Gambling and Communism

[bruce]

Is there any ideas set in stone for gambling? Not necessarily traditional means like card games or chess, although I'd be interested in that too. More along the lines of two individuals wagering on a particular outcome.

For example, could I wager against my friend by flipping a coin who has to work a specific shift at a factory?

Also, is there anything similar to a lottery?

[F9]

You mean after Communism achieved?
Yes there is going to be "gambling" but just for the fun of it, no money down(they wont exist) no nothing, except some actions people may bet on(ex dress different etc etc).Now why bother "gambling" your "shift" at the factory?If you dont wanna do it just dont go, there isnt a shift, you are doing whatever you want and like, you will choose the job that please you!
Now for lottery, if people like it and want it, they will make it out and just play, of course there wont be any money prizes but something will people figure out for the fun of it!

Fuserg9:star:

[Dust Bunnies]

Gambling will probably be for fun, with chips that just don't get you anything when cashed in. Although maybe there could be lotto's for "harmless" items such as a cake.

[bruce]

Now why bother "gambling" your "shift" at the factory?If you dont wanna do it just dont go, there isnt a shift, you are doing whatever you want and like, you will choose the job that please you!

I guess I'm more interested in the ideas of morality involved concerning gambling. If there was one shift open and my friend and I both wanted and were able to work it, is it ok if we flip a coin to decide who gets it?


Now for lottery, if people like it and want it, they will make it out and just play, of course there wont be any money prizes but something will people figure out for the fun of it!

Could there be a prize like labor vouchers or a luxury surplus item like say video games?

Also what about gambling on sports with your acquired personal possessions or vouchers? I know the labor voucher thing is different throughout different proposed systems but like I said earlier, I'm more interested in the underlying moral values of collectivism

[Bright Banana Beard]

I guess I'm more interested in the ideas of morality involved concerning gambling. If there was one shift open and my friend and I both wanted and were able to work it, is it ok if we flip a coin to decide who gets it?

Yes if is voluntary and accepted by both of you, or either you or your friend must give up for that shift, or you can work together if it is not difficult.



Could there be a prize like labor vouchers or a luxury surplus item like say video games?Players must bet their stuff, but it would be pointless if you able to get them by laboring yourself.


Also what about gambling on sports with your acquired personal possessions or vouchers? I know the labor voucher thing is different throughout different proposed systems but like I said earlier, I'm more interested in the underlying moral values of collectivism Individualism and collectivism are both connect in some way, whatever what the definition said. As I said, there no point if you can acquire your item through labor unless it was made by a person and not by collectivism, then that where you have to figure it out with the person that made the unique items. I doubt gambling will be popular under collectivism if we got the world, but it will be alive and popular if we only get a bit part of the world.

[bruce]

Players must bet their stuff, but it would be pointless if you able to get them by laboring yourself.

Not if my friend and I both want twice as much of luxury item X immediately while accepting that we may have zero of it as well.


As I said, there no point if you can acquire your item through labor

The same thing can be said for a number of people in conditions that exist currently, but there is still lots of gambling.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Not if my friend and I both want twice as much of luxury item X immediately while accepting that we may have zero of it as well.
Luck factor comes in, you can hope if the worker council allowed it or not. It is better to plan social event for these factor you are talking about.




The same thing can be said for a number of people in conditions that exist currently, but there is still lots of gambling. Gambling is part of my life. Shall we play Rummy or Seven Bridge? The moral is meaningless when we decide to do it fun and harmless, but when it involves the bad factor, we both agree something must be done about it. I don't have a answer for it since I do not play much or pay attention to it.

[bruce]

Luck factor comes in, you can hope if the worker council allowed it or not. It is better to plan social event for these factor you are talking about.

Yeah this is what I don't understand. And beyond whether or not it's allowed, what factors go into making the decision.

[ckaihatsu]

Bruce, I think you're dealing more with the society's definitions of value in the here-and-now, while Fuserg9, Dust Bunnies, and Black Rifle are talking more about how the very definition of value will be * so * different under communism that gambling itself would be very different. It could even become a historical curiosity altogether, because people might have no incentive to do it at all, except for bragging rights. Please consider the following:

I recently came up with a scenario that I think could be useful here: If you happen to go to a friend's place, or to an office for a work or business dealing, there is usually some token hospitality involved. You will be asked if you would like a coffee, or a tea, or some water.

Would you, at some point, decide to engage in gambling activity over that coffee, or tea (or other beverages)?

It seems absurd, preposterous, right? Imagine that * everything * of material value in the *world* became like that coffee or tea. If all you had to do in the way of regular work for society was to log onto an account on the web and oversee some production numbers or consumer feedback, for just a few hours a week, and the rest of your life was yours, with widespread, free availability of consumer items everywhere, what would there be to gamble *for*?

No one in a communist society would allow gambling that led to *threats* of harm against people in that society, so any possible, material, negative effects against persons would be moot. That would eliminate the "moral" question altogether, because all that would be left would be material things. Would you gamble to "save" material items from being destroyed, while the loser of the gamble would have to perform the destruction? Pretty silly, right?

Increasing automation provides increasing access for larger numbers of people to greater amounts of material things -- with capitalism's exploitative, expropriating functions removed altogether the access and abundance would be much, much greater.


Chris






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[ckaihatsu]

Bruce, I realized that there are a couple of points you made that I didn't address directly.

I don't think work shifts would be an issue in a communist society. Already there are many jobs, in the service sector, that can be done on a rolling schedule, such as responding to customers' emails or checking in on the status of some workplace equipment.

Luxuries is a topic worth discussing -- in *any* society there would necessarily be some materials or services which are either so rare and/or require such an expenditure of resources and labor that they would be considered luxuries and would logistically not be available to everyone commonly.

