currency-good or bad? - can we work for the common good or d

[red head]

i've been torn on this issue for a long time. basically, i think that people need an incentive to work, such as money, that is not offered in real communism. i also feel however, that where there is money, there is corruption. if i could be convinced that people can work for the common good, or that we can have currency without people screwing other people over and "getting ahead" i could label myself as a definate communist or socialist, but for now i'm torn. any ideas?

[CimSaint]

I think you have to remember that people are products of their environment. We're raised in a capitalist environment, where the ultimate goal is to have more and more cash. In a communistic society, though, this wouldn't be the case. You work to provide, not make profit. If you don't work, you don't get the goods. To me this would be plenty of incentive to work...

[Guest]

My belief on the subject is best explained by the Economics section of my political party's platform.
My party, The socialist Party USA... is not a Communist Party, but a Democratic Socialist Party. Here is a clip from our platform.


ECONOMICS
The Socialist Party stands for a fundamental transformation of the economy, focusing on producing for need not profit, with the goal of a new society without social classes, and without exploitation based on class, race, or gender.
We call for a minimum wage of $12 an hour, indexed to the cost of living.

We support the provision of a livable guaranteed annual income for those outside the work force.

We call for a full employment policy and programs.

We call for all financial institutions to be socially owned and operated by a democratically-controlled national banking authority, which should include credit unions, mutual insurance cooperatives, and cooperative state banks, in order to meet the diversity of local and regional needs and the needs of various sectors of the economy.

We call for a steeply graduated income tax, and a maximum income of no more than ten times the minimum.

We oppose the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization as instruments of oppression throughout the world.

We support restoring and increasing federal grants to local and state governments.

We oppose balancing the federal budget at the expense of funding basic human services.

We call for a National Pension Authority to hold the assets of private pension funds, and a levy against corporate assets for any pension fund deficits.

We call for increased unemployment compensation.

We support a program of massive federal investment in both urban and rural areas for infrastructure reconstruction and economic development.

We call for the elimination of subsidies and tax breaks that benefit corporations and wealthy households at the expense of working people.

We call for the creation of new jobs through the formation of worker- and community-controlled cooperatives, for the purpose of providing quality housing, health care, education, food, and clothing for all.

We call for Social Security, health, disability, and unemployment insurance to be paid for by a steeply graduated income tax and by a steeply graduated estate tax. We oppose such regressive taxes as the payroll tax, sales tax, and "sin" tax.

We support tax benefits for renters equal to those for homeowners.

We support the use of any federal budget surplus on human services rather than tax cuts that will only benefit the rich.

[RedCeltic]

Sorry guys, The above post was from me. I screwed that up somehow...


(Edited by RedCeltic at 12:57 pm on Oct. 19, 2001)

[red head]

wouldn't a $12 minimum wage drive out small businesses?

[RedCeltic]

If you can't afford the price of a car does the car dealer lower the price of the car? Just because everyone wants a car doesn't mean everyone can have one.

If companies can't afford the products they are selling do manufacturers lower the cost of the goods? No they don't!

So if companies can't afford the price of labor why is it that labor is expected to work for lower wage?

[Jurhael]

Especially for longer hours...*grumble*

[red head]

thats a good point celtic, but there is a difference between material goods and labor. i'm playing devil's advocate here because i am by no means a capitalist. but, under this system, if a business isn't selling products, it usually lowers the price. if it were forced to keep the price high for some reason, the company would go bankrupt. similarly, if a company is struggling, it cuts its workers wages. if it is forced to keep them high, the company will go bankrupt. naturally, this leads to only a few big businesses surving, and we'll have the current system x100. the people who would be most affected by a very high minimum wage will not be the large corperations we all hate, but the small business owners who are actually working for their money, and the teenaged mcdonalds worker who will be replaced by a machine that is cheaper to buy and repair than a worker at $12 an hour.

[DaNatural]

red head t address your question, yes it is possibleto work without financial incentive, if you really break down life, all people work towards is a peice of mind. that is the ultimate goal. now this society has tricked us into thinking that material wealth will help us a achieve this goal. so the first thing we have to address is education. make people realize that material wealth is a never ending process and in the end makes people miserable, then we wonder why were not happy. if a man knows that if he works, that he will be fed, clothed,and housed it will make him work, and work hard. this will allow him free time to think! which isnt available nowadays because were always worred about bills. the main aspect which needs to be changed is eduation, educate people around us and we will feel a bond with each other and this will not lead them to exploiting us. peace

[Guest]

well celtic,labor is not coerced to work for lower wages, it has a choice to work for such wages or not,I

f you can't afford the price of a car does the car dealer lower the price of the car? Just because everyone wants a car doesn't mean everyone can have one. -redceltic


just because everyone wants a 12 dollar an hour job, doesn't mean everyone should have one right?

