[TheSpanishInquisition]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Secondly, all the people will co-operate to produce and distribute all the goods and services which are needed by mankind, each person willingly and freely, taking part in the way he or she feels they can do best.

And this is why it will never work, because there are many people who will never willingly do work they don't enjoy doing; and let's face it: who realistically enjoys running an intensive farm?

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Thirdly, all goods and services will be produced for use only, and having been produced, will be distributed, free, directly to the people so that each person’s needs are fully satisfied.

See above for why this would never make a good society – no one is going to vote for a world in which they have no enjoyment. Enjoyment is a desire, not a need, so in a socialist world it would not be catered for and come entirely from playing victorian-era games with sticks you find on the forest floor, or perhaps board games you found in your grandmother's attic. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 The belief that without money nothing can work is flawed. The truth is that production is carried out by people not money. Problems are solved by human beings, not money.

Production is carried out by humans, yes, but money is what makes humans willing to work production lines. Remove money, and all you've got is a hundred people going home and reading a book. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

robbo203 wrote:

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

Capitalism doesn't aim to meet human needs; it meets human desires, which does coincide with needs on the lower end. Anytime someone wants something, they can probably get it and if they work hard enough (ignoring opportunity, for the minute. Let's pretend it's a world where everyone starts at least average, as is the most desirable world), they can afford to buy it. This is a natural reward system of capitalism, in that the more you contribute to humanity, the more you get out of it, and that's fair because in a world with an equal starting point like the one I hypothesised just now, that is what exists. 

Are you serious? Do you imagine for one moment that the world that exists is one that correlates with your hypothetical dreamworld  of a level playing field? Do you really think that the 62 multibillionaires who  currently own between them more wealth than half the world's population – 3,500,000,000 people – have contributed as much to humanity as the latter?  I would put it to you that the "rewards" that these  62 individuals have received has very little, if anything ,to do with their own effort but overwhelmingly has to do with efforts of those who produce their wealth for them – the working class.  The workers in effect run capitalism from top to bottom but are largely excluded from the means of production However  hard they work it is the owners of capital that reap the benefits simple because they own capital and not because they merited or worked for what they  receive

Please tell me you're joking right now. 

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

(ignoring opportunity, for the minute. Let's pretend it's a world where everyone starts at least average, as is the most desirable world),

As for the rest: Those billionaires aren't these lazy, useless invalids you think they are. They give huge sums to charity, they invest huge sums in businesses. They're the lifeblood of capitalism. Without them, capitalism would crumble. They're far more important than expendable workers who can just be replaced with another person if they screw up.  

robbo203 wrote:

Why would you want to keep track of who has what in a socialist society? To what end? We already know that the means of prpduction would be owned in common in such a society.  So your question really presupposes a property based society and is thus irrelevant.  In any case,  you dont seem to understand what banks are for.  They are not there to organise the distribution of energy raw materials and labour., they are there to provide finance – financial capital fro businesses , mortgage loans etc etc- and so presuppose a society in which finance is essential to "oil the wheels" of commerce and industry within a capitalist society.  That wont be the case in socialism in which there will be no "finance" and therefore no banks.  Socialism will produce directly ad solely for human need. 

You ignored the problem. Your argument against the existence of banks is that they take up unnecessary space and resources. I was simply pointing out that the use of those resources would just be replaced by the administration necessary in socialism. You need the administration to figure out rations and make sure people aren't taking more than their fair share. You also need the administration to keep track of who has what. Socialist society requires people be able to obtain what they need, but how are they supposed to do that if no one knows where the item in question actually is? Just walk around until you find someone who has it? Your counter to the rations argument will be to say that people will only take what they need out of 'good will'. To this, I direct you to Denmark in 2012, a welfare state in which only 73% of independent citizens had any kind of employment, and a lot of this employment had very short work hours too. This includes people who work only because working is necessary to have the money to live properly. Imagine how much that willingness to work would decrease if Denmark were to abolish money and give everyone, even if you don't work, the resources necessary to live comfortably. 

