I wanted to open up this topic again... Hopefully I will get some thoughtful responses :-$ ______
I think most people have the wrong view of communism.
The "equal pay" and the "you cant achieve anything" are not much to say. One whole thing of communists want to change is taking away the attention of people away from money. People are not born greedy. It is rather that we try to achieve. Who is to say people are born wanting to get more and more money? We just try to achieve goals. Look at Armorgames. The community here does not get anything over another, yet we are working our asses off trying to get AP. What we call greed comes from the process of people getting money, which usually involves "bad" behavior (The business world is cruel). Bill Gates, however rich, is not greedy.
Capitalism is like taking all of a persons freedoms away at birth and selling it to them when they can afford it it. You cant live without money. You rely on others for earning this money, but those who give it to you dont care of you. Employees are just concerned with getting their profit off you. The problem is, the road to getting a good job, housing, medical care, insurances, etc, are very though and cricket. There is no system for it. This is the freedom you supposedly have in capitalism! You are free to build your own road to happiness. Its like letting a baby do whatever he wants when it cant support itself. The mother should take of it. There is no system to get you settled. What communism does is create this system. No its not taking your freedom away, it is helping you by providing free education, health care, housing...
Its sad to see people say communists are evil, lol. Don't worry, we touch the existing evil with gloves on, it does not contaminate us.
Everything is free. So I'll just be a slacker and benefit from the rest of society's labor. Now that I think about it, this society does sound fun. I get to do nothing and I'll still get everything for free!
I think money is a fantastic example of how we're not like other animals. Whereas dogs might fight over scraps of food, we can instead say that those scraps of food have a certain value based on how much people would be willing to spend on them, and those with that amount of money will be able to buy them without engaging the kind of conflict one might see among other forms of life.
I'm sorry if I missed this, but how did you propose to motivate workers in a communist state? Do you give people who do better jobs the same as those who do worse jobs decreasing motivation and in turn hurting production, or are you suggesting to still give them greater reward?
So if everyone gets equal everything, how can you enforce equal work output? How can I be held accountable for slacking a bit?What incentive do I have to work my hardest if I'm just going to get the same resources in the end anyways? Do I get less? If so, then you're already back to the path of Capitalism.
As Marx intended it was based on performance. Better you do, more wage for you. Although we hope to revert to equal pay, where it is distributed by need.
We are all dogs a the moment, by living through a communist society, he though would change this behavior.
Money only motivates you to lie to others for a gain of your own. Even in capitalist socities, I don't think peope are too Motivated by money.
So what your saying is the better I do, the more I get? So... the harder I work... the more I get? I knew you were a Capitalist in the end.
And you are just replacing money with another resource (whether it's food, clothes, shelter, or other supplies). If money doesn't exist, then something else will take it's place. And, in your words, we will become "slaves" to that.
While it's been a while since I've read the manifesto, the quote that everyone uses and which I've always associated most with Marx and his thoughts was "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Where in there do we see pay based on performance?
Communism works on small scales because it is possible to do this. A small group of like minded individuals can, and have lived together in a commune largely because they are all like minded. However on the global scale, or even a single nation communism cannot work because what it requires are like minded individuals and you simply cannot get a large enough group of them to successfully create a nation.
What I am seeing here is that you just believe in a society without money or government. You aren't really a Communist at all. You are an anarchist. You have said that people will get more resources for working harder. That will create different classes... something that totally goes against Communism.
You have no solutions to the problems that will happen. People will slack a bit. But there is no way to punish them but to give more to those who work. This is just a path back to Capitalism and a class society. There is no way to keep people supporting the Communist system for any extended period of time. You will always need a government there. You will always need classes to rule over everyone. There is no getting out of it. I'm not saying it's a good thing. It is just the most basic of human instincts. You can try as hard as you want for that utopia. But it cannot happen. You, and all other Communists, have no solutions to the problems that arise from the system (other than bringing in a dictatorship, or bringing back the free market).
Any material good can be considered capital. If you base a market of material goods rather then money you're just as much of a capitalist albeit one who prefers a barter based system to a monetary one.