I entered this discussion because i was baffled by the heading: currency good or bad... this in reference to the need for incentive to work

there is an inherent misunderstanding of what incentive is. Incentive is not the green paper you get. Rather it is the positive balance in a cost benefit analysis in respect to any activity you undertake. For instance you work, give a service to somebody, in return for something that you value more than your time. For instance if i work at mcdonalds for 6 dollars an hour, that means that i give one hour of my time 6dollars of value. You might think that's unfair, and i might ***** about working at mcdonalds for 6 dollars an hour, but if I felt that my time was worth more, i would find a new job. If there were no jobs that paid more i would leave the job market and find another way to spend my time according to benefit in a cost analysis. The green is simply symbollic of the benefit. You can't get rid of incentive by getting rid of money, you'd simply end up replacing one incentive with another.

[vox]

Reducing human life to cost analysis represents the nadir, and at the same time, the true worth of cpaitalist thought.

People are free to choose their jobs, we're repeatedly told by capitalist whores. However, if a job isn't there that meets the need, we're told to look at the cost analysis. What complete and utter rubbish.

One wonders if these people, spewing essentialist, college boy economcs, realize that, in the world outside of the White Tower people work, and the worker doesn't set the rules of employment.

Academics. Feh.

vox

[RedCeltic]

Here are a few quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Who said what I want to say alot better....

" We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'Thing' orientated socitety to a 'person' - orientated society. When machienes and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." -- From; "Where do we go from Here?" 1969

" I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove the most effective - the solution to poverty is tho abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income." From " Where do we go from here?" 1967

" [He] is deprived of normal education and normal socal and economic opportunities. When he seeks opportunities, he is told, in effect, to lift himself up by his own bootstraps, advice which does not take into account the fact that he is barefoot." 1968




(Edited by RedCeltic at 11:54 am on Oct. 22, 2001)

[RuralCommunist]

I absolutly agree CimSaint. We are raised to see that money is why we should work. Why we should do anything. But in a communist society withount constant capitalist interference, money isn't important. People are. Your friends, neighbors and enemies.

[peaccenicked]

'incentive=greed, workers are greedy
human nature is greedy
Society needs greed to function. This is supposed be realism'
Essentially humankind is social
greed is a sickness for those who have it
Socialism is about the collective effort to fufil the real needs of human beings. incentive enough.

[reggaenights20]

I think if we can slowly but surely educate society to see that everyone can benefit if we all work together than we can show people all the good and satisfaction that could come of working together for a common goal. The guest was right when he said that incentive is always going to be there in one way or another. Someone isn't going to want to work at a MCdonalds for 12 dollars an hour if he can work in a cleaner and more "rewarding" environment. I think the key is to educate people in new ways so that they see the interconnectedness of all things in a society. For example, people look down on the janitor but in reality he is the one that keeps sanitation problems at bay which in turn makes everything cleaner and nicer for everyone. We have to teach people to stop looking at things in terms of status the way most of our societies are set up. People have to be able to accept the fact that what they do is just one gear in the machine of society and that what they are doing is important. We need to over generations of teaching and leading by example erase in peoples minds the competitive and "one upmanship" type of way of seeing things. We in a capitalist society are taught at a very young age to try to be "better", "bigger" "stronger" and more cunning than our peers. This breeds greed and since it is something that has been written in our minds for generations of generations I think it wil take a lot to get people to change. I don't think that communism or socialism are flawed, but I thinkgetting them to work is going to take a lot more time and planning than many people might think. I for one, am up for the challenge or trying to better my country (USA) so that the future generations don't have to deal with the same bullshit that I and my fellow man do. These are just my thoughts, i'm not attacking anyones point of view or anything. i'm just trying to get my ideas across :)

[peaccenicked]

incentive to get out of shitty living conditions
is a social incentive unlike getting gold plated bath tubs.

[I Will Deny You]

Without currency, no one would be able to afford The Fart Machine (http://www.thefartmachine.com/). I imagine that in a communst society, people would (gasp!) only be able to take advantage of Fart Machine services that are free of charge, such as Send a Fart to Your Friend.

A Fart Machine-less society is not worth preserving.

[Potyondi]

Capital (money) is an entirely superfluous capitalist invention. Any society can work fine without it, as long as people are educated about the nature of capital.

For example, in a capitalist society:
worker performs labour------> his commodities go to his employer -------> he gets a wage from his employer -------> he uses his money to buy the commodities that HE produced at a marked-up value.

In a communist or anarchist society:
worker performs labour------> his commodities go into a "pool" along with everyone else's --------> he draws from the pool to satisfy his needs (According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs).

Currency is indeed bad.

[Renegade]

Look, I think currency is just a measure of your share of the overall social product. My opinion is that even in a communist society, you can work longer and have less leisure time and more social product or work shorter and have less. Unless we are going to barter or depend on an administrative power to provide for us, then we need some form of measurement for our share of the social product, so we need currency.

As far as international currency goes though, unless we are trading with a non-communist country, we simply shouldn't ratify currency, simply referring to international bartering.