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You have already conceded that capitalism is not about meeting human needs.  So from a socialist standpoint, anything that is superfluous to, or departs from, the task of meeting humans needs is wasteful and unecessary, Its not that banks are  "bad", its just that they produce nothing of value – they are socially useless – and divert  vast amounts of human and material resources from socially useful production.  The banking sector is just one aspect of an array of socially useless activities under capitalism whose function is to seve the systemic needs of the system itself not human needs

TheSpainishInquisition wrote:

What form does this waste take? You've only said that it makes waste, not what the waste actually is. In the same way, I could say that socialism produces a lot of waste, and the only choice you have is to believe me, or ask me what form the waste takes. 

Structural waste takes the form of all those activities under capitalism that do not meet human needs  but merely exist to seve the systemioc needs of the system itself and are thus socially useless from the standpoint of directly meeting human needs.

So a socialist state's production would be only enough to meet human needs, and not human desires. Sounds like a horrible world to live in if the food available to you is only what is necessary to live, where entertainment is scarce because you don't need it; only want it. Where no one can go on holiday because they don't need to; only want to.

[TheSpanishInquisition]

Chadwick wrote:

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

"By definition, capitalism doesn't waste resources. The whole idea of capitalism is to reduce expenditure as much as possible. "

 Looking at the impact if consumer culture on the environment, is it really the way to go in the future? Do we really need exponential growth in energy consumption? Can we afford to keep the game going? These are irrelevant questions in capitalism, because anything that turns a profit is good. Socialism offers a sane, sustainable model for the future of humanity.

Well that's certainly not true. It was said earlier that overpopulation was a good thing because it means more hands; but more hands need more space to work in and the only place to put that extra space is where the rainforests and other protected environments currently are. Doesn't sound great for the environment to me. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

The Spanish Inquisition wrote that ""Capitalism doesn't aim to meet human needs; it meets human desires"Actually that's not true, The only aim of any capitalist concern is to make profit. If in making that profit they meet human need and or desire, so be it, if in making that profit it meets no human need or desire again that is immaterial. The PPI "scandal" is an example of a capitalist enterprise which did not wish to meet a human need or desire, the marketing of thalidomide at pregnant women another, there are so many more. Just because a text book on an MBA states something, it does not make it true.

That's all meeting human desires. If you can't sell your product to anyone because no one wants it, how on earth do you intend to make profit? The PPI companies were meeting the desire of humans to get money (even if it was actually a scandal). The marketing of thalidomide towards pregnant women was to meet the desire of those women to not have morning sickness. No one was forced to buy the thalidomide, they bought it because they didn't want morning sickness. This is basic common sense: "If someone wants an item, and they have the means to obtain that item, they will obtain that item." Perhaps it is more accurate to say that human desires control capitalism, rather than capitalism aiming to meet human desires (although, it can manipulate human desire, to a certain extent, but that's another fascinating discussion). 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

Vin wrote:

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

Yes, it is nice to build something yourself, but it's also nice to hold onto what you make instead of having to give it to someone else.

 You wont have to give your personal possessions away. Socialism means common ownership of the means of production, which means you can keep your toothbrush but you cant keep a reserovoir that produces fresh water for the community. Surely it is not difficult to distinguish between 'means of production' and your house or car which are your personal possessions?They will be free in socialism for you to keep

But what classifies as a 'means of production'? What if Fred the Baker built a pizza oven in his kitchen. Since that could be used to produce pizzas theoretically by anyone, would anyone be able to just waltz into his kitchen and make a pizza? 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

robbo203 wrote:

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

By definition, capitalism doesn't waste resources. The whole idea of capitalism is to reduce expenditure as much as possible. 

Lol SpanishInquistion.  By whose definition is this the case? Looking at the matter abstractly and purely from the point of view of the competing productive units – businesses – then it is certainly true that each business has an an incentive to reduce all unnecessary costs  in order to maximise its profit margin and stave off the competition.  I guess thats what you mean by capitalism not wasting resources.Your mistake , however, is to equate "capitalism" with the individual productive unit under capitalism.  The problem with your "methodological individualism", as it is called, is that you cannot see the wood for the trees. You cannot see the way capitalism functions as a system.  It is only when you've stepped outside of the box youve trapped yourself in and look at the question of resource allocation from a genuinely non-market socialist perspective that you can begin to see just how grotesquely wasteful capitalism actually is from the standpoint of meeting human need.

