On Fresh Meat (no, it's not a porn site; it's a software publicity site), someone wrote a reply to something that I wrote that advocated communism. Since I had already been talking at some lengths with one of my students about communism in our off-class time, I was ready to reply with what I think is a good responce.
In the rseponse, I make the following points:
I also describe my experiences talking and supporting homeless people, and my conclusions.
Dear Dakoda,
There are several critical flaws with communism that capitalism alleviates quite nicely. Capitalism isn't the end all be all of economic development, but in general, it works quite a lot better than communism. Most of the flaws with communism have to do with it's simplistic view of human behavior. I'll address some of the things you've said right here; If you want to talk at more length, please feel free to contact me.
First, you wrote that capitalist economies are zero sum. This is not true; one of the basic elements of capitalism is that you are allowed to freely trade things for non-zero sum value. Putting serious issues such as the WTO and NAFTA aside for the moment, realize that you are not allowed to freely trade things in a communist society. If you were allowed to, than you have created an economy. People will build values and trade things about. Some people will want certain things more than others, and want other things less than others. A market will form, and you're back in capitalism again. You have to prohibit trade, or else you are a capitalist. Let's consider another approach, outlawing money. By prohibiting money, you've simply made people develop a bartering system. Money is really just an abstraction of work, so that we don't have to deal with keeping the going exchange of sheep for cows in our heads every time we trade. (Note: money is present in communist societies, so if your goal is to eliminate money, communism isn't doing it. Remember that Lenin killed 250,000 peasants who wouldn't sell their food for a pittance to the government, calling them the enemy of the people.) Back to trades. Capitalism allows people to trade things, because it's not so concerned with mandatory equality. Trades are almost always non-zero sum. If it was zero sum, why would the person who is losing something engage in the trade? Consider this: I own a computer, you have $500. You want the computer, I want your $500, so we trade. Now if it were zero-or-under-sum, why would we ever make the trade? If it were zero-sum, why would we even bother to trade? Obviously you value the computer more than you value your $500, otherwise you wouldn't have bought it. Now consider that you had to earn $500. You have a choice: If you want a computer, you can work for $500. When you work for people, they value your work more than the $500. The employer gains something. When you work for people, you value your $500 more than you value your worktime. You gain something as well. Both people gain, this is positive-sum. Voluntary trading is always positive sum. Part of the strength of capitalism is that it allows positive-sum trades, unlike communism, which forbids them.
Next. You said that rather than have our lives dependant on the dollar (which is really the abstraction of work, so in effect, you are saying that you would have your life dependent on something other than work), that we should destroy it. Really, the only thing you have to do to live independent of the dollar is to live detached from desire. If you desire nothing, you have everything you need. Reform yourself first, then you might be in a situation to correct society, if it needs to be corrected. If you feel like you live slave to the dollar, want less. If you want things, earn it. One of the nice things about a capitalist society is that if you don't want things, you don't have to work to get them. You can decide to be poor. It's okay. (When the police interfere with the rights of the poor, that's quite another. Yes, it is a problem. No, capitalism isn't to blame. A lack of respect for people, and a lack of checks on police behavior is the problem.) Nobody is going to force you to work, as communist societies have done. And if you decide you want to be rich and have lots of things, you can work for them. Do you want money? I guarantee you, regardless of your position in the world, you can increase that amount. There are tons of ways. Get another job, pay off your debts, establish credit, build a savings account, put your money into long term CD's. It can be done, and it's done all the time. Read an online book, there's hoards of information online, free, on how to do this.
As for what you said about how most of our society is living in a rat race: This is true. But the roots of the problem are not with capitalism. Rather, it's about desire. Realize that this is essentially a spiritual delima: people are not happy, people are wanting more, thinking that that is going to lead them to happiness. Do you really want to be a revolutionary? Learn and study Divine Love. Learn how you work. Study the lives of people you admire. Take notes. Study. Observe. Watch society. Be receptive, rather than projective. Since you like technology, I recommend you study the life of Benjamin Franklin. Don't weild his quotes as a weapon, use them to instruct yourself first. Study economics, and read some of the old papers people wrote. Read the Federalist papers. You'll find that most of the people who set up our country, and most of the people who are truly maintaining it, are idealists. That's right, capitalism and a free country were the revloutionary ideas of idealists like yourself and I. Think and write for yourself, so that you can organize your thoughts.
As for nanotechnology and replicating things... Read Diamond Age for a view of a world, post-nanotech. It's not a world without strife, humans are still fighting in the age of plenty. The definition of "poor", as usual, has changed. But it's still there. The poorest person today is vastly rich compared to the peeople 1000 years ago. And the richest person of today won't have 1/10th of what people will have available to them in another 1000 years, provided things continue to work out for humanity as a whole.
Anyways, I've had this discussion a number of times with one of my Russian students. He moved here with his parents when he was 5. ( I think that was the age. Why did they move? It's better here.) He, like a lot of USA communists, is under the age of 20 and has anxiety about having to get a job when he's older. The issue isn't really that communism is the way- he really hasn't thought through many of the things he advocated when he still believed communism was the way. The essential thing was that he feared that his skills may not be needed in our world, or that he won't be able to earn. This is a perfectly natural anxiety for young people. It really is; We spend our entire life at home, 20 years of our lives, in a micro-communist system where our parents pay for our lives as we are raised.
The cure to this anxiety is to realize how cheap it is to live here. $500 a month for an apartment, $45 a month for a bus pass, and $100 a month for food. Tack on $100 a month for other expenses, and you have $745 a month. If you have a $10/hour job, you can make that back in 74.5 hours of work, or, 2 weeks of work. You can do considerably less; When I was getting started here in Seattle, I lived in a place that charged $240 a month, walked everywhere, and paid $100 a month for food. That was $340 a month in expenses. I would have to work 30 hours a month which amounts to 8 hours a week- about a day a week to survive. Nice, eh? The other 6 days, I could sit by the International Fountain, talk with random people I met on the street, explore. I really got to learn a lot in that time.
If living is so cheap, why are people homeless? I once gave a homeless person that I had befriended when I first moved to Seattle $150 worth (1 week) of lodging at the Backpacker's Garden in Seattle. We sat down, and reasoned out a plan that with bring him off the streets immediately (the backpackers garden lodging for a week), and in an apartment in 3-6 months time, depending on how much he worked. Until he had his own apartment, he would raise the $240 a month to live in his hostel room. What happened? He didn't work for a week, and got kicked out. Is he a bad person? No, he's just mildly mentally ill. He's a street poet who's stuck on a girl that ditched him long ago, and he can't let her go. He thinks about her all day long, and can't bring himself to work because he's so busy writing down poems about it. I'm serious; I love this guy, he's really nice. Anyways, being homeless, at least in downtown Seattle, isn't so bad. There are plenty of programs that give free food and lodging to homeless people. I asked my friend, and he rattled off a long list of places to go to sleep and eat. Churches are really good, programs like NightWatch are extremely helpful as well. Too bad the government doesn't just give $2.00 vouchers for McDonalds food freely. That might work, I'd have to think about it more. The key is to avoid the beuraceracy. McDee's and BBKing would have to work out a special deal with the government.
If you are concerned about the homeless, carry a loaf of bread around with you in your backpack, and offer slices to homeless people. They are always thankful. More importantly, listen to what homeless people have to say, no matter how (literally) crazy it is. Be there for them. They are humans. Capitalism doesn't mean that you can't share and be a nice person. It just means: Earn your lifestyle. It's intimidating, but ultimately, very liberating.
Anyways, if you'd like to talk about this more, feel free to contact me in any way.
Take care, Lion Kimbro