs supported by that organization.

If you’re “lazy” and don’t feel like doing anything, nobody forces you to work. You are free to stay at home and watch TV or surf the internet all day. However, instead of being constantly bombarded with ads trying to get you to want more stuff, you are instead bombarded with ads trying to get you to want to go out and do stuff that society thinks needs doing.

homegrown terror

3rd June 2012, 14:38

No, that's your strawman again. It is not a matter of doing away with all sanitary measures or gauging the "effects/development of human life without proper sanitation". I'm going to repeat that again to be sure that you hear: it is not about 'what would the world be like if we didn't have X or Y' or whether X can "perform his job without the rest of the community supplying his needs". It's not about isolation and nobody is proposing that we do away with certain jobs

What it is about is measuring the value added over a set period of time by a person performing a certain job. Again, take a shift: let's say that the surgeon performs 8 heart transplants and the janitor sweeps 20 corridors. Tomorrow they'll do the same, and both tasks are necessary, but it is clear that the surgeon is contributing more to wider society in this time. Unless you believe that cleanliness really is next to godliness, of course

It's the same with any other example. A coal miner will produce X tonnes of coal in the same period and this is what is measured against the surgeon's output, not the entire electricity infrastructure that underpins the modern economy ( :rolleyes:). You are not making meaningful comparisons

Now what you are suggesting is that the presence of interdependencies implies that all work is of equal value. Which is silly. Take another engineering analogy: if I am designing an engine I will use a whole range of components from cheap fasteners to expensive machined parts. Now fasteners are clearly necessary for the engine to function, and cannot be done without, but there's no question that the most valuable parts used - in terms of cost, lead time, tolerances, etc - are the polished camshafts and other components that have been machined/processed. This is where the real performance outputs are gained. Stating that a screw is the same as a camshaft is stupid; both are necessary but there are still clear differences in value

It's unlikely that additional janitors would have made much impact on the Black Death's progress. Unless you're using 'janitor' as shorthand for 'all advances in medicine and sanitation since the 14th C' :glare:

your point would be valid if a community had only one surgeon and one janitor (or coal worker) in reality there are many more janitors and coal workers per capita than surgeons, so if we were to look at the numbers extrapolated, whose value is greater, twenty surgeons or two hundred janitors?

ckaihatsu

3rd June 2012, 21:15

I have to admit, cyu, that this conception of yours would bring things a long way:

As long as everyone has an equal salary, that is similar to economic democracy. Everyone has an equal amount of “votes” as to what to produce next. The concept of a salary is no longer a “reward” for work, but as just a method used so that everyone can help determine what goods and services are valuable.

As I understand it, this would be an equitable mass-ranking of goods and services, providing a comprehensive index of consumer preferences.

I would imagine different people would give their support to many different organizations. Each of these organizations would be supporting advertising for different activities. The more people supporting one organization, the more advertising you’d see for the jobs supported by that organization.

If you’re “lazy” and don’t feel like doing anything, nobody forces you to work. You are free to stay at home and watch TV or surf the internet all day. However, instead of being constantly bombarded with ads trying to get you to want more stuff, you are instead bombarded with ads trying to get you to want to go out and do stuff that society thinks needs doing.

And this would be an empowered populist outreach that broadcasts popular encouragement for the fulfillment of work roles.

However, I'm noticing some shortcomings -- while your coverage of consumer-sided and mass-culture-sided aspects is *sociologically* ideal, you don't address or make provisions for actual *material* realities. (The public could overwhelmingly like emergency-room hospital service, for example, and could broadcast intensively for medical-minded liberated laborers, but there would be nothing in particular to *attract* anyone to fulfull those particular vacancies.)

So, since no one would be *compelled* to work (which I agree with), this method would rely on sheer voluntarism for *actual* fulfillment of outstanding work roles.

[I] don't think we're concerned with the *existence* of different kinds of skilled (liberated) laborers being there -- those who care the most, and who are the real 'artistes' of their profession obviously are / would be doing it more-or-less for those being helped, and for its own sake, then as now.

But the pragmatic political question is "Would it be enough?"

ComradeOm

4th June 2012, 13:31

your point would be valid if a community had only one surgeon and one janitor (or coal worker) in reality there are many more janitors and coal workers per capita than surgeons, so if we were to look at the numbers extrapolated, whose value is greater, twenty surgeons or two hundred janitors?I'm not sure why you'd do that in a discussion individual pay

cyu

12th June 2012, 11:08

this method would rely on sheer voluntarism for *actual* fulfillment of outstanding work roles.

Yes, basically. I'd say parental-neglect laws are largely useless in ensuring parents take care of their kids - parents take care of their kids in large part because of "voluntarism" - although it's "voluntarism" as it is constructed socially, as people are groomed into becoming adults, as they are socialized into the subculture of new parenthood.

there would be nothing in particular to *attract* anyone to fulfull those particular vacancies

There seems to be two camps around the issue of media power and its ability to "brainwash" people.

1. Some believe media power isn't all that powerful, and not powerful enough to change the economic system. I would say this is merely a case of how well they understand psychology and it's application in the media.

There have been many cases of genocide throughout history. I would say it would be silly to consider that those nations that carry out genocide were genetically predisposed to genocide. So if it is not in their "nature" to randomly murder people, that pretty much leaves only "nurture" - that is, how the media in those societies shaped culture in such a way that mass murder was rationalized and justified.

If you dared, you could even turn the argument around. The same types of media control "nurtures" the prevention of murder in other societies. It is, in fact, cultural relativism in a way. However, history has proven that cultures with memes against murder have survived longer and spread wider than cultures with memes encouraging murder.

Psychological control goes beyond mass murder, and often it is even unintentional. You can see it in how different cultures have different standards of beauty. I certainly wouldn't say that pre-revolutionary Chinese were genetically predisposed to believe women were more attractive with unnaturally bound feet - yet it happened. The same could be said of chubby women in previous eras of European history. It just shows that media and culture can and do affect something as basic as biological sexual attraction.

If not only sexual attraction and disgust at "abnormal" foods can be affected, then certainly the media can induce artificial greed and other forms of motivation. If it can be used to instill motivations that are considered "negative" then it isn't much of a leap to claim that it can be used to instill "positive" motivations - provided that you understood the psychological science behind it.

2. On the flip side, others believe that media brainwashing is so powerful that it is too dangerous. In this case, it is no longer a concern that the media has the ability to completely change the basic motivations of an economy, since to the second group, it is a given. The concern instead becomes how to prevent abuses or delusions that take society down roads it should never have gone down.

In this case, like many issues of political power, I would say it just comes down to control. Who has the right to control anything in politics? Authoritarians would put control in the hands of a top-down pyramid. Majoritarians would put control in the hands of 50% + 1. Anarchists would use their own power to empower others as much as possible, to control things in a distributed and decentralized manner.

Jimmie Higgins

12th June 2012, 14:13

@OP: In order to answer your questions, first we have to take on some of the ruling class assumptions in your examples.

Innovation and Competition:

What I do not understand is how incentive to work and competition would work in a communist society. In fact, there would be no competition.Competition towards what? In capitalism competition takes the form of technological advances, but only profitable ones. In fact many of the major technological developments in communications came from the military, not capitalist competition. Other long-term developments also came not from corporate R&D but public universities and so on. Cracking the human genome meant breaking away from capitalist competition and normal private property competition in order to pool resources and skills.

As Marx pointed out, the drive for profits can act, in a narrow way, in creating new technological advances, but the social relations, the way in which this is done, also act as a fetter on further development.

For this reason, State-capitalism or Keynesian policies are often used in modern capitalism for really ambitious projects - because this allows development not to be guided by short-term profits. Check out the Economist's issue on China's State Capitalism.

Now, I spoke about the profit-motive being the driving force behind these technological developments, but what does that mean specifically? Often this means creating labor-saving technologies, which fits into the claim that this competition leads to advances. But what is the reason for this kind of development - it's competition to increase profits by de-skilling and lowing the wages (or number) of workers. Without the social relations of capitalism, these developments could mean producing more with less work, but in capitalism it means workers are laid-off or their wages are lowered etc. and so even though we can produce more, there is also increased inequality.

So capitalists often talk about technological development because it sounds much better than: "capitalist competition drives companies to continuously seek to increase the rate of exploitation through lowering wages or increasing workloads (through technology).