Capitalism doesn't aim to meet human needs; it meets human desires, which does coincide with needs on the lower end. Anytime someone wants something, they can probably get it and if they work hard enough (ignoring opportunity, for the minute. Let's pretend it's a world where everyone starts at least average, as is the most desirable world), they can afford to buy it. This is a natural reward system of capitalism, in that the more you contribute to humanity, the more you get out of it, and that's fair because in a world with an equal starting point like the one I hypothesised just now, that is what exists. 

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The great bulk of economic activity in the formal sector of the capitalist economy  is completely and utterly useless from the standpoint of meeting human needs.  Such activity occurs simply and solely to enable the system to operate on its own terms. You can get a rough idea of the extent of structural waste in capitalism  – a concept which only becomes visible and salient through the prism of a socialist perspective – by trawling through data bases like the American Bureau of Labor Statistics which contains comprehensive information about the occupational structure of the US economy. Take just one small aspect of this structural waste – such as direct financial  activities like banking   Now banks will not be needed in a socialist society since economic exchange will cease to exist and hence also a means of exchange in the form of money. According to  the BLS  site, for the US alone there are about 8.2 million workers employed in "financial acitivities"  (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm). This  of course is only the tip of the iceberg because a substantial chunk of the apparently "socially useful sector "of the economy – like the construction industry or the power supply indistry – is actually put to the service of  the socially useless sector of the economy itself.  That is to say, institutions like banks need to be housed in buildings which require energy, raw materials and human labour to be built and maintained on an ongoing basis.

You've failed to tell me why banks are actually bad; just that a world without money wouldn't need them. What it would need though, is administrative facilities in which people keep record of who has what, who needs what, and arranges for the person who has the item to give it to the person who needs the item, which also requires energy, raw materials and labour. Or would you have the people organising this just do so from cardboard boxes in the street? And that's another point. The ones organising the system have more power than the ones subject to it, which is another obstacle to socialism and proves it could only work on a very small, self-sufficient scale inside a world where everyone is in such mini-societies. Once you get enough people in your society, you need people to keep track of who has what because not everyone is going to be a personal acquaintance of Andy the Lumberjack. 

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Financial acitivites comprise, as I say, just one aspect of capitalism's structural waste; there are many others.  Some estimates of the percentage of structural waste inside capitalism are very high indeed- Marshall McLuhan famously put the figure at 95% which I think is a gross overestimate.  I think a more reasonable figure would be between a half and two thirds of the formal sector. To put this in perspective , what this means is that socialism could, at the very least,  double the amount of socially useful wealth produced compared with capitalism using the same quanitities or human labour and materials – or alternatively could produce the same socially useful output  using half the human labour and resoruces that we use today under capitalism

What form does this waste take? You've only said that it makes waste, not what the waste actually is. In the same way, I could say that socialism produces a lot of waste, and the only choice you have is to believe me, or ask me what form the waste takes. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

According to William Morris a socialist from the 19th C it is even more lovely to use your own two hands , some simple tools …and create your own lovely things. He was a person who took pride in the handicraft traditions of earlier ages rather than what we would do these days, buy a flat pack from IKEA…usean Allen key and think we built our book-case ourselves. I think we will always appreciate nice things and socialism is not about doing away with personal possessions. 

Yes, it is nice to build something yourself, but it's also nice to hold onto what you make instead of having to give it to someone else. It's not fun to have to mass produce something without getting compensation for doing it. Then there's also the issue of wanting something you don't know how to make. Sure, you can say that someone who does know how to make it could make it for you, but what incentive do they have to make it for you with no money or barter? 

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But as i said in an earlier reply, we can support free-riders but a more positively turn  we don't need everybody to pitch in. We can let the poets and the painters, the writers and the musicians, all the arts in fact, have all the time they require to bring culture and their individual expression to to thie world…if they so wished. The pessimists think over-population is a problem but every person in the world is an extra pair of hands and an additional brain. 

So how many people do you need to pitch in? How many people do you think would become artists if they didn't need to work? Pretty much everyone, because even writing poems about hills is more entertaining that cleaning sewers or running a battery farm or spending even just 20 hours a week sitting behind a computer making sure nothing goes wrong on a production line. If I was told "Ok, you can spend all day making ornate sculptures or you can come and do really exhausting manual labour for no reward"… well the choice is obvious. 

