My impression is that all systems fail long term and need to break down and be renewed after crisis. Once it becomes entrenched, I think odds are heavily against being able to try social systems.
Have you seen a system like you describe, where a structure to continue change and experimentation is built in? To me capitalism with strong controls seems the most stable and successful (assuming your benchmark is population qualify of life not just GDP), e.g. some European systems.
Arrrrg I wrote out a big reply, was about to post, then realised I’d accidentally downvoted you. When I changed that downvote to an upvote my reply was reset. #lemmybugs.
Here’s take 2.
My impression is that all systems fail long term and need to break down and be renewed after crisis. Once it becomes entrenched, I think odds are heavily against being able to try social systems.
I’d agree with this, genreally. It feeds into the point in my last paragraph: we need a changing system to destabilise incumbant powers, such that they cannot abuse the system as effectively. These changes must be driven by objective improvemnents, democratically decided. Furthermore, I would say that total democracy is a win.
People will point to Brexit as an example of the hazards of giving people a vote. However, the truth is Brexit was a disinformation campaign - such a campaign cannot be maintained indefinitely, it can only be focused onto key events - particularly when it was driven by targeted lies (primarily on Facebook) immediately before a vote. You can say whatever you want if only the people who won’t question it see it, and by the time anyone else does it will be too late. If people had subsequent opporunities to decide how Brexit would be done, along with votes on whether or not to proceed down any particular route, things wouldn’t have been anywhere near as bad.
I believe in a strong social safety net. The bare basics of human needs should be provided for any citizen: food, clothing, and shelter. Without these needs, people get desperate, and they turn feral. They resort to crime - which then easily becomes a habit. This is worse for everyone overall; by preventing this we help maintain a stable and productive society.
The basics should be provided. If people want nice things, they should have to work for it. If you want a nice house, you need to work and earn enough. If you want nice designer clothes, you need to work. If you want a PS5/Sexbox/1337 PC you need to work for it and earn it. If you just want to rest on your laurels with the bare minimum, that should be an option, too.
However lazing about doing nothing is incredibly fucking boring and unfulfilling. No one wants to live their life that way. The lifetime benefit scrounger is pretty much a myth - maybe there’s one or two who game the system, but it never lasts forever. People want to improve their position in life, they want to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”, they just need the opportunity.
I know this full well. I’ve had the luxury of not doing anything, I’ve skirted poverty but never quite truly fell into it. And it’s not anywhere anyone wants to be. However, even in my position success is limited - debtors and financiers prey upon anyone who falls below a certain line. If you pay off your credit cards every month, they’ll feed you more credit, then when you start building up debt they’ll rack up your interest rates such that your instinct is to dig in deeper in some vein hope of finding your way out.
Meanwhile, the past is littered with famous artists, many musicians, who have spent some time living off the state. These stories have become fewer and fewer over the past couple decades - no one can live off the dole anymore. This begs the question: how much social development has the human race missed out on, given that young people have been stretched to their limit, such that they barely even want to contribute anything because their prospects are now so bleak?
People shouldn’t be exploited to their limits. Particularly, citizens of any country shouldn’t be left to rot. Any great country that calls itself wealthy should be able to care for its people, such that these people can find their feet and positively contribute to the collective good. And that collective good must belong to everyone, not just those who sit at the top and do very little to contribute themselves.
The problem with things like welfare and food stamps isn’t that people are lazy, it’s that the system produces distorted incentives. If getting a job means you lose money, why would you ever get a job? How are you supposed to get a better job if you can’t get a basic one?
There should just be a universal basic income. And instead of a simple cutoff, your benefits should ramp down as your work income ramps up so that you basically keep 50 cents of every extra dollar you make from working until you’re completely weened off of the UBI.
Your sentiment is why I don’t consider myself a communist. Capitalism can work well but it requires extraordinarily powerful regulations. Communism is maybe a bit better but still requires the same amount of regulation we’re failing to implement now.
We need to fix capitalism before we make the move to communism.
I think a lot of the issue comes down to terminology. Communism has been bastardised and turned into a dirty word, it has very negative connotations for a lot of people. Most implementations of communism in the world don’t really fit the ideology, and now people think of the countries for the definition.
I would first define socialist policy: that which is made for the greater good of society as a whole, rather than for the benefit of select groups at the expense of society.
I think true communism is what you would get if you consistently implemented socialist policy again and again over a long period. If we develop robust policies that create a net benefit for the people as a group, we will end up having a communist society.
But trying to jump and change to communism straight away is fraught with issues, because during the change sociopathic people will take the opportunity and steer things in their favour by implementing policy that benefits themselves over others.