This then leads to the Falling Rate of Profit tendency and economic crisis even for the capitalists because once a technological advance in production becomes standard, then companies loose their competitive edge and must spend more on technology while having less human-labor to create more surplus value.

In a capitalist society competition forces competing companies to try to outperform their competitors. This leads to two things: variety and new technology.And monopolization. Competition means the big fish eat the little fish.

Having many different companies leads to a variety of products for consumer consumption. The competition also forces companies to attempt to attempt to make new more innovative products which leads to advantages in technology.What is produced is produced based on potential profitability. Obviously "use value" plays a part because if something isn't even useful as a paperweight, you can't really sell it. But take SUVs or McMansions - these were produced even though it meant excluding part of the potential market because they were more profitable. With the numbers of people in home-debt or renting there's no way to say that there isn't a market for small family homes or bungalows... the reality is that there isn't a very profitable market for these because with a little more material cost and essentially a similar cost of labor (making small tract homes vs. McMansions) there are much more profits.

In a communist society:

What I would like to know is what mechanisms a communist society would use to achieve the same results.There would still be an incentive for technological development - just guided by use vale rather than profit. So people would have a need and desire to make their lives easier and of a better quality. Day one after the revolution, back-catelogues of digital private property such as movies and digital books and music could be made freely available to everyone and all the labor that was once used on creating CDs and DVDs and movie packaging and marketing and online sales and so on could be condensed - we'd want more computers and other devices and increase manufacturing in these areas, for example, while eliminating tasks soley reserved for the purposes of one company competing with another for the same product. Planned Obsolescence and things like that would not have any purpose, rather people would want to spend their labor making things that are versatile and of a good quality so they can last a long time while also being adaptable to new developments.

In short, the desire for products would be the same as it has been long before profit: use.

I have seen some posts answering the question of incentive but I have found their answer unsatisfactory. If a surgeon makes the same salary than a janitor but works a lot harder then that surgeon is going to be angry and therefore will probably not work to his full capacity. You can say that if the surgeon doesn't work to his fullest then he doesn't get food, but then no one would want to become a surgeon if they knew they would need to work harder for the same compensation. So how do you give people an incentive to do harder jobs like being a surgeon?Janitors and Doctors is the common example given by libertarian bloggers and hack economists. The first problem with this example is that it assumes that salaries reflect merit or value of the job being done. But really labor is commodified like anything else: the labor of instructors and time spent developing skills is, in effect, not directly, added to the value of that labor being performed. Other factors come into play with some professions, especially skilled ones, but the underlying mechanism for wage-labor is the value of the skills and the labor it took to develop.

The second misconception is that everyone automatically gets paid the same but other social relations remain as they are under capitalism. People may well decide that some tasks require extra incentive, this can be done through higher wages, more free-time or whatever. The point would be how do we make a task more enjoyable and eliminate the sense of alienation and so on.

Third, why have people who are full-time janitors? If there's crappy work that no one wants to do but is necessary, there are other ways to handle these tasks. Again this would spur new innovations in labor-saving tech and methods and eliminate a sense of alienation. If every worker in a site had to spend one day a month as a janitor, then it might still be boring work, but most people would prefer that to being a 5-days a week janitor, it would eliminate social-stigma for people working undesirable jobs and it would create a sense among all the worker in the site that cleaning up is everyone's responsibility so people would be less likely to throw trash on the ground because they know from experience that someone has to clean that.

Leroy Brown

12th June 2012, 15:50

And monopolization. Competition means the big fish eat the little fish.

But sometimes even more metaphorically than you mean.

The Home Depot has mostly driven small hardware stores out of business, but guess who works at Home Depot?

Firebrand

12th June 2012, 17:03

As far as I can make out logically you ought to need a far greater financial motivation to make people do a low skilled, boring and thankless job as a cleaner than would be necessary to let them spend far more time at uni and then do intellectually stimulating and high status work as a doctor.
Seeing as the most miserable and thankless jobs tend to be the lowest paid ones, I find it faintly ridiculous that people think that if people doing relatively popular jobs aren't paid more than everyone else no-one will sign up for them.

As for the whole "it took them longer to develop the skills" argument. What so they spend more time studying instead of working, I fail to see how that makes an hour of their day worth more than an hour of anyone elses day. I fail to see how studying is such a great sacrifice that we have to compensate people for it for the rest of their lives. Studying should be something people want to do.

The way I look at it an hour of anyones life is worth the same, as anyone elses. If we start putting value judgements on the value of peoples time and best effort where does it end. If someone is putting their best effort in, then why do they deserve less than someone else who happens to be more intelligent or more educated than them.

ckaihatsu

12th June 2012, 21:46

So, since no one would be *compelled* to work (which I agree with), this method would rely on sheer voluntarism for *actual* fulfillment of outstanding work roles.

Yes, basically. I'd say parental-neglect laws are largely useless in ensuring parents take care of their kids - parents take care of their kids in large part because of "voluntarism" - although it's "voluntarism" as it is constructed socially, as people are groomed into becoming adults, as they are socialized into the subculture of new parenthood.

Terrific -- well, you've chosen probably the *easiest* example there is. And would a post-capitalist society be content with merely the propagation of itself into the future, as through parenting -- ?

Any other example of modern 'productivity' would find you having to wrestle with social complexities far beyond the relatively simple biological ones.

[Y]ou don't address or make provisions for actual *material* realities. (The public could overwhelmingly like emergency-room hospital service, for example, and could broadcast intensively for medical-minded liberated laborers, but there would be nothing in particular to *attract* anyone to fulfull those particular vacancies.)

There seems to be two camps around the issue of media power and its ability to "brainwash" people. [...]

Your tangential discussion of media influence is interesting, but it sidesteps the point you're purportedly addressing.

Let's *take* the detour for now, then, and go over the subject of political power as manifested in monopoly-media outlets:

In this case, like many issues of political power, I would say it just comes down to control. Who has the right to control anything in politics? Authoritarians would put control in the hands of a top-down pyramid. Majoritarians would put control in the hands of 50% + 1. Anarchists would use their own power to empower others as much as possible, to control things in a distributed and decentralized manner.

I'd like to springboard off of this defining of terms and note that, instead of being dogmatic about any of it, we might see these as potential *strategies*, especially from a revolutionary perspective.

I'd have no problem with seeing a kind of proletarian authoritarianism if it counterposed the current *bourgeois* authoritarianism that exists today. This could be seen as a thorough political *competition* that organized itself as effectively as possible:

Best-case is that everything happens quickly and money instantly becomes obsolete and anachronistic -- this would equate to the resounding defeat of the bourgeoisie on a worldwide mass basis and the quick dissolution of its state. It would be replaced more-or-less in a bottom-up organic way with production rapidly reorganized on vast scales (for economies of scale and efficiency).

Worst-case is that there's an ongoing situation of dual-power where contending forces from the bourgeoisie and proletariat linger on in protracted labor-based battles, both political and physical. World public opinion remains divided and the class war takes on the characteristics of a country-by-country civil war between the classes. In such a situation it would be more-than-understandable for revolutionary forces to call for the seizing of the state, and to use it in an authoritarian, top-down way in the interests of the workers' forces, against the imperialists. This could include a system of labor vouchers, in an attempt to assert some kind of consistent economic valuation system, as counterposed to imperialist/colonialist resource extraction, corporatist/militarist syndicalism, and market-type commodity-production valuations.

So, "back" to a post-revolution timeframe:

[Y]ou don't address or make provisions for actual *material* realities. (The public could overwhelmingly like emergency-room hospital service, for example, and could broadcast intensively for medical-minded liberated laborers, but there would be nothing in particular to *attract* anyone to fulfull those particular vacancies.)

Here's another way of putting the concern, if you'd like to address it....

We can do better than the market system, obviously, since it is zombie-like and continuously, automatically, calls for endless profit-making -- even past the point of primitive accumulation, through to overproduction and world wars, not to mention its intrinsic exploitation and oppression.

[...]

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

ckaihatsu

12th June 2012, 22:24

The way I look at it an hour of anyones life is worth the same, as anyone elses. If we start putting value judgements on the value of peoples time and best effort where does it end.

I'd *like* to agree with you here, especially for the sake of simplicity, but the material world is, unfortunately, not so obliging.

