More questions for socialists?

[Mrcapitalist]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?
2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.
3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

[RedWorker]

1. So how come that for hundreds of years already poverty is rampant and that today in 2014, 80% of the world lives on less than $10 a day and thousands die every day not because there is a lack of food but simply because they are not being given, merely because a number in a bank account is not high enough? Either way, it is really possible for reforms to help a lot, such as in the case of Chávez. This however can only partially address capitalism's problems, and is no argument for not establishing socialism. Additionally, even if poverty was solved, capitalism neccessarily creates a problem where 1% of the world lives on the highest quality of life possible and the 99% live on a quality of life several times worse than that.

2. So money is needed for "motivating workers"? For example, under Anarchist Catalonia, when the means of productions became controlled by workers, production seriously increased in comparison to capitalism, even though money had been replaced for labor vouchers or even completely abolished in some areas. (source: Documentary - Vivir la Utopia)

3. How not? Society worked perfectly for thousands of years without money.

[bropasaran]

1. Because poverty isn't the only problem of capitalism. If poverty is the only problem then we could ask well, why shouldn't we establish a welfare feudalism, or welfare slavery. One of the main points of socialism is being free in the sense of having control over your own life, which can only be accomplished by establishing (directly) democratic institutions in economy (workplace) likewise in politics (community).

2. It's precisely what will motivate workers to abolish capitalism and class society in general. If we the workers work 40 hours a week but in effect get payed only for e.g. 20 hours of our work (the rest of our labor goes to make income for capitalists and other exploiting classes), it is in our self-interest to abolish such a system and then establish and maintain a system where we work for ourselves and not to enrich some priviledged minority.

3. Money is (among other things) a simple unit of accounting. Take for example corporations, when they go about their economic plans (and they do make plans as to how to conduct business, they don't do stuff spontaneously) they don't use money, they calculate in natura, how much products, how much material, how much labor hours, etc. There is no reason why you can't do the same as a general economic method. As far as interaction on a larger scale is concerned, interaction between economies, here too the corporations actually don't always use money, and a huge deal of exchange of stocks, bonds, derivatives etc is conducted by barter.

[RedMaterialist]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?
2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.
3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

1. That's like asking if smoking causes cancer, why can't we just provide oxygen tanks for everybody?
2. Profit is only made by exploiting workers or by driving small businesses out of business
3. It won't.

[tuwix]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?

Poverty means that someone is poorer than someone else. And existence of private property that is core of capitalism enforces inequality and poverty. Only elimination of private property will fic that problem.

2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.

It's very effective but it doesn't eliminate the crucial problem of capitalism.

3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

No barter will be needed. The automation of production will cause no need to work for vast majority of workers with elimination of scarcity for the mot of products. Trade will be replaced by pure distrubution without money.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?

First of all, living on welfare is hardly easy or pleasant. Welfare payments are just high enough that most people aren't burning down police stations, but low enough that people are forced to find a job. And it's not economically sustainable - with the decline of the rate of profit, the bourgeoisie is forced to slash welfare programs throughout the world.

And besides, the point of socialism is not some patronising "helping the poor people", but for the workers, who produce all of the social product, to directly seize that product for themselves, to do away with the bourgeoisie.

2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.

It isn't, at least when it comes to business owners, who are ejected from the market if they do not turn a substantial amount of profit. As for workers, that is a more complex situation - obviously most people like to have money, but at the same time you have to factor in the dull, tiring nature of much work under capitalism, the healthy dislike of bosses and overseers etc.

3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

It won't. Socialists don't advocate barter, which is a market mechanism, but production for use and free access to the social product by every worker.

[Thirsty Crow]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?

Because poverty is continually produced. At one point in the so called business cycle capitalist states can indeed afford themselves welfare and social benefits; but following this cycle, at another point (like the one we experience today) these will represent devastating costs for capital and will need to be scrapped. This also holds for parts of the workforce who become redundant, meaning that their labor is no longer useful for capital and so they become unemployed.

Consider also the fact that millions and millions of people around the world are simply redundant for the needs of capital without ever being integrated into global production (e.g. Africa and so on). Both what I wrote above and this is connected to the technological boosts in labor productivity. But then, the Western capitalist states and the banking sector can't simply afford to throw money at these people (if welfare and social benefits were to fix this problem) so the dreadful state remains.

2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.