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If the pot-holes on the road is such a problem then i am sure you will bake your pie tomorrow. Or you can simply offer some pie to the road-workers for their lunch. As i said, we don't condemn you to a life on the road-gang as capitalism does. More and more division of labour will dissolve (not enttirely disappear, though i am guessing) Marx said a free person should be able to “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.” He foresaw that the separation of town and country merging into one. On the forum it has been highlighted that plumbers have voluntarily installed water filters to mitigate the damage capitalist cost-cutting has done in the city of Flint.

But when someone else could just do it for me and I have nothing to gain from doing it, I have no reason to do it. I could bake my pie today and have tomorrow to make a casserole that I otherwise wouldn't have had time to make. Why would I give pie to the road workers? I baked this pie, no one's going to know if I only share it with my family. So essentially, you want everyone to be a jack-of-all-trades? Remember that being such means you are a master-of-none, and masters of a trade are infinitely more useful, able and important than jacks. Specialisation is very very important because one person who is a master of their trade can produce things at 5, 10 or 15 times the quality of 4 jacks making the same item.

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I know it is a bad example but recall in a war, how people are willing to sacrifice not just their standard of life but even their lives for something they believe in…So in the words of the Grateful Dead, Spanish Inquisition, Keep on Truckin' and keep on studying and learning…everybody on this forum is doing the same, none of us are sitting back believing we know it all…even if at times that seems to be how it seems. ..know-it-alls 

This was because they have no alternative. They were conscripted, often against their will because everyone over 16 didn't have a choice, and if they didn't then they'd die anyway, except so would all their friends and relatives. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

I think you are clutching at straws my friend. If that sounds efficient to you, perhaps you need to get out into the real world of work. what I have spoken about doesn't include the returns to Companies House, the hours spent with accountants, the tax returns, the audit trail for every penny spent, etc. etc. Not only that but as a small business time is spent by me and others on insurance, banking, invoicing, factoring, etc etc. All of those people could be freed to use their talents to do something useful. The current system of society wastes human and natural resources on an huge scale. Given those resources to add to the productive capacity we could easily meet the needs and desires of humanity.

By definition, capitalism doesn't waste resources. The whole idea of capitalism is to reduce expenditure as much as possible. I think, really, you're the one doing the straw-clutching. I mean, we have hard evidence that capitalism works. On the other hand, socialism only works in a world where humans function exactly as these hyper-altruistic organisms you think they are, and you have no evidence towards this extent besides anecdotal. Unfortunately, that evidence is something you'll not be able to get except within a socialist community, and so the vicious recycle continues – it's too dangerous to implement socialism on the off-chance it might work, but the evidence to prove it does or doesn't cant be obtained until someone tries it. That being said, we do have a couple of examples. Let's take Greece. Y'know how it's got all of these problems? Well, that was under socialist government. You can't go socialist while the rest of the world is capitalist because you'll be outcompeted, but the world isn't going to go socialist until there's sufficient evidence it's a good idea. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Oh by the way, another example. On Christmas Day this year I was involved with a project to provide a Christmas Day event for people in our community who were lonely and isolated on Christmas Day. We were inundated with people who wanted to volunteer to undertake "unpleasant tasks", including preparing food prior to the day, giving up their day to provide transport, wash dishes, take out the rubbish, etc. etc. etc. We used a local community centre, run by volunteers. We actually had to turn down further volunteers in mid October, because we had nothing left for them to do. This is just one example, there are thousands of others, trades union workers, Allotment Societies, Community Centres, WRVS, St John's, the Red Cross, the response of people in the recent floods, etc. etc. I would suggest that even you , "the Spanish Inquisition" are giving your time free to whatever political movement you really align yourself to, not on the basis of personal gain, but rather in the belief (in my view, mistaken) that what you do is in the common good.Your presence here actually proves our point, you're are not here on the basis of self interest, but in the interest of what you genuinely believe is the common good!!!! I would suggest that a good move forward for you would be to be to really "think outside of the box" set aside your assumptions about society, set aside your limited perspectives. I say this not in the spirit of antagonism, but rather from the point of view of another human who is genuinely interested in how we make ensure the best for ourselves and the rest of humanity. Give it some genuine thought, you may surprise yourself, you say that you are at University, part of the process of University is rethinking the viewpoints you have held and thinking anew. I hope you have the intellectual curiosity and honesty to consider our views and that you might join us in the real Socialist movement in our work that can set free the real creative resources of humanity.Yours for Socialism Tim