The main *objective* distinction that exists is one of responsibility and decision-making. A society that collectivizes itself well enough to overthrow capitalism would go a long way on that momentum itself to dissolve ossified centers of elitist power over decision-making, but we'd *still* have to look on a moment-by-moment basis at what actual labor roles would still be required by an advanced civilization, and how the people of that society would administer them.

The checks-and-balances in a post-commodity world should be between mass-consumption / mass-demand, and liberated labor for mass-production. If the consumer society tends to value surgery (for example) so highly, it will wind up requiring more education, training, and practice, and will allow those fulfilling mass-demand to garner proportionately more labor credits for time worked, thereby conferring more labor-organizing power going forward, and thus more political ability in the society.

Society would have an interest *against* this, and would want to *automate* as many services and functions as possible so that it *wouldn't* create pockets of elitist power over itself. Lower-level-function roles, like janitor duties, could be dispensed with more-easily through automation than higher-level, decision-making, responsibility-type specialized positions.

Another factor, as I've been addressing cyu with, is that of grassroots mass demand for any given service -- if one person is giving their "all" at janitorial service while another has had to memorize technical definitions and study complex system dynamics for years before giving *their* "all" at a much-more sophisticated work role -- we'd be lying if we said that there was no need for a value judgment there.

I hope I'm *wrong* about this and that the people of an advanced post-capitalist society would be able to rotate themselves around *all* work roles as easily as they may around clean-up duties, but as long as *any* specialization exists the whole of society will have to take that into account and make allowances for it.

cyu

13th June 2012, 03:17

The public could overwhelmingly like emergency-room hospital service, for example, and could broadcast intensively for medical-minded liberated laborers, but there would be nothing in particular to *attract* anyone to fulfull those particular vacancies.

Maybe I don't understand the question and was just answering a perceived question rather than the intended question. I had thought that the question was how would it be possible to convince people to *want* to do stuff like emergency-room service. Please correct me if you meant something else.

The point being made was that media and cultural influence basically determines what people want and what they desire. If used poorly, it can lead to "bad" things like genocide. If used haphazardly, it can lead to useless things like consumerism, materialism, and greed. And if used with some foresight, you can make people *desire* to do the things that society believes needs doing.

Excerpt from http://cjyu.wordpress.com/article/equal-pay-for-unequal-work/

Instead of trying to convince people to want things they don’t want, instead convince them to want to do things that actually need doing. Seems like a much more direct method to me and a much better use of the skills of our great advertisers.

As long as the advertising is controlled democratically, then the electorate already knows how important these jobs are. Thus, they already have the motivation to get these things done. The only real question is, are they able to make these activities sound enjoyable. To that end, they just need to employ the same psychological tools that product advertisers have been honing for years.

I would imagine different people would give their support to many different organizations. Each of these organizations would be supporting advertising for different activities. The more people supporting one organization, the more advertising you’d see for the jobs supported by that organization.

If you’re “lazy” and don’t feel like doing anything, nobody forces you to work. You are free to stay at home and watch TV or surf the internet all day. However, instead of being constantly bombarded with ads trying to get you to want more stuff, you are instead bombarded with ads trying to get you to want to go out and do stuff that society thinks needs doing.

As long as people see value in doing something, they are free to support advertising for that kind of activity. Sports, for example, are good for people’s health, and, in cases like swimming, can save lives. However, if some other activity could not only provide exercise, but also help out other people at the same time (for example, building a wheelchair accessible trail along a scenic mountain path), then I could easily see more people gravitating toward promoting that other activity.

ckaihatsu

13th June 2012, 04:34

The point being made was that media and cultural influence basically determines what people want and what they desire. If used poorly, it can lead to "bad" things like genocide. If used haphazardly, it can lead to useless things like consumerism, materialism, and greed. And if used with some foresight, you can make people *desire* to do the things that society believes needs doing.

Excerpt from http://cjyu.wordpress.com/article/equal-pay-for-unequal-work/

[...]

Yes, I appreciate this informational point of yours, at an *empirical* level.

Maybe I don't understand the question and was just answering a perceived question rather than the intended question. I had thought that the question was how would it be possible to convince people to *want* to do stuff like emergency-room service. Please correct me if you meant something else.

No prob. My critique overall is that, as revolutionaries, we need to be able to balance three main aspects of a political economy -- the inherent interests of liberated labor, the inherent interests of mass demand / consumption, and the inherent interests of mass administration.

I recently summarized this concern at another thread:

We can do better than the market system, obviously, since it is zombie-like and continuously, automatically, calls for endless profit-making -- even past the point of primitive accumulation, through to overproduction and world wars, not to mention its intrinsic exploitation and oppression.

Labor vouchers imply a political economy that *consciously* determines valuations, but there's nothing to guarantee that such oversight -- regardless of its composition -- would properly take material realities into account. Such a system would be open to the systemic problems of groupthink and elitism.

What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

So my concern with *your* formulation, cyu, is that while it addresses consumer demand -- through your proposed equitable ranking index of goods and services -- and while it addresses mass administration -- through your proposed populist-style control of the means of all mass communication -- it *doesn't* address how sufficient liberated labor might be provided-for, as for emergency-room hospital service, if such is in great demand *and* is woefully understaffed, using a voluntarist method.

Lolumad273

13th June 2012, 05:47

Realistically, a surgeon doesn't do any harder work than a janitor. In fact, I would argue the janitor does the harder work. But of course, that is a silly quantification. It's just different work. A surgeon becomes a surgeon because he wants to be, a janitor either because he doesn't really care, or wants to be.

Surgeons have to spend time in school, a lot of people don't do well in education, and would be perfectly happy without it. Some people love education, and would be restless working a manual labor job. It's matter of inclinations. No incentive is needed to get people to do what they naturally do.

ckaihatsu

13th June 2012, 07:38

Realistically, a surgeon doesn't do any harder work than a janitor.

Yes, it's harder work because it's more knowledge- and skill-intensive, with greater responsibilities for decision-making.

In fact, I would argue the janitor does the harder work.

There's no *objective* basis to this -- physical tasks can be learned, like any other. Over time the person's body will adjust and get better suited to it physiologically, as long as it's not over-strained. At *most* a person doing physical work may want to "cross-train" and do other exercises for physical support, but that's still low-level compared to building skill of technique, skill of judgment, professional reputation, political ties, etc.

But of course, that is a silly quantification. It's just different work. A surgeon becomes a surgeon because he wants to be, a janitor either because he doesn't really care, or wants to be.

And certainly a non-exploitative society would allow people to do the kind of work they want to do most, without duress. That said, though, the proviso remains that that may not be enough for *society's* needs on the whole.

Surgeons have to spend time in school, a lot of people don't do well in education, and would be perfectly happy without it. Some people love education, and would be restless working a manual labor job. It's matter of inclinations. No incentive is needed to get people to do what they naturally do.

If people had a 'short list' of a *few* various things they would like to do for an occupation, society would have an objective interest in both knowing that list, and in perhaps providing incentives -- not duress -- towards having that person possibly choose lower on the list, depending on circumstances.

ckaihatsu

13th June 2012, 22:46

Sorry for adding yet another post, but I got to thinking a little bit more about this topic, and it's entirely possible that an advanced post-capitalist society would actually *combine* all political and professional responsibilities so that they became one and the same.

This is to say that *nothing* would be specialized at all, and that *every* impactful decision would be made in a collective way.

So, to continue with the surgery example, for the sake of convenience, let's say that someone was admitted to a hospital with sudden sharp pains in their abdomen. The medical staff there may have every room and moment videoconferenced so that an admittance would receive instant attention from a numerous, wide-ranging, geographically dispersed medical staff, any time of day or night, in realtime.

While the in-house staff would nominally take the lead and obviously provide actual physical treatments if needed on-the-spot, they would not be burdened with the sole responsibility and specialization for providing diagnoses and decisions on treatment -- such practice would be "politicized" over a broader number of medical personnel.

This could very well even be the 'litmus test' for an effective political economy since it would have to have procedures that work cleanly and fluidly under the most time-sensitive and trying of circumstances.

cyu

21st June 2012, 14:38

while it addresses consumer demand -- through your proposed equitable ranking index of goods and services -- and while it addresses mass administration -- through your proposed populist-style control of the means of all mass communication -- it *doesn't* address how sufficient liberated labor might be provided-for, as for emergency-room hospital service, if such is in great demand *and* is woefully understaffed, using a voluntarist method.