Profit is a hell of an effective motive for business owners; it's the motive in fact.

But it has its own limits, and this limit is capital itself. In other words, when projected, expected profit rates are slim or even non-existent, investment won't occur.

From the standpoint of social reproduction, this is not only ineffective (if the criterion is welfare of all), but highly destructive in fact.

[Loony Le Fist]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?

Because welfare and social insurance continues to propagate the capitalist system. It is only a way to throw a dog a bone. It doesn't empower working people to take ownership and control of their workplaces.

2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.

Because optimizing for greater profits doesn't bring the greatest utility for society. More profit, doesn't mean a cheaper, more efficient, or better product.

3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

This assumes that there would still be a need for money or trade. Consider ideas outside of the rigid mould that capitalism has placed on your thought process. The idea of tit-for-tat and trading shiny thing for other shiny thing is a deeply embedded idea. But it is also a recent idea as well.

I propose some counter questions.

If profit is such a strong motivator, why is it that companies actually use the results of studies on motivation to justify paying workers less money? For example, most studies show that recognition for accomplishments and a happier work environment is actually a more powerful motivator than a higher salary. Corporations use this to justify keeping worker wages low and giving employees awards instead. It seems disingenuous for advocates of the free-market to use the above results to justify paying workers less, while at the same time speaking of the powerful incentivizing effect of profit motive. It's not money, but satisfaction with their job that motivates them. The idea that they are making a difference.

A claim often made by capitalists is that the so-called free-market will sort things out. The objective for a business owner is to corner the market and have no competition. Yet, the objective for society is to have a marketplace with variety and competition supposedly leading to lower prices and better products. These two drives are incompatible with one another. How does capitalism alleviate these conflicting needs, if it is in every businesses interest to keep prices high, and innovation low? Especially when one considers the information asymmetry between those producing and those consuming. Perhaps there might be some real examples of near-perfect competition in nascent industries (like IT in the 1980s and 1990s), but mature industries all seem to follow the same fate towards stagnation of innovation, lack of competition, and concentration of capital and power.

As a socialist I seek to decouple recognition from sustenance. Working people should own, operate, and control the places where they work.

[Christian Insurrectionist]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?
2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.
3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

1. It's like a temporary band-aid, it doesn't actually solve anything and only alleviates some of the problems of capitalism. The real problem is private property.

2. It's not.

3. Who says I support barter? I support free access communism.

[heisenberg]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?
2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.
3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

1. Welfare and social insurance cannot fix the problems caused by capitalism because capitalism IS the problem. Redistributing wealth is a great short-term solution to some of our problems, but does it truly solve the core problems? No. Capitalism, by its very nature, leads to inequality and massive disparities in wealth. Simply taxing the rich more and expanding food stamps and Medicaid isn't actually fixing anything; it's basically treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease itself. We need an entire overhaul of the system, whereby profit is no longer the motivating factor. People need to do things because they enjoy them and/or because they make the world a better place, not because it allows them to accumulate money so that they can buy more things they don't need.

2. I don't believe the profit motive is an ineffective motivator at all; it appears to me to be the primary motivator for the average person these days. That's the problem inherent to capitalism though - the fact that the entire system is based on the belief that making money should be the ultimate objective of every person. What we need to do in order to fix the problems of the world is to eliminate profit as a motivator in the first place. Making money for the sake of making money, or even making money in order to buy shiny new things, is the reason why the planet is in the process of being destroyed and literally billions of human beings do not have access to basic necessities such as clean water, nutritious food, and shelter.

3. Barter in our current world is pretty much impossible given that I believe it can only properly function when the majority of people actively use it. However, let's assume that there is a parallel hypothetical world (or perhaps simply our world in the distant future) with ~500 million humans, who typically live clustered in villages of 100-10,000 people. In that case, barter could easily work thanks to the division of labor. If the average person produces a particular product or provides a particular service, they will be able to trade that product or service for other products and services that they need. Let's say I own a small farm that produces primarily vegetables, and next door you own a small orchard producing mainly fruits. We both want fruits and vegetables, and thus we negotiate an arrangement whereby you get some of my vegetables and I get some of your fruits. Neither of us make a profit in the strict financial sense of the world, but we both benefit and profit materially, in that my lack of fruits has been remedied as has your lack of vegetables. As for service-oriented professions such as doctors, each individual receiving care could work out a barter payment plan in line with whatever they can offer. So perhaps I provide my doctor with a month's supply of vegetables in exchange for a check-up. Does such an exchange sound ridiculous in today's world? Absolutely. But it doesn't need to be. There is no reason why a doctor (who became a doctor because he truly wanted to help people) could not be "paid" through a barter system. One patient provides him vegetables, another fruits, another bread, another milk, another teaches his children, another installs solar panels on his roof, etc. On a village scale of 100-10,000 people, I believe this system could work. On a larger scale, it becomes more complicated and difficult, but I do believe it could still be possible.

