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Author Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0  (Read 1412015 times)

Folly

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17640 on: January 17, 2017, 06:02:58 pm »

Then again, I can't think of any example of collectivism working. Except maybe in religious groups.

And even there is often works poorly due to this minor issue called "human nature". AKA "people are selfish dicks".

That's why religious groups make greed and generosity look interchangeable.
'When you die, all your good and bad deeds will be tallied. If you net more good deeds, you spend eternity in paradise. If you net more bad deeds, you spend eternity getting tortured by monsters.'
Convince people of this basic premise, and those selfish dicks will spend their life helping others so they can get rich in good-boy points.
I could go on about the positive and negative aspects of such a system...but I think that conversation probably belongs in railgun thread.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17641 on: January 17, 2017, 06:06:07 pm »

You are not liberal.  Turn in your "green card" :P
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hector13

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17642 on: January 17, 2017, 06:18:44 pm »

You are not liberal.  Turn in your "green card" :P
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Look, we need to raise a psychopath who will murder God, we have no time to be spending on cooking.

the way your fingertips plant meaningless soliloquies makes me think you are the true evil among us.

Vilanat

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17643 on: January 17, 2017, 06:39:37 pm »

Then again, I can't think of any example of collectivism working. Except maybe in religious groups.

I live in a Kibbutz, population over 1000 people, which mine specifically is highly secular. it is completely democratic, as in, we vote for the "secretary" (leader) every term or two, and then we vote for each major resolution separately, leaving the smaller issues to an elected committee. our living standards are above average. we get free housing, free high quality education (our high school is constantly at the top 10 list in the country), free higher education for the bachelor degree (our SAT scores are on average at the top 5% of the country) which everyone can go study without questions asked, and we get free masters education per permission from the Kibbutz, which basically means we need to apply for and if everything is ok with you, you'll get the funds for it. we have practically free food served in a large dining room which serves a decent quality and we got a grocery store with subsidized prices for those who wish to dine at home, we got cheap transportation, as in, there's a pool of cars and whenever someone wants to go out or drive outside he just orders a car from a website/app, go pick the car from a large parking slot and brings it back when he's done. we pay per kilometer driven, but it's cheaper than owning a car. our electricity is subsidized to the point where there are months i am getting paid for it. our water bills are subsidized to a point where i never actually paid for it directly.

There are many pros living in such a community, especially for kids growing up and with better managing a lot of the expenses people usually waste money on are mitigated (For example, a kindergarten in Israel costs a fortune, but here it's free without large expenses for the Kibbutz because the teachers are all from the Kibbutz, the facility is owned by the Kibbutz and there isn't a drive for profit), a lot of stuff can be cheaper when considering economies of scale like building 20 houses versus buying one, 500 strong driving population purchasing 100 cars vs 1 car each from a car company, or buying food and a lot of other stuff in bulk rather than per family etc. all in all, if we'd take a thousand people from outside the collective and compare their costs for maintaining the exact same living standards as a thousand people in the collective, the collective will have to spend far less to achieve that.

It sounds like a dream comes true, but there are problems with it, as with many socialist communities where people starts taking advantage of the system. we are in the process of transitioning more toward a capitalistic system (well, less communistic, we'd still keep a balance between wages) because a too large percentage is no longer covering their expenses because they never had the drive to excel at their work or move up, which in my opinion, is an inevitable by product of collectivism. our major income source is the wages the members who work outside the Kibbutz give to the Kibbutz and a few factories/large businesses, which basically means they are all paying for those who work at the kibbutz, who often have shorter work days, shorter work weeks and less demanding jobs. the problem is that the ratio between the "feeders" and "leechers" became such that the overall average is gradually declining, or, not improving fast enough for people who otherwise could have afforded a better living quality. it is extremely hard to see a guy who works half the time you do, at a job paying a third of what you bring in still gets to move to a much larger apartment than you simply because he is a year or so older than you. it is also frustrating seeing co-workers from outside the collective who earn less than you, managing to have higher living standards because they don't have to finance others.

So, to summarize, while it sounds as if i disagree with your statement, i only half disagree with it. i think collectivism could only work in highly ideological groups. in most free thinking groups (as in, not those who have their ideology imposed on them through fear or ignorance), after the 3th-5th generation the ideology degrades to a point where people start taking advantage of the system and the collectivism starts to crumbles, so there needs to be a really strong drive for it to work for more than a century. religious groups often manage to do that simply through barricading themselves from outside influences. it also helps when the collective members all starts poor and the living conditions are so bad that every person have a personal drive to improve it.
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milo christiansen

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17644 on: January 17, 2017, 06:56:14 pm »

And there you have it, a solid writeup on why communism does not work in the real world.