I'm not sure if this is a question about motivations to work as medical staff or the lack of knowledge to work as medical staff. However I would say both can be taken care of by replacing consumer advertising with activity advertising.

If many people in society believe there aren't enough people in the emergency rooms, then it is in their interest to support more advertising for people to work in emergency rooms. (Instead of ads that say this is how great our beer tastes, this is how good you'll look in our car, or this is how much fun you'll have with this video game, you instead have marketers that basically use their psychological tools to basically make working in an emergency room sound just as attractive.) And if actual work in an emergency room is hellish, and employees have control rather than an authoritarian ivory tower, they can make the necessary changes themselves so that work there becomes more enjoyable.

Similarly if not enough people are acquiring the knowledge necessary to work in emergency rooms, it would be in people's interest to support advertising for new people to go acquire that knowledge - by using the same psychological tools used by advertisers to make other things in consumer society appear attractive.

ckaihatsu

21st June 2012, 14:55

At this point you're repeating yourself, and I don't want to bicker.

Obviously I favor my own model for addressing a possible scenario in which unmet mass demand cannot be provided for with socially encouraged voluntary liberated labor.

Thirsty Crow

21st June 2012, 15:00

Also, we could use Labor Theory of Value. The question then is, what is the value of surgery?
The fact that you're asking this question shows that you didn't understand the labor theory of value.
Actual performed labor is not a commodity, but labor power is, the capacity to perform purposeful transformative activity which produces commodities. As such, the value of labor power is determined as any other commodity's value - by the socially necessary labour time to produce it, or in this case, to reproduce it, which means that this is determined in the labour time neccessary to produce all items of consumption which enable the worker to retainj the quality and capacity of his/her labor power, which also includes a historical and cultural (in Marx's words, "moral") component, pertaining to the standard of living, which actually differentiates the commodity of labor power from other commodities.
Now, you could argue that this culturalc and historical component is itself subject to stratification, in the sense of different strata of the working class receiving diffrent parts of the total social product (renumeration differentials), but that in the last instance only depends on the supply and demand in the labor market, which means that people with a relatively scarce skill set are in a much more favourable bargaining position vis a vis the employer.

ckaihatsu

21st June 2012, 16:41

For the sake of fairness let me shift the example at hand to something that's more of a gray-area -- hopefully this will illustrate the premise a little better, too....

Let's say that, post-capitalism, there's a situation in which major areas of production all use computer systems for the backbone of their operations. The world's computer engineering community has just announced that they can readily improve chip design to make standard industry computers 25% faster. The most active and involved liberated laborers in those major areas of production respond that that would be a significant and substantive improvement in the functioning of their public enterprises, if they were to receive and incorporate the better computer systems, but, on the other hand, it wouldn't bring anything "to a new level".

Upon hearing the news, those liberated laborers who would typically be a part of the workforce to produce a new round of microprocessors respond with a resounding "meh" and say that, offhand, they'd probably rather have the time to themselves if it wasn't quite *that* necessary to upgrade the computer systems at that particular point in development.

The general public happens to support the upgrade, noting that there *will* be improvements across-the-board in societal functioning if the necessary liberated labor is mobilized to make it happen. Certain concerns coordinate their public messaging and a widespread mass media campaign, from several public-interest perspectives, is put out over all media outlets.

Nonetheless most liberated laborers remain unmoved and only a fraction of their numbers shift into the 'pro' camp of volunteers. At the end of the initial round of getting-the-word-out there is *insufficient* labor power at-the-ready to make the systems upgrade doable.

*This* is where I would argue for some kind of pre-installed, economy-like method of "re-balancing" among the three core societal concerns involved: the public, liberated labor, and mass administration. Sure, some kind of politicking could happen here, with trade-offs of favors and promises made, but there might be a more-standard system available, already in place, that could accomplish the same thing from the background, in a more seamless and fluid way.

I don't mean to argue for a political economy that drives to realize constant labor output simply for the sake of busywork, but rather to say that there may be certain *segments* of the liberated labor population that would be more ready to be active if they were provided with appropriate incentives that were independent of the *political situation* at hand.

Strannik

21st June 2012, 16:59

Some personal thoughts, which might be wrong :)

First - there are different answers for posed questions in immediate postcapitalist and highly evolved communist society.

On competition: the further we progress, the more social collaboration is necessary, because each new step requires exponentially more resources and involves greater risks. In early 20th century, a single individual could still invent something new in their garage. There has been no fundamentally new inventions since laser in the 70s from monopolistic Bell Labs. What they call "inventions" these days is for the most part rearranging pieces of existing, socially developed tech. The same's true for biology and pharma. The propaganda tries to claim otherwise, but data simply does not confirm this. Amount of patents held by individuals has been on decline for years. Generations and armies of scientists have to work together to get something new. Then one guy gets to make a breakthrough, but only thanks to previous, boring, unprofitable work.

The problem of compensation: is every job worth the same? This is influenced by biological, social and technological factors and subject to change. Janitors are more valuable in a town where people loathe cleaning. Surgeons are not valuable in a world where people just regenerate or automatic tools ease their jobs and shorten preparation.

And finally, as was said in previous posts - differences in compensation do not lead to reappearance of classes, as long as they can't be capitalized. A doctor makes perhaps more than a janitor, but in socialism this does not prevent janitor from making a decent living. Janitor is also the employer of the doctor, so to say. (This is a terrible oversimplification, I know).

I might be wrong here, but capitalism is primarily a social problem. The fact that someone buys (or rents) themselves a yacht does not cause social poverty. Social poverty is caused by constant accumulation of social effort into areas of economy that are individually most profitable and individually least risky, not most socially necessary. And this is caused by institution of private property.

cyu

3rd July 2012, 07:42

laborers... respond with a resounding "meh" and say that, offhand, they'd probably rather have the time to themselves if it wasn't quite *that* necessary

The general public happens to support the upgrade, noting that there *will* be improvements

Nonetheless most liberated laborers remain unmoved... there is *insufficient* labor power at-the-ready to make the systems upgrade doable.

This is basically what self-determination and rule by the people is about. If you can't convince others to do something politically, perhaps it is you who is wrong and need to re-examine your own opinions.

There is a spectrum of things that definitely must be done all the way to things that should definitely be avoided. Pretty much everything falls somewhere between the two extremes. Who are you or I to proclaim where each action should fall?

The anarchist solution to this question is to allow each actor to determine for himself where along the spectrum of priorities each action falls. If you want to convince them either with logic, with emotion, or with typical advertising methods, that's up to you, but it is no more your right to force them to do something than it is their right to force you. If you really wanted something done, you should do it yourself.

If you don't have the ability to do something yourself, then you do have to rely on others. Perhaps you believe people are fundamentally @$$#073s, perhaps you believe they are fundamentally empathetic, or perhaps you believe they are neither but rather products of whatever their society has nurtured them to be.

[On that last paragraph, you may find this of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cooperation ]

ckaihatsu

3rd July 2012, 09:03

[On that last paragraph, you may find this of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cooperation ]

Thanks.

This is basically what self-determination and rule by the people is about. If you can't convince others to do something politically, perhaps it is you who is wrong and need to re-examine your own opinions.

The anarchist solution to this question is to allow each actor to determine for himself where along the spectrum of priorities each action falls. If you want to convince them either with logic, with emotion, or with typical advertising methods, that's up to you, but it is no more your right to force them to do something than it is their right to force you. If you really wanted something done, you should do it yourself.

This is fine and everything, but it's also too 'granular', or ground-level.

The sum of individual opinions may simply not be sufficient to address a festering problem that is manifested at a more-systemic level -- I could point to the world's current situation of not-upgrading from capitalism as a casual example.

I've been meaning to make plain the objective dynamic of a societal 'blind spot' -- if mass public opinion is negligent on a particular social matter that is *materially* important then whoever *does* tend to it will automatically be 'specialized', or 'a specialist', by default, and will gain disproportionately as a result of it not being readily addressed at a broader scale.

If a certain segment of *labor* takes up the slack then it leads either to a kind of labor black-market, where the surrounding sector of that economics becomes overvalued and artificially dangerous as a result of being illicit, or to a *glorified* sector of labor, as with many specialized professions.