It's good to hear cases like this. The vast majority of people I interact with and come into contact with are in it for personal gain. Unfortunately, these kind souls are still a very small number of people. For socialism to work, you would need 90-95% of your city's population trying to volunteer and I hate to break it to you but that's just not what people do. I think you should reduce your bias on this. You assume simply because I don't particularly like the idea of socialism, that I therefore cannot possibly be "thinking outside the box". Have you ever thought you may be the one thinking inside the box, so to speak? Probably not, and that's OK. It takes a very special person to actively think from every perspective about everything, and even people who think they do may be missing out a perspective they weren't even aware of. I admit I'm probably not fully capable of it myself, though I feel that given the thinking I have been doing on the subject, I'm not mistaken. Seems to me there's one real difference between socialism and capitalism. Socialism is an ideal that works in untested hypotheticals. Overall it's a nicer concept and I personally would love to be in a world where I had no responsibility and could live entirely on the work of others. Capitalism is an idea based on realism – it's built upon what currently is, and not on what could be, as socialism is, and I think until socialism realises it's unattainable and makes suitable adaptions and mid-way points in the slow process of conversion, it's not going to work. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Perhaps I can relate this to my Current Work. I spend a great deal of my work time teaching and training Foster carers. The work of Foster Carers is incredibly complex and complicated, Most of the foster carers I work with, and in this country there are something like 60,000 foster carers, receive less in expenses than they spend on the children. Despite this they are often fantastically well motivated, work incredibly hard and many of them seek out in their own time professional qualifications. This, is in my opinion, a fantastic example of a high number of people who carry out extremely difficult work, motivated entirely by the need to meet the needs of society and others.Sadly, other elements of my work illustrate the ridiculous waste that capitalism produces. Because much of the training I deliver is publicly funded, I would estimate that up to 30% of my work is not teaching foster carers, which I love and enjoy, but rather dealing with the administration of the finance. Not only that but the funding bodies employ literally 1,000s of staff managing the finance and the payments. The funding guidance runs to hundreds of pages and the amount of time staff spend debating various aspects of the funding guidance runs into 1,000 of hours..Given a Socialist society, I would be delighted to spend my life teaching those working with troubled children what ever I can to do their work more effectively, and I'm sure the vast majority of the 60,000 foster cares I work with would be delighted to get on with their chosen work, without the extra task of filling in expenses claims, mileage sheets, tax returns, etc.etc. etc, Supporters of capitalism often cite the efficiency of this capitalism, like much of the horse shit they come up with, this is just another lie.

Honestly, that sounds pretty efficient to me. You know what paperwork you need to do, and you can do it. How long it takes is dependent upon factors within your control, or within the control of other employees. Any problems in that is a failure of those employees to do as they're instructed, not a failure of capitalism. And can you assure me that the paperwork would really be lower in a socialist society? Of course not. Socialism still needs just as much administration as anything else because you need to know if you're producing enough of things, if everyone's getting what they need, if anyone's being too greedy. If anything, I think the paperwork would become even worse because instead of just calculating money, which is arbitrary and can easily be worked with as such an arbitrary measure of value, you're working with non-valued items that would need to be dealt with on an individual basis. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

There was supposed to be more to the previous post, including quotes. Is this a common issue on this forum, or erratic?Fixed, bbcode mistyped. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

if a machine can't do it will be shared out amongst the community, not imposed upon a person as a livliehood for the rest of his or her life.

But what if I said 'no'? What if I was told "It's your turn to do the road works" and I said 'no'? I weighed up my options, looked at all the things I could be doing instead of roadworks, and went "no, I don't want to do roadworks. I'm going to bake a pie and read a book instead, because it's more enjoyable." Then what? Will you force me to do it? That goes against the idea of voluntary work. Will you tell someone else to do it for me? What if they say no? I think you put far too much faith in humans. Yes, there are people that do voluntary placements already, but they're in the minority, and they're also not doing it for fun. Of all the people I personally know who do volunteer work (even including the aforementioned socialist friends), only one is in it to actually help people. All the rest are doing it because it counts as work experience for employability checks. I do agree though, once routine jobs have been replaced with machinery, socialism will be a much more attractive concept. I think though, you need to wait until we have these machines before you properly try to implement the idea. For starters, why waste your own time and resource and risk failure when you could just wait 10 years and have the capitalists do it for you? There's no denying companies seek to save money to maximise profit, and replacing workers with machines as much as possible is a very good way to save money, so they'll do it willingly. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