Many cultural goods would fall into this category, since great works of art, for example, are unique and are not readily / easily passed around. In a society based on common ownership this wouldn't be too much of an issue, I'd imagine -- museums, galleries, libraries, universities, and the like would continue to be special subsets, or subcultures of society that would be mostly self-selecting and would handle the administration of these unique cultural goods, including making them available in meaningful ways to the public.

You probably have the leisure-oriented definition of 'luxury' in mind, though, and this *would* be more of an issue. I like using the example of flights into space, which currently cost $100,000. Another example might be a place in line for the theater, opera, concert, sporting event, or amusement park, since there are only so many seats or rides available in any given year.

My own solution is simply first-come, first-served, and here's a diagram (yes, *always* a diagram...!).


Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

http://tinyurl.com/5mjhhh


So you could say that, in *any* society, even a communist one, there would *still* necessarily be commodities since some goods and services would be unique or rare and demand would outstrip supply.

I would have to agree with this, and just note that society -- most notably the workers / performers involved -- would have to decide how to administer these special goods and services. It *could* be as simple as first-come, first-served, or there might be other considerations to take into account that I'm not thinking of right now.

But the extent to which these event tickets would be commodities and possibly gambled for would be a very small extent. Maybe a sort of gatherer-hunter subculture might emerge around these things, where feats of courage and daring would be the price of admission -- who knows? It's out of *my* hands! = )

[LOLseph Stalin]

For example, could I wager against my friend by flipping a coin who has to work a specific shift at a factory?

If you don't want to work then obviously you likely don't like your job. In Communism you're entitled to work a job you enjoy so no gambling off shifts would be neccessary. :)

[lombas]

Gambling is in fact the result of psychological extortion and would therefore not even need to be banned in a socialist society: it would simply not exist because there are no incentives.

What will remain is people playing cards and games &c as they did for thousands of years.

The difference that arises thus is one between recreation and subconscious extortion.

[ckaihatsu]

Gambling is in fact the result of psychological extortion and would therefore not even need to be banned in a socialist society: it would simply not exist because there are no incentives.

What will remain is people playing cards and games &c as they did for thousands of years.

The difference that arises thus is one between recreation and subconscious extortion.


lombas,

I'd be curious to know more about what you mean by 'subconscious extortion' -- I think I understand what you mean by the term, but if you wouldn't mind elaborating on this, please do. Thanks.

[lombas]

lombas,

I'd be curious to know more about what you mean by 'subconscious extortion' -- I think I understand what you mean by the term, but if you wouldn't mind elaborating on this, please do. Thanks.

Well, I'll try to share some thoughts which made me pick that term for what I had in mind... Gambling, casino-style, is not something that comes falling from the sky. Sure, Roman soldiers loved to gamble - even their (future) wages were sacrificed in order to keep the dices rolling. But only in a capitalist, class-based system do people go to mass-scale casinos and are intrigued by spending huge amounts of money on something they know is in many cases a fraud, very hard to win, a strike of luck, &c.

What makes them do this? Consumerism, for a start, but that's not enough. I like to buy books and cd's, in fact, my girlfriend asks me to stop buying them - but I'm very attached to having a personal library filled with books I can use for reference and so on. Am I, in a way, a "good" consumer? Of course. But how do you get from here (me) to there (losing a year's savings at blackjack)? The reality is that you can only be forced by extortion, by something that is making you gambling all what you have earnt away with a zero chance of winning. This extortion is subconscious, and here is where the perversity comes in.

No-one, except multi-millionaires now living in the street having lost all their money, is going to say they like risking an almost nonexistant chance of winning the lottery. Of course you want to win. So you minimalize what you spent gambling and betting. You don't say you went to Vegas because you wanted to earn hard cash because some sick perverts just keep stalking you with more goods to buy, you say you wanted to make a fun family week's out and had a very pre-determined budget. But it's not only Vegas that is to blame - also national lotteries &c ("What? I only pay two euros a week for my lottery ticket. It's just fun, and maybe I win something!").

The extortion takes place because something is forced from you without you being honest to yourself. A man cheats on his wife, someone has pictures, he pays a lot of money - hoping the pictures will then disappear. A man is "lured into temptation" by capitalists to keep on consuming irrationally or acquiring money, he knows there is a zero chance that he's on the winning edge, and is perverted to sell his actions as "determined", "rational", "his own choice".

[ckaihatsu]

You don't say you went to Vegas because you wanted to earn hard cash because some sick perverts just keep stalking you with more goods to buy, you say you wanted to make a fun family week's out and had a very pre-determined budget. But it's not only Vegas that is to blame - also national lotteries &c ("What? I only pay two euros a week for my lottery ticket. It's just fun, and maybe I win something!").

The extortion takes place because something is forced from you without you being honest to yourself. A man cheats on his wife, someone has pictures, he pays a lot of money - hoping the pictures will then disappear. A man is "lured into temptation" by capitalists to keep on consuming irrationally or acquiring money, he knows there is a zero chance that he's on the winning edge, and is perverted to sell his actions as "determined", "rational", "his own choice".


This is a very sensitive, nuanced argument. You're describing the coercion of bourgeois mass culture which manipulates people's own, healthy individualistic and materialistic drives around and *against* them. Not only are the games rigged, but bourgeois society as a whole is rigged to pull people away from their better judgment and towards the rigged games, under the guise of "entertainment"...(!) (Thanks.)

[Floyce White]

Gambling under communism? I don't think so. Not unless you think women are going to stand out in the cold and rain, night after night, just to "play" at being streetwalkers. Or maybe people will just not eat and waste away, and get sick, just to "play" at hunger.