If a certain segment of *administration* takes up the slack then it leads to a kind of bureaucratic elitism, or Stalinism, as a result of the power vacuum not being addressed on a *mass* basis.

[I] would argue for some kind of pre-installed, economy-like method of "re-balancing" among the three core societal concerns involved: the public, liberated labor, and mass administration.

I [...] mean [...] to say that there may be certain *segments* of the liberated labor population that would be more ready to be active if they were provided with appropriate incentives that were independent of the *political situation* at hand.

cyu

15th July 2012, 15:52

The sum of individual opinions may simply not be sufficient to address a festering problem that is manifested at a more-systemic level -- I could point to the world's current situation of not-upgrading from capitalism as a casual example.

I don't really see an alternative to individual opinions - the opinions of any group are formed by the opinions of their inidividuals.

As far as general public opinion on capitalism, I would say in this case society's opinion are coming from capitalists and not from individuals at large. The reason capitalists can dominate public opinion in plutocracies is because they own / control all the major means of communication - be it mass media, bribed politicians, think tanks, law firms, what have you.

If a community wanted to put an end to capitalist controlled media, they merely need to show up at the local media outlet, assume democratic control, and be prepared to defend it physically from minions sent by plutocrats. Meanwhile, they can agitate for reinforcements by using the media they now occupy.

it will automatically be 'specialized', or 'a specialist', by default, and will gain disproportionately as a result of it not being readily addressed at a broader scale.

The proposed media reform should also address the problem of those who seek personal gain because they have specialized skills. The point is that much of economic motivation in modern capitalism is rooted in material greed - and this in turn is rooted in media advertising. It is the explicit goal of media advertising to instill greed in their audience, in order to sell product... and this greed is in turn supposed to spur people into more economic action.

If you wanted to eliminate the encouragement of greed, then simply stop product advertising in the media after your communities have assumed democratic control. Eventually this removes the desire for personal profit in order to do stuff for others. Some may say this would be enough, but personally I would go a step beyond that. Which is not only remove product advertising, but add new advertising. The new advertising isn't to make you think various products are great, but to convince people that doing various activities are great.

ckaihatsu

15th July 2012, 20:59

I don't really see an alternative to individual opinions - the opinions of any group are formed by the opinions of their inidividuals.

You're not even being consistent here -- do people spontaneously, autonomously form opinions on their own, or are they influenced and convinced by social techniques like advertising -- ? -- !

[A]dd new advertising. The new advertising isn't to make you think various products are great, but to convince people that doing various activities are great.

As far as general public opinion on capitalism, I would say in this case society's opinion are coming from capitalists and not from individuals at large. The reason capitalists can dominate public opinion in plutocracies is because they own / control all the major means of communication - be it mass media, bribed politicians, think tanks, law firms, what have you.

If a community wanted to put an end to capitalist controlled media, they merely need to show up at the local media outlet, assume democratic control, and be prepared to defend it physically from minions sent by plutocrats. Meanwhile, they can agitate for reinforcements by using the media they now occupy.

Yes, I agree, as I've already stated.

The proposed media reform should also address the problem of those who seek personal gain because they have specialized skills.

I disagree here, because you're talking apples-and-oranges -- media influence is one thing, and specialized skills, and personal gain, is another. Reforming, or revolutionizing, the use of mass media does not, in and of itself, address specialized skills and personal gain, even if actively used to cut against such motivations.

As I've already noted you're still thinking that social reality, as communicated through the mass media, for example, is everything, and that it will always trump *material* reality. This is the mark of groupthink and it is a characteristic of bureaucratic elitism. If people en masse decide that they want smartphones, and some in society are able to make those devices available on agreeable terms, then guess what happens -- ? As long as there's no common stigma or inherent social taboo about it, then it's going to happen according to the dynamics of material / political reality. A media campaign does not automatically change social material reality, no matter how much some may want it to. (The instances of anti-smoking campaigns and the Koch Brothers' Tea Party come to mind here.)

The point is that much of economic motivation in modern capitalism is rooted in material greed

No, you're falling for the moralistic / individualistic fallacy common to liberals -- capitalist economic incentive / motivation resides in *profit*, not in "greed". ('Greed' could be *enabled* and manifested in any given individual, fertilized by overall conditions, but it is *not* causative.)

- and this in turn is rooted in media advertising. It is the explicit goal of media advertising to instill greed in their audience, in order to sell product... and this greed is in turn supposed to spur people into more economic action.

The goal of capitalist enterprise is *profits*, giving rise on the whole to the overall dynamic of 'primitive accumulation'.

If you wanted to eliminate the encouragement of greed, then simply stop product advertising in the media after your communities have assumed democratic control.

No, despite your repetition (see?) you are not going to change all of human desire and material reality just by asserting yourself and wishing for it.

I don't know what you consider to be "greed" at the individual level, but some people may just be far more acquisitive in their personal accumulations than the average. If the larger society enables them to be this way, at the *material* level, then they will objectively be able to be "greedy". If society, however, politically organizes a global revolution to do away with private property entirely, as a consciously decided societal norm, then that would change social relations *structurally*, with the power of enforcement behind it.

Eventually this removes the desire for personal profit in order to do stuff for others. Some may say this would be enough, but personally I would go a step beyond that. Which is not only remove product advertising, but add new advertising. The new advertising isn't to make you think various products are great, but to convince people that doing various activities are great.

Teacher

15th July 2012, 23:33

Now what you are suggesting is that the presence of interdependencies implies that all work is of equal value. Which is silly.

Socially useful labor time = Socially useful labor time

It does not matter what type of labor it is

ckaihatsu

16th July 2012, 00:53

No, not all work roles are the same, even if they're all socially useful labor. Even with the best agreement on revolutionary politics there could still easily be accusations of "Elitism!" if someone feels that they're getting stuck with the worst jobs over longer periods of time than others.

One way to mitigate this -- at local levels -- would be to even-out all tasks by having everyone spend equal time at all roles while assisting one another. This practice could even be generalized somewhat to broader (inter-locality) scales, but it's limited to fixed cycles of routines, basically at a given locality. It can't accommodate needs for larger-scale specialized roles -- that's where an indexing system for different types of liberated-labor roles would have to come into play.

Rotation system of work roles

http://postimage.org/image/1d53k7nd0/

cyu

18th July 2012, 08:06

do people spontaneously, autonomously form opinions on their own, or are they influenced and convinced by social techniques like advertising

I could make a pretty good argument for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism , but I'm not so sure it's particularly relevant or valuable.

The instances of anti-smoking campaigns and the Koch Brothers' Tea Party come to mind here.

There are different forces in these example. For smoking, tobacco companies want smoking to continue, and those putting up the anti-smoking ads in theory want to stop it. Pro-capitalist propaganda is intended to prop up capitalism, while anti-capitalists want to toss capitalism in the trash.

There's a difference between that and a scenario in which the forces are actually on the same side - that is, people want food and actually have a desire to convince themselves to want to produce food.

capitalist economic incentive / motivation resides in *profit*, not in "greed".

Profit is the legal term for what corporations are bound by law to produce. I would say greed is a psychological aspect - an emotional desire that attempts to feel good by getting more stuff.

The problem being addressed here is the post-revolution one. Say capitalism has been done away with. How do you motivate people in post-capitalist society? Clearly CEOs and stockbrokers were motivated under capitalism by the product advertising in the media that surrounds them. Whether you want to call that greed, or consumerism, or materialism, it doesn't really matter to me.

So if people aren't motivated by trying to get more stuff than their neighbors, what are they motivated by?

Ultimately I would would say there are only 3 primal human motivations: biological survival, reproduction, and pride. In a society where all the basics are provided for, it leaves only something as immaterial as pride as something to motivate people. Ultimately pride itself is pretty irrelevant of course, but it can be put to good use by advertisers to get people to produce for people who do need material goods for survival.

there could still easily be accusations of "Elitism!" if someone feels that they're getting stuck with the worst jobs over longer periods of time than others

I'd have to say I'm more "utopian" than your "realism" - or at least that I've been convinced that it's possible we don't have to compromise with anyone having to do things that they personally feel is undesirable.