Thanks for the thought provoking reply!
My impression is that all systems fail long term and need to break down and be renewed after crisis. Once it becomes entrenched, I think odds are heavily against being able to try social systems.
Have you seen a system like you describe, where a structure to continue change and experimentation is built in? To me capitalism with strong controls seems the most stable and successful (assuming your benchmark is population qualify of life not just GDP), e.g. some European systems.
Arrrrg I wrote out a big reply, was about to post, then realised I’d accidentally downvoted you. When I changed that downvote to an upvote my reply was reset. #lemmybugs.
Here’s take 2.
I’d agree with this, genreally. It feeds into the point in my last paragraph: we need a changing system to destabilise incumbant powers, such that they cannot abuse the system as effectively. These changes must be driven by objective improvemnents, democratically decided. Furthermore, I would say that total democracy is a win.
People will point to Brexit as an example of the hazards of giving people a vote. However, the truth is Brexit was a disinformation campaign - such a campaign cannot be maintained indefinitely, it can only be focused onto key events - particularly when it was driven by targeted lies (primarily on Facebook) immediately before a vote. You can say whatever you want if only the people who won’t question it see it, and by the time anyone else does it will be too late. If people had subsequent opporunities to decide how Brexit would be done, along with votes on whether or not to proceed down any particular route, things wouldn’t have been anywhere near as bad.
I believe in a strong social safety net. The bare basics of human needs should be provided for any citizen: food, clothing, and shelter. Without these needs, people get desperate, and they turn feral. They resort to crime - which then easily becomes a habit. This is worse for everyone overall; by preventing this we help maintain a stable and productive society.
The basics should be provided. If people want nice things, they should have to work for it. If you want a nice house, you need to work and earn enough. If you want nice designer clothes, you need to work. If you want a PS5/Sexbox/1337 PC you need to work for it and earn it. If you just want to rest on your laurels with the bare minimum, that should be an option, too.
However lazing about doing nothing is incredibly fucking boring and unfulfilling. No one wants to live their life that way. The lifetime benefit scrounger is pretty much a myth - maybe there’s one or two who game the system, but it never lasts forever. People want to improve their position in life, they want to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”, they just need the opportunity.
I know this full well. I’ve had the luxury of not doing anything, I’ve skirted poverty but never quite truly fell into it. And it’s not anywhere anyone wants to be. However, even in my position success is limited - debtors and financiers prey upon anyone who falls below a certain line. If you pay off your credit cards every month, they’ll feed you more credit, then when you start building up debt they’ll rack up your interest rates such that your instinct is to dig in deeper in some vein hope of finding your way out.
Meanwhile, the past is littered with famous artists, many musicians, who have spent some time living off the state. These stories have become fewer and fewer over the past couple decades - no one can live off the dole anymore. This begs the question: how much social development has the human race missed out on, given that young people have been stretched to their limit, such that they barely even want to contribute anything because their prospects are now so bleak?
People shouldn’t be exploited to their limits. Particularly, citizens of any country shouldn’t be left to rot. Any great country that calls itself wealthy should be able to care for its people, such that these people can find their feet and positively contribute to the collective good. And that collective good must belong to everyone, not just those who sit at the top and do very little to contribute themselves.
The problem with things like welfare and food stamps isn’t that people are lazy, it’s that the system produces distorted incentives. If getting a job means you lose money, why would you ever get a job? How are you supposed to get a better job if you can’t get a basic one?
There should just be a universal basic income. And instead of a simple cutoff, your benefits should ramp down as your work income ramps up so that you basically keep 50 cents of every extra dollar you make from working until you’re completely weened off of the UBI.
Your sentiment is why I don’t consider myself a communist. Capitalism can work well but it requires extraordinarily powerful regulations. Communism is maybe a bit better but still requires the same amount of regulation we’re failing to implement now.
We need to fix capitalism before we make the move to communism.
I think a lot of the issue comes down to terminology. Communism has been bastardised and turned into a dirty word, it has very negative connotations for a lot of people. Most implementations of communism in the world don’t really fit the ideology, and now people think of the countries for the definition.
I would first define socialist policy: that which is made for the greater good of society as a whole, rather than for the benefit of select groups at the expense of society.
I think true communism is what you would get if you consistently implemented socialist policy again and again over a long period. If we develop robust policies that create a net benefit for the people as a group, we will end up having a communist society.
But trying to jump and change to communism straight away is fraught with issues, because during the change sociopathic people will take the opportunity and steer things in their favour by implementing policy that benefits themselves over others.