[Jimmie Higgins]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?

Capitalism causes poverty by centralizing and privitizing the means of people supporting themselves (takes common land and privitizes it for use by capitalists, eliminates non-market ways people have supported themselves, takes innovations by artisans or agricultural people and makes it privite intellectual property - de-skills jobs so that the skills belong to management who then use workers as hands to do a pre-planned work process. The more wealth generated by capitalists, the more they use that wealth to increase their hold on the means of production: creating new markets, introducing more tech that de-skills labor and makes it cheaper and more controllable, controls more aspects of social life by turing it into commodities.

So the more the capitalism grows, the more people are dependant on it. So giving people welfare is just charity more or less. I think as a necessity it should be defended and people should organize to expand it as part of people begining to force their own needs to the front of society. But the drive to impoverish people in the sense of making them dependant on wage-labor is inherent to capitalism - booms and busts are inherent to capitalism, wanting to compete by increasing exploitation (fewer workers produce more) causes unemployment etc.

2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.

This is circular IMO. The profit motive is perfect for motivating profit-making. Capitalists create structures and things like corporations to the extent that Capital becomes sort of a force of itself independant of the induvidual bosses - they all must bow to their pool of capital and do their best to advance it. Profit, however, does not motivate workers to work - the need for wages does. We do not see the profits of our labor efforts and so our "motivation" is negative and our work becomes alienated and frustrating.

3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

Some kind of currency might be used immediately after a revolution - a generation later? I couldn't say. But money as currency is just a stand-in for bartering - one pound is one pound of silver originaglly... the paper or the coin represenation is just easier to use. Capital and capitalism is different than simply money as currency.

[Lowtech]

1.If capitalism causes poverty why can't welfare and social insurance fix that problem?

welfare is designed to mitigate the systemic flaws of capitalism that make it unsustainable, not to correct them. without welfare, without bailouts, without corporate welfare, capitalism would eventually collapse, as it is not a system of economics, but rather a system of subjugation. it is also a psychological ploy. without welfare, you would have more areas in third world conditions, making it harder for capitalist apologetics to appear legitimate. its also something the elites can blame. blaming poverty on dependence on welfare or blaming poverty on an inept government that doesn't do enough, so that the masses believe everything else is to blame and not the elites who produce no value while consuming 80% of it. capitalists will keep on spinning the nobs and pushing the buttons and telling the poor to ignore the man behind the curtain. this is exactly why economics is not scientific. what legitimate branch of science would utilize a unit of measure that is subjective? especially one that is to represent finite tangible things like food, water, medicine?

2.Why is the profit motive ineffective for motivating workers and business owners.

ineffective at doing what? the profit motive doesn't exist, not for the majority of us. the vast majority of us have never been motivated by money, rather we are motivated to feed ourselves and our families. the owners of capital however are motivated by profit as they are the only ones to utilize and acquire profit. you profess to be an expert and advocate of capitalism, yet you default to calling it "profit" while in reality that is a fake word that means nothing. call it what it is: net income, surplus value, artificial scarcity. no other way can a plutocratic class produce no value and still consume 80% of economic value available except via surplus value. however owners of capital are not farmers selling excess grain, rather you derive surplus value via selling above production cost and devaluing labor. the rich economically cannibalize 80% of the population. and this is mathematically observable.

3.How will society be able to function with barter rather than just using money on larger scale.

you imply that our current economy works using money. creating poverty and causing 80% of the world population to live on $10 or less a day doesn't count as working.

but if i were to entertain your question anyway, it would function the same way businesses function internally. businesses do not use money between departments or employees, they do not utilize resources internally via a market system. they are centrally planned. interestingly enough, corporations have more in common with stalin's brand of communism than they do with any free market fantasy.