Careful use of pride gets around this problem. You can easily see examples in history of people who are motivated to sacrifice their own lives for fellow soldiers or put themselves through the suffering of a marathon just to say they've done it. People are manipulated every day by the culture and media they live in, but as they say http://everything2.com/title/Participate+in+your+own+manipulation.

ckaihatsu

18th July 2012, 15:24

The problem being addressed here is the post-revolution one. Say capitalism has been done away with. How do you motivate people in post-capitalist society? Clearly CEOs and stockbrokers were motivated under capitalism by the product advertising in the media that surrounds them. Whether you want to call that greed, or consumerism, or materialism, it doesn't really matter to me.

So if people aren't motivated by trying to get more stuff than their neighbors, what are they motivated by?

Ultimately I would would say there are only 3 primal human motivations: biological survival, reproduction, and pride. In a society where all the basics are provided for, it leaves only something as immaterial as pride as something to motivate people. Ultimately pride itself is pretty irrelevant of course, but it can be put to good use by advertisers to get people to produce for people who do need material goods for survival.

Careful use of pride gets around this problem. You can easily see examples in history of people who are motivated to sacrifice their own lives for fellow soldiers or put themselves through the suffering of a marathon just to say they've done it. People are manipulated every day by the culture and media they live in, but as they say http://everything2.com/title/Participate+in+your+own+manipulation.

If you want to psychologize on a mass basis, that's already been done for you -- there's some social science in aspects of religion, and some would say that basic human personal and social motivations boil down to just a handful:

The Seven Deadly Sins, also known as the Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins, is a classification of objectionable vices (part of Christian ethics) that have been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct Christians concerning fallen humanity's tendency to sin. The currently recognized version of the sins are usually given as wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_sins

I don't agree with such neat categories as a-priori motivations unto themselves, since that would be idealism -- our motivations derive from complex and shifting social contexts.

I'd have to say I'm more "utopian" than your "realism" - or at least that I've been convinced that it's possible we don't have to compromise with anyone having to do things that they personally feel is undesirable.

This is what I *desire*, too, politically, and I think it should be considered an ideal, or an *optimal* arrangement, post-capitalism, and something to aim for.

Practically, though, actual conditions might be far less ideal and unresponsive to your form of social engineering through the use of the mass media.

I maintain that the least amount of social dependence on 'non-in-house' labor -- meaning a less-than-equitable basis of social organization at certain parts -- means that needed labor automatically becomes 'specialized', disrupting the otherwise equitable social arrangement. (See post #48.)

The goal of a post-capitalist socialism should be to *generalize* society's labor roles as much as possible so that there *is* an actual, objective equitable basis for society's mass production and consumption. Specialization needs to be done away with, now as then, so that private interests are not able to wield portions of social production against the rest of us.

The Burgundy Rose

18th July 2012, 16:06

Hello, I am new to this forum and I would like to introduce myself by saying that I am not a communist myself, but recently I have become interested in learning about communism.

Though I have just started on what seems to be a great depth of knowledge, I think that I understand the basic concepts such as the difference between socialism and communism and the LTV. What I do not understand is how incentive to work and competition would work in a communist society. In fact, there would be no competition.

In a capitalist society competition forces competing companies to try to outperform their competitors. This leads to two things: variety and new technology. Having many different companies leads to a variety of products for consumer consumption. The competition also forces companies to attempt to attempt to make new more innovative products which leads to advantages in technology. Note that I am not a right wing republican trying to say that capitalism is better. I have no desire to argue, I am only stating how capitalism creates a variety of products and forces technological advancements. What I would like to know is what mechanisms a communist society would use to achieve the same results.

I have seen some posts answering the question of incentive but I have found their answer unsatisfactory. If a surgeon makes the same salary than a janitor but works a lot harder then that surgeon is going to be angry and therefore will probably not work to his full capacity. You can say that if the surgeon doesn't work to his fullest then he doesn't get food, but then no one would want to become a surgeon if they knew they would need to work harder for the same compensation. So how do you give people an incentive to do harder jobs like being a surgeon?

I have many other questions, but I think I will save them for another day. Thank you for your help.

Conversely, competition can decrease productivity. think of the amount of money that large corporations put into litigious proceedings and into lobbying so that they can get one over their competitors. think of all the money spent on advertising which almost always misleads, beguiles, and uses cheap tricks to try and coax people into thinking they need a product when for the most part they don't. think of the fact that companies often build things that can be mathematically estimated to break a few days after their guarantee so that you have to buy another one shortly afterwards. think of the oil companies in the uk that are all too quick to increase petrol costs when there is a short supply but very slow in lowering the prices afterwards. when the internal market was introduced into the NHS the cost of drugs went UP. this is because rather than having one organisation manufacture the drugs, with controllable salaries and employment, there are now many and they all have their own managers and executives to pay huge salaries to. they all manufacture the same drugs and so they have to employ the same number of workers each to make that drug, driving the average cost up. under a nationalised monopoly there was only, or closer to, the number of workers necessary so costs were down.

this takes me to my next point. suppose you nationalise the coal and steel industries and you then purposefully subsidised them so that they ran at a loss. it then means that you produce cheap but high quality steal and coal which can then be used in other industries like privately owned car manufacturing, which in turn means that cars will be cheaper and will have an edge on competitors. nationalise basic products and things will get exponentially cheaper further down the technology tree to the more complex products. now if you privatised the coal and steel then you would have lots of companies making the same product, but again the execs would want to make a profit, so there would be an increase in the price of steel and coal and hence also in cars and in every other industry which would mean costs spiralling upwards further down the industry chain.

my country, the uk, is hell bent on privatising everything under the sun. they are now pretty much privatising the police in lincolnshire, selling out to a big company called G4S which has a history of incompetence and corruption. although they've been in the news recently related to the olympic games. they were hired to provide security and have, a few days before the games start, failed to supply enough security guards by 3500 and the army has been called to step in and plug the gap...and they were paid £284million!!! they also run 6 prisons in the uk privately which is rather daunting due to the fact that across the pond the americans have done similarly and it's led to the private prisons bribing local judges to sentence the convicted to longer terms in prison. this probably is already happening in this country considering the draconian sentences given to rioters who all but stole a bar of chocolate.

i'm not for nationalising everything personally. i would rather replace corporations and large companies with a cooperative business structure, which have proven themselves far more resilient and satisfying places of work. check it out.

cyu

26th July 2012, 15:39

there's some social science in aspects of religion, and some would say that basic human personal and social motivations boil down to just a handful:

The currently recognized version of the sins are usually given as wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

Actually I've already considered it before and agree in general - however, like molecules are made up of atoms, and atoms are made up of more elementary particles, this is how I would break up the sins:

* Wrath: Another version of pride. When a person feels their pride has been "unjustly" hurt based on the standards outlined in the predominant culture.
* Greed: Another version of pride. People are manipulated to feel like they have more status when they have more stuff by corporations that need to sell product.
* Sloth: An aspect of biological survival. Conserving energy, efficient use of time and resources, etc.
* Pride: Well, pride is pride ;) Very malleable, depending on the culture, since social engineering of culture can easily be done by the mass media.
* Lust: An aspect of reproduction. Pretty intrinsic to anything that is expected to last more than a generation.
* Envy: Another version of pride. When you are taught by the culture that you need to have X to feel good about yourself, and that you don't deserve to feel good until you have X.
* Gluttony: An aspect of biological survival. Biological beings always need food to survive. Can be taken to extremes of course.

Practically, though, actual conditions might be far less ideal and unresponsive to your form of social engineering through the use of the mass media.

Yes, I agree, but only at first. The first time you remove anybody from their former cult, they are still going to have a lot of attachments to the world they just left. It isn't until they've spent a lot of time away that they gradually become assimilated into the larger culture (which may or may not be a whole lot better).

The same is true of people going into a foreign country and experiencing "culture shock".

So yes, while I agree people won't suddenly become ideal socialists / anarchists and lose their consumerism the month after capitalism is trashed, I'm convinced it is only a matter of time for attitudes to change, provided that there is support from the media (or that people can actually control the media they are subjected to).

So will we need money in post-capitalist society? In the short-term, I would say yes, but it will no longer be necessary after personal material gain is no longer a motivating factor. (After all, if you're not motivated by "greed" and people are convinced by advertising to produce things, then what's the point of collecting your pay?) But until the consumerist imprint left by years of advertising becomes a faded memory, money will still be needed in the transition period.