But the demand for luxuries will diminish because when everything is available to everyone, there can no longer be excuses for conspicuous consumption…to prove your status by showing of your possessions. Certain things may well be shared as in the example of car-pools and time- share apartments…We'll book our weekend on the yacht and wait our turn. Look in your shed at all those tools which are only used occasionally. Even in capitlaism, hire-companies recognise we don't need to own every thing.

That doesn't sound like a very nice world to live in, I'll be honest. It's lovely to own things. Even if you're not owning them for bragging rights, it's still a really good feeling to work towards something then actually own it. I mean, if you can afford it, why would you wait in line for a weekend on a yacht when you could buy the yacht and use it whenever you feel like it? The same applies to every possession. Why would you wait in line to use a computer, to play a game, to read a book, when you could buy the item and use it whenever you liked? I think this is a good place to bring in a quote from Churchill which I found a couple of days ago. "[socialism]'s inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." This seems to be very accurate, based on what you've said so far. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

i think we have to be honest with you, socialism will not work if no-body works, society would fall apart. Part of our case is that socialism cannot be imposed but that people have to democratically decide they want socialism and are prepared to help make it work. This pre-supposes that it cannot be led by a minority but come into existence only via a mass movement who have a profound change in outlook so it is our belief that it is inconceivable that with this desire for socialist change on such a large scale it would not influence the way people behave. Ask yourself this, would having struggled so determinedly to bring socialism about, would people be so ready to jeopardise the new society they helped to create by sabotaging it?

You're right, I find it hard to believe socialists would ignore their own idea once they got it into power. I think though, Socialism is doomed to fail unless 95% of the country, or possibly more, has actively decided they want it, and I think that's a very long way off because of how successful capitalism is as an economic model. Honestly, the only way capitalism fails is if you're jealous of the idea of some people earning more than you. Accept that more important people earn more money and suddenly there's very little wrong with capitalism, which is why it's brought us so far since the idea of money was first developed. There are many chances it's had to fail, but it always pulled through. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for a relatively civil conversation thus far. Not often one of those happens on the internet! I hope we can continue to discuss pleasantly like this. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

Vin wrote:

TheSpanishInquisition wrote:

 So in your ideal world, everyone would do only things that interested them? Well that's a mighty shame because I don't know anyone who actually enjoys having to tend colossal crop fields or battery farms more than their proper hobbies, so I guess we're all going to be starving to death. Or perhaps, you're going to force people who know how to run farms to run farms? That sounds very much like being a wage slave to me, except you know, without the wage part. 

 Do you realise how silly you sound? Humans starving to death and letting their children starve to death because they would rather play golf. My 7 year old would laugh at that.More rediculous than that, in today's society the producers of wealth give all the wealth they produce to the 1% while many of them starve and remain homeless. My 7 year old cant comprehend the stupidity of such an action.The workers don't need 'profit' and we don't get any in capitalism, we get rations in the form of a wage packet. So we can do without a society based on profit.As john Lennon once said 'You better free your mind yourself' my friend because at the moment your thinking is confused. You are blinded by the bullshit of the 1%

Let me just remind you that you're the ones trying to implement this system, not me. I'm just criticising it. Go ahead though, I've given you the opportunity. Respond. Answer my question, instead of attacking me personally. Or are you admitting that you can't? My statement is simple. I have said that you have no way to incentivise people to do unpleasant jobs. Counter my statement. Oppose it. Tell me why I'm wrong; explain to me why in your world, people will still do unpleasant work, despite gaining nothing from doing it. If you can't do that, then you need to re-analyse your beliefs because you have a problem. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

In regard to your leaders, Marx gives the example and talks of the conductor of an orchestra as being also vital to this process…so you and we do agree that there requires to be co-ordination and co-operation and in particular occasions someone is selected to administer affairs. 

