Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't (opens in new tab)

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21 pointstujv10y ago19 comments

19 comments

I don't know many people who want to try Communism again however Capitalism also has it's inherent flaws. While Communism suffers from lack of incentive Capitalism suffers from an incentive to plunder the environment for short term personal gain. Even as a huge fan of Universal Basic Income, a scheme that aims to provide the lowest common denominator with a passable quality of life, I can acknowledge that the environmental problem will not be magically solved. In order to succeed as a civilization we need to give up the idea that a single ideology holds all the answers. Good ideas are everywhere and to stick to one ideology exclusively is akin to religious madness. We have more scientific understanding now than every before yet when it comes to political ideology a large portion of society choses to ignore science and go with whatever narrative they have made up in their head that confirms their own biases.

letster10y ago

Interesting thing it what will happen, in the future, when computers would-be improved enough to replace most human professions? It is profitable for separate producers to use automated systems but unemployed people have no enough money to buy their products. Will government regulate production like in socialistic economic model?

deciplex10y ago

You're basically talking about a post-scarcity economy, which is coming in bits and pieces already. Based on what we've already seen with digital goods, the answer will probably be artificial scarcity by fiat, with (I would guess) approximately equivalent results. The letter of the law will assign virtually all property to a few holders of (intellectual) capital, who will lease it out at great cost and with unreasonable restrictions. People will break the law regularly of course, and it will be loosely enforced - but most of the population will be law-breakers and thus subject to the whim of a police state.

orionblastar10y ago

Communism is flawed because not everyone is allowed to become a member of the Communist party to get perks and elite treatment. The government also controls prices and if they want the price of toilet paper to be low and the price of bread to be low, there will be a shortage of it because the organizations that make it won't earn much money and make it at a loss. Then there are lines for toilet paper and bread to wait for it to be made.

The military is always given priority in food, and the people get what is left over.

Some argue that the Communism that the USSR had was not the same as Marxism.

I had a Russian coworker once, he tried to quit smoking. He had smoked US cigarettes and he switched to Russian cigarettes because they tasted bad and he claimed having bad tasting cigarettes helped him quit. Something about Russian quality control not being as good as quality control in the USA.

But as AI, automation, and robots improve, they will do the jobs of human beings and put most of us out of work and then there will be a basic income to live on. Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better.

duncan_bayne10y ago

Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better.

No, because you still have the fundamental problem that broke Communism (and which was identified by von Mises and others in the early 20th Century): the calculation problem.

https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

This is not a solvable problem. Creating an 'artificial market' is akin to predicting the weather in great detail 75 years from now. You might, might be able to say "it's likely to be a bit warmer on average", but you could certainly never say "it'll be raining at 11:00 that day". It's simply impossible.

toomuchtodo10y ago

I thought the USA outspending the USSR, forcing resource exhaustion is what broke communism.

If you have unlimited renewable energy, self-driving electric vehicles, IBM's watson providing clinical expertise instead of doctors, etc, you could provide socialism without taking from people (because labor no longer has value compared to software and automation).

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nosuchthing10y ago

It's solvable if you remove ideology from loaded terms like communism, capitalism, socialism, etc. America certainly is not a pure capital system, it's a mix of regulations and financial forces and incentives.

Assuming unemployment will increase as production becomes more efficient across a wide variety of industries, I would not be surprised to see expanded forms of segregated economic systems implemented, similar to electronic food stamp type systems, maybe for basic income. Credit card data along with other sources of resource consumption records would easily make forms of central planning easier. To some extent, think tanks and hedge funds likely are already attempting to predict resource allocation but unfortunately it seems someone has come to the conclusion that frozen yogurt facilities should be in high demand rather than education or housing.

I imagine China is making somewhat of an attempt at centrally planned economic calculation.

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