Just as in the long run, you won't expect armed robbery for personal gain to be a problem. While the religions of materialism and consumerism exist, your society will still need the ability to protect itself from such behavior, even if it expects the behavior to eventually go extinct.

ckaihatsu

26th July 2012, 17:22

Yes, I agree, but only at first. The first time you remove anybody from their former cult, they are still going to have a lot of attachments to the world they just left. It isn't until they've spent a lot of time away that they gradually become assimilated into the larger culture (which may or may not be a whole lot better).

The same is true of people going into a foreign country and experiencing "culture shock".

So yes, while I agree people won't suddenly become ideal socialists / anarchists and lose their consumerism the month after capitalism is trashed, I'm convinced it is only a matter of time for attitudes to change, provided that there is support from the media (or that people can actually control the media they are subjected to).

So will we need money in post-capitalist society? In the short-term, I would say yes, but it will no longer be necessary after personal material gain is no longer a motivating factor. (After all, if you're not motivated by "greed" and people are convinced by advertising to produce things, then what's the point of collecting your pay?) But until the consumerist imprint left by years of advertising becomes a faded memory, money will still be needed in the transition period.

Just as in the long run, you won't expect armed robbery for personal gain to be a problem. While the religions of materialism and consumerism exist, your society will still need the ability to protect itself from such behavior, even if it expects the behavior to eventually go extinct.

I'm not sure what point you're making with this -- are you addressing those who would be less politically active and aware during a revolution-in-progress?

It's possible that world events could change quickly enough to where those who do not "keep up" with them could experience a kind of 'culture shock' -- like that which may have reportedly happened to some when the Eastern Bloc regimes suddenly fell.

cyu

15th August 2012, 20:55

I'm not sure what point you're making with this -- are you addressing those who would be less politically active and aware during a revolution-in-progress?

Yes, since people are not homogeneous, there will always be some that are diehard revolutionaries, some extreme radicals, some oppurtunists, some in general support, some just riding the wave, some still with a wait and see attitude, some disbelievers, and some who would continue to try to bring back the power of the wealthy. Not only that, even among very supportive revolutionaries, there would be many disagreements as to the best policy.

Some would claim that you can't change "basic human nature" - that they would always be motivated by things like greed, so you have to factor greed into your economic system, or at least handle it in some way.

My argument is that greed is not a part of "basic human nature" - rather it is learned behavior - or a learned desire, as the case may be - and if members of the post-capitalist society made proper use of social psychology, greed could be eliminated as a commonly found motivating factor.

ComingUpForAir

15th August 2012, 21:15

In the current Capitalist system, Doctors have to go through a figurative HELL to make it out of Medical School -- Doctors are smarter, more driven, and more intelligent than Janitors -- it's a combination of genetics and class obviously because of the cost of medical school. I think in a Socialist society the training would be difficult, but doctors wouldn't have to work as hard as there would be less barriers to access with everyone working less hours, and therefore the training that is basically like torture to ensure they get into the club would be less harsh. I have family in medical school and its like the professors are trying hard to make them fail -- many do.

It's simply ignorant for someone to say that janitors work harder in the current system. I've done manual labor and at least from my perspective I think intellectual work is harder, though I agree that it's more of a privilege.

Also, in a socialist society doctors would earn all the respect all the more and would actually be able to connect to their patients instead of having to run their offices like businesses. The most rewarding aspects of the job are illuminated via socialism.

ckaihatsu

15th August 2012, 23:58

My argument is that greed is not a part of "basic human nature" - rather it is learned behavior - or a learned desire, as the case may be -

I tend to agree.

and if members of the post-capitalist society made proper use of social psychology, greed could be eliminated as a commonly found motivating factor.

I *disagree* on your chosen direction of implementation, though -- or, rather, I should say that I'm *neutral* about it, as seen from this thread's history.

There's a difference between the material-structural *construction* of a collectivized planned economy, and the political-institutional *culture* that happens to pervade it.

It's obvious by now that I happen to be more concerned with the former, and you with the latter. Since we're both on the revolutionary side of things there's no dissonance -- just a differing of focus and attention.

I'd prefer to see a model for a post-capitalist mode of production that, through its design / structure, *inhibits* certain dynamics -- like a runaway habit of personal accumulation. If the entire premise of a mass-collectivist politics is adopted in the course of a worldwide revolution against the capitalist regime, then many implications would necessarily follow, including both a structural *and* cultural intolerance of private avarice.

rti

16th August 2012, 21:13

Though I have just started on what seems to be a great depth of knowledge, I think that I understand the basic concepts such as the difference between socialism and communism and the LTV. What I do not understand is how incentive to work and competition would work in a communist society. In fact, there would be no competition.

Competition will be always it is a matter how you direct it.

In a capitalist society competition forces competing companies to try to outperform their competitors. This leads to two things: variety and new technology.

Nope , read more

Having many different companies leads to a variety of products for consumer consumption.

Products can only be available for consumers if there can be money made on it.

Look for example Tesla's free energy tower.
It doesn't matter if it would actually worked but why it was stripped.
JP Morgan could decide how he could have potentionally charge for energy.

No profit = No product even if real life effect would be groudshaking.
It actually hinders variety.

The competition also forces companies to attempt to attempt to make new more innovative products which leads to advantages in technology.

Again profit motive.
Technologies can only see a day if it is profit to be made or they do not threaten existing industries.
There is many great scientists and inventions that were destroyed in the name of profit , all well documented such as Tesla or Edwin Armstrong.

Note that I am not a right wing republican trying to say that capitalism is better. I have no desire to argue, I am only stating how capitalism creates a variety of products and forces technological advancements. What I would like to know is what mechanisms a communist society would use to achieve the same results.

Creativity comes within human mind it is natural. If that werent the case we would still be living in caves.
Also creativity is the best accessed where money issues is of the table ( for example less stress )

I have seen some posts answering the question of incentive but I have found their answer unsatisfactory.

Monetary incentive only works for algorithmic mundane task , which can be easily automated today.

unitedanarchy

18th August 2012, 23:10

unitedanarchy

18th August 2012, 23:10

Oh calm down man, Stop being so reactionary, Don't do the "how dare you" thing, That gets you nowhere fast. (Unless you like being nowhere, I heard it's nice this time of year) And seriously? You think the guy who takes out the garbage is doing the exact same amount of work and of the exact same value as someone who can do surgery on a beating heart? That is just insane, Someone who saves peoples lives should get more money than someone who takes out the trash. Especially being that ANYONE can take out the trash, And only some people can do open heart surgery. Would you want the janitor to do surgery on you? I think not. Certainly people have potential, Just like anyone can go to war, But it doesn't mean they will. Also, Please stop with this post-modernism stuff, "Nothing is true, Everything is an opinion", That gets annoying really fast, It's like Rene Decart trolls. So don't just pull that card and say it's all the same. But here is the best critism of socialism, And the welfare state I have heard. What happens when the state runs out of money?

cyu

30th August 2012, 21:19

I'd prefer to see a model that, through its design / structure, *inhibits* certain dynamics -- like a runaway habit of personal accumulation.

Agreed. This is why the role the media plays in society cannot be ignored. The media itself plays a role in shaping the culture of society, and depending on its structure and design, can push culture in many different directions.

If you support an egalitarian society, then media control will have to be egalitarian. If you support a dictatorial monarchy, then it won't survive without the monarch in control of the media. If you wanted a materialistic culture that prides itself on goods resulting from environmental devastation, then the media will have to be controlled by those who promote materialism and consumerism. If you wanted a culture where people volunteered to do what needed to be done, then the media will have to be controlled by those supporting whatever it is they wanted done.

Of course, media control can be a dangerous thing. In the wrong hands, it can induce genocide, war, even suicide. So for those concerned about large concentrations of power, control of the media would have to be distributed across as much of the population as possible.

many implications would necessarily follow, including both a structural *and* cultural intolerance of private avarice.

Personally I would "tolerate" avarice in much the same way it is tolerated in Le Guin's novel, The Dispossessed. However, I don't believe it would be much of a problem provided that the media was doing the "right" thing - if it is no longer promoting consumerism, then I would say avarice as a motivating factor would fade away from the general culture - as a result of the structure of media control. Eventually it would be left to a few eccentrics who would be left alone since most people would just consider them harmless kooks.

ckaihatsu

30th August 2012, 22:48

If you support an egalitarian society, then media control will have to be egalitarian. If you support a dictatorial monarchy, then it won't survive without the monarch in control of the media. If you wanted a materialistic culture that prides itself on goods resulting from environmental devastation, then the media will have to be controlled by those who promote materialism and consumerism. If you wanted a culture where people volunteered to do what needed to be done, then the media will have to be controlled by those supporting whatever it is they wanted done.