You mean, like a CEO? Which every company already has and is often the 'rich capitalist' everyone hates. The CEO is someone who is actually employed solely to coordinate the other workers (and to advertise, in smaller companies).

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 Engels also suggests that a captain of a ship is still going to be in charge and he no doubt would say a pilot of an aircraft is necessary to be the person with the final say. Even the anarchist Bakunin agrees to the competence of the cobbler to decide for him the best shoe. But are they leaders in the way you seek to explain? We say no. We are against the political power function of leadership, not against the acquired authority of those with special skills and learning being recognised as someone to heed the advice and knowledge of. Which of us would reject the surgeons expertise? But remember, these people have taken years to acquire the privilege of bestowing and sharing their talents, school, university, professional training…but tell me exactly where the University of Prime Ministers is? (i'm sure a wit would say Eton and then Oxbridge)…But anyone with a glib tongue and a sales-persons demeanour can be elected and then impose his or her will upon others, using force if necessary, which is legitimate and legal under the law.You discuss the dawn of time when it comes to organising…Simply look at how the American First Peoples organised for war…they followed someone they respected as a war chief…not as a political chief…if he proved successful they were with him…when he failed to bring victories, they deserted him…he could not impose his leadership upon his warriors by conscription or the draft only by accomplishments. 

Politicians work in exactly the same way as the Native American war chiefs, just, since we're in a larger and more complex society, the process is a little more complex to match. Politicians don't just 'become politicians'. They have to be voted in. Every person over the age of 18 (arguably too young, but that's a different discussion) gets a say in who represents them, thus they have the chance to elect someone they respect just as the Native Americans elect their respected war chief. The desertion works the same too. If your prime minister screws up, or your representative, just don't vote for him next time! 

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It seems that you are blind to the website's extensive and elaborate content as DJP suggests. We are for the abolition of private property and the implementation of one of the oldest customs and traditions humanity has developed for its collective survival, the principle "from each according to ability, to each according to need." , an end of the exchange economy and the introduction of free access  this means the abolition of wage and money and those working in occupations related to commerce/capitalism transferring to socially productive work. And the emphasis is on socially productive and not simply shifting  money around to benefit a small minority of people , or speculatiing which is very basic…buying cheap and selling dear…yet ignoring the fact that the value of the object is in its manufacture , not its circulation. We stand for the free common wealth…or as another put it "Store-houses shall be built and appointed in all places, and be the common stock…And as every one works to advance the common stock, so every one shall have a free use of any commodity in the store-house, for his pleasure and comfortable livelihood without buying and selling or restraint from any." -Gerrard Winstanley in the 17th C

OK, so you're actually against money completely. That simplifies things. Well, what if I wanted to own a relatively obscure product that's too unimportant to be part of the general production line? How would I go about getting that if there was no money? Just ask the person who made it nicely if I could please have one? For free? So what incentive does this person have to continue making their product if they get no reward for making it? Just the knowledge that they've done something nice? In a world with no profit, many of the products we all enjoy simply wouldn't exist because it would make no sense to produce them. "Well, I could create this robot for everyone to play with, but since I'll get the same access to food and entertainment for not making it, I guess I'll just go watch TV." is something that would go through many people's minds. Yes, making robots could be his hobby, but no one's hobby is mass producing robots; they need an incentive to do that. 

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I don't know why you dismiss the term "wage-slave" so easily…countless numbers of people follow their hobbies without payment because they enjoy it. People have their gardens and their allotments and happily tire themselves out working…but place that person on a farm and demand he or she exhaust himself for a wage by denying any other way to support him or herself and their family and that the fruits of this work is taken from him and the rewards of placing it on the market to be sold and bought then ask if that person is not a slave. Someone who well knew what it meant to be a chattel slave and a wage slave explains it thushttp://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-does-iww-mean-by-abolition-of-wage.html

So in your ideal world, everyone would do only things that interested them? Well that's a mighty shame because I don't know anyone who actually enjoys having to tend colossal crop fields or battery farms more than their proper hobbies, so I guess we're all going to be starving to death. Or perhaps, you're going to force people who know how to run farms to run farms? That sounds very much like being a wage slave to me, except you know, without the wage part. 

[TheSpanishInquisition]

Actually, it's just a reference to Monty Python. I needed a quick screen name. I suppose i have fulfilled the role appropriately, anyway, though. 

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