Of course, media control can be a dangerous thing. In the wrong hands, it can induce genocide, war, even suicide. So for those concerned about large concentrations of power, control of the media would have to be distributed across as much of the population as possible.

Agreed. This is why the role the media plays in society cannot be ignored. The media itself plays a role in shaping the culture of society, and depending on its structure and design, can push culture in many different directions.

Much of this subject may already be outdated, though, since the mass media is no longer as monolithic as it used to be -- the political landscape used to almost *revolve* around the politics of the studio system (as for film production, TV network broadcasts, etc.), but now there are far more choices and far less of an overwhelming official and pop culture presence.

As part of the mass-democratic process of revolution the public could very well decide to devolve the concentrated media presence altogether, in favor of more decentralized information dissemination -- as far as news and entertainment goes I don't think it would make a difference anyway, but for the matters of politics itself vanguardism and a centralization of administration are critically important.

Personally I would "tolerate" avarice in much the same way it is tolerated in Le Guin's novel, The Dispossessed.

Care to elucidate?

However, I don't believe it would be much of a problem provided that the media was doing the "right" thing - if it is no longer promoting consumerism, then I would say avarice as a motivating factor would fade away from the general culture - as a result of the structure of media control. Eventually it would be left to a few eccentrics who would be left alone since most people would just consider them harmless kooks.

Well, again, you're making your approach and method abundantly clear, but I'll respectfully note that it shouldn't be *depended* on -- it can't serve as a *replacement* for politics itself, and that's pretty much what you're suggesting.

A revolution, by definition, is a *mass* movement, and if its politics are about the nationalization / socialization of assets for the sake of the public good, then that would go a long way itself toward determining the overall political culture, *without* requiring any kind of 'official' political culture over the media, as per your position.

In a tide that's turning against privatization and private ownership it would be difficult to imagine sentiments of individualistic acquisitiveness holding out since they would already have been very much politicized and would be seen as going against the tide.

Private collections of whatever cultural artifacts would give way to a norm of *collectively* administrating such collections, more like a common network of museums or an academia that's as ubiquitous as the Internet.

It's tough to say, though, because it would probably hinge on how much slack the people of such a world would grant to the domain of *sentiment* -- would personal possessions *increase*, in a hoarding kind of way, for expanding and expansive personal reasons, or would society frown on such harboring of sentimentality, since all items themselves would be freely available anyway -- ?

Lowtech

31st August 2012, 01:00

Competition and incentive don't play any part in capitalism, and even if it had..

humans don't require money to understand the merit of their deeds.

I welcome you to learn about communism if your interests are genuine, if you've already decided communism is false, then posting here with capitalist ideology is trolling and helps no one.

In fact, there would be no competition.

This is a blatant missunderstanding of communism, capitalism and "incentive." People do what is economically viable for them to do. If this means working in the worst conditions, they do it. Or if brought up to feel no sympathy for the poor and hoard wealth for their own enjoyment, they will. Capitalism is the most detrimental force humanity has ever invented, let alone as a failure of economics.

In a capitalist society competition forces competing companies to try to outperform their competitors. This leads to two things: variety and new technology.
...
What I would like to know is what mechanisms a communist society would use to achieve the same results.
you're assuming results under capitalism are good, while the reality is its far from good, capitalism creates artificial scarcity and this leads to poverty.

Also any notion of competition under capitalism is perverted by the fact that people are not compensated properly under our current system. 400 people holding 80% of value in an economy can never be produced by "competition" or "meritocracy," even if capitalism were those things, which it is clearly not.

the obvious disparity of classes and concentration of wealth (value) shows without any doubt that capitalism is a dysotopia, made possible by vile force and social constructs of might makes right and ownership

I have seen some posts answering the question of incentive but I have found their answer unsatisfactory. If a surgeon makes the same salary than a janitor but works a lot harder then that surgeon is going to be angry and therefore will probably not work to his full capacity.You can say that if the surgeon doesn't work to his fullest then he doesn't get food, but then no one would want to become a surgeon if they knew they would need to work harder for the same compensation. So how do you give people an incentive to do harder jobs like being a surgeon?
...
I have many other questions, but I think I will save them for another day. Thank you for your help.

A surgeon is a very poor example to support your attitude. It's a profession monopolized by the elites. Higher education, although not made completely inaccessible, is controlled so that far less than those actually capable of such a skill can actually aspire to it.

Regardless of the condescending attitude of capitalists, people do have the mental capacity to understand the merit of their deeds and won't magically become bums if we aren't exploited by a plutocracy and actually compensated properly.

Now let's see how good your apologetics are

cyu

10th September 2012, 20:32

Much of this subject may already be outdated, though, since the mass media is no longer as monolithic as it used to be

It's a matter of degree I think. Media control can be all the way at one end of the spectrum or all the way at the other. In practise, it is pretty much always somewhere in between. At any given point, the state of reality can move in any direction - what's more important to me is if it's moving in the "right" direction. I wouldn't say the number of deaths by homicide and starvation are acceptable just because they are better than 10 years ago - in the same way, I wouldn't say the level of media control is acceptable just because the web didn't exist 50 years ago.

as news and entertainment goes I don't think it would make a difference anyway

For a propagandist, news and entertainment are citically important - it can allow the propagandist to push political viewpoints with or without their audience knowing what the propagandist is trying to do. Fox News is one example. Another from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/04/cnn-international-documentary-bahrain-arab-spring-repression

"I couldn't believe CNN was making me put what I knew to be government lies into my reporting."

for the matters of politics itself vanguardism and a centralization of administration are critically important

Anarchists tend to view both with suspicion. Perhaps they only seek to turn everyone into the vanguard. In any case, what benefits do you see in centralization (besides boosting the ego of the guys in charge =) ?

Care to elucidate?

If someone has some compulsion to collect, say pine cones, or build the world's biggest ball of twine, anarchists would generally just leave them to their eccentricities. However, if they are hoarding things that are vitally important for the survival of others, then anarchists would simply show up and take what they need - defending themselves with weapons, if necessary.

it can't serve as a *replacement* for politics itself

Actually I think it's very political - although we may have different definitions of what counts as politics. For example, replacing product advertising with activity advertising is basically a statement of policy - as is distributing control of that activity advertising to everyone.

Some may say, "Well, only group X should determine what kinds of activities should be advertised." While others may say, "Everyone should have an equal role in determining what activities are advertised." That in itself is a political discussion, as would be any conflicts, if they try to implement their policies after ignoring their opponents.

ckaihatsu

10th September 2012, 21:00

[Y]ou're making your approach and method abundantly clear, but I'll respectfully note that [the media] shouldn't be *depended* on -- it can't serve as a *replacement* for politics itself, and that's pretty much what you're suggesting.

Actually I think it's very political - although we may have different definitions of what counts as politics. For example, replacing product advertising with activity advertising is basically a statement of policy - as is distributing control of that activity advertising to everyone.

Some may say, "Well, only group X should determine what kinds of activities should be advertised." While others may say, "Everyone should have an equal role in determining what activities are advertised." That in itself is a political discussion, as would be any conflicts, if they try to implement their policies after ignoring their opponents.

Sorry, but I'm finding it profoundly ironic that a self-professed anarchist is arguing so vehemently for what amounts to a centralized control over mass media content.

You're clearly not arguing for a *dissolution* of broadcast media -- rather, you're calling for it to serve an 'official' function in disseminating a certain, distinct political culture -- 'activity advertising'.

*Of course* there'd be politics to that configuration, as you're advocating it -- it's the diametrical opposite of d.i.y.

Anarchists tend to view both with suspicion. Perhaps they only seek to turn everyone into the vanguard. In any case, what benefits do you see in centralization (besides boosting the ego of the guys in charge =) ?

That's an adorable attempt at humor -- here's from a recent post:

[W]ith the world's technological prowess at their collective disposal, the liberated laborers would have to administrate all assets and resources, and their own labor, in an egalitarian way, but also one that takes material realities, efficiencies of scale, and mass consumption needs into account as well.