Because people are people. Sad, but true.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17645 on: January 17, 2017, 07:04:16 pm »

You need people to be bees. This would be functional for bees.

hector13

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17646 on: January 17, 2017, 07:09:24 pm »

And there you have it, a solid writeup on why communism does not work in the real world.

Because people are people. Sad, but true.

This is the reason everything gets fucked up in the real world.
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Look, we need to raise a psychopath who will murder God, we have no time to be spending on cooking.

the way your fingertips plant meaningless soliloquies makes me think you are the true evil among us.

Strife26

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17647 on: January 17, 2017, 07:12:52 pm »

And there you have it, a solid writeup on why communism does not work in the real world.

Because people are people. Sad, but true.

This is the reason everything gets fucked up in the real world.

And entropy and scarcity.
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PTTG??

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17648 on: January 17, 2017, 07:21:32 pm »

And there you have it, a solid writeup on why communism a specific, closed religious enclave which is, by design, not self-sufficient does not work in the real world has demographic problems, but provides a comfortable lifestyle for everyone in it.

Because people are people. Sad, but true.

Just had to adjust that a little bit there.

Meanwhile capitalism gives eight people the same wealth as 3.5 billion.
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GreatJustice

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17649 on: January 17, 2017, 07:22:41 pm »

Collectivism works great for short periods of time, the length of which is determined by how far you swing in that direction and how wealthy your country was to begin with.

So Venezuela went for Chavez and did pretty well for a while. I even had socialists (some on this very forum!) saying things like "of course Socialism works, just look at Venezuela". For a little while, you can achieve great leaps in living standards by killing/scaring away some portion of the richest people and redistributing their stuff to the poor. However, in the process you basically cannibalize your own capital structure and set the stage for some serious problems when you run out of other people's stuff (at which point you either swing away from collectivism or you go full Stalin). But then when that stage hits you just say "Oh, it wasn't real Socialism" and move onto the next country.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sweden is often pointed to as an example of Socialism working (Socialism in the sense of "between Capitalism and Communism", not "The stage before Communism"). But this misses some pretty significant context.

For one, the Swedish welfare state was at its apex in the 1970s, but it is nowhere near as expansive today. Why? Because that system was barely functional and only survived in its current state thanks to some pretty massive neoliberal reforms that took place in the 90s.
Perhaps more significantly, Sweden was a rich country well before it adopted a welfare state. It had one of the strongest economies in the world well in the 1950s, when it really began implementing the economy policies we associate with the country. After that point, most metrics for growth tapered off pretty significantly.

In other words, the success of the Swedish welfare state is only possible because of several generations of savings and wealth to pull from. Were a similar system set up pretty much anywhere else, it wouldn't be nearly as successful.
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Neonivek

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17650 on: January 17, 2017, 07:26:03 pm »

In other words, the success of the Swedish welfare state is only possible because of several generations of savings and wealth to pull from. Were a similar system set up pretty much anywhere else, it wouldn't be nearly as successful.

Dang it! Marx was right!
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Sprin

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17651 on: January 17, 2017, 07:30:50 pm »

And there you have it, a solid writeup on why communism does not work in the real world.

Because people are people. Sad, but true.

This is the reason everything gets fucked up in the real world.

And entropy and scarcity.

The economic calculation problem
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redwallzyl

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17652 on: January 17, 2017, 07:31:23 pm »

In other words, the success of the Swedish welfare state is only possible because of several generations of savings and wealth to pull from. Were a similar system set up pretty much anywhere else, it wouldn't be nearly as successful.

Dang it! Marx was right!
The proletariat must rise up and through off the chains of oppression and seize the means of product..Oh  free money! what were we talking about?

also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di9R9oA5Qzk&t=307s good old fashioned laughs and then you realize your living in the worst reality.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2017, 07:46:28 pm by redwallzyl »
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Helgoland

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17653 on: January 17, 2017, 07:57:33 pm »

And there you have it, a solid writeup on why communism a specific, closed religious enclave which is, by design, not self-sufficient does not work in the real world has demographic problems, but provides a comfortable lifestyle for everyone in it.

Because people are people. Sad, but true.

Just had to adjust that a little bit there.

Meanwhile capitalism gives eight people the same wealth as 3.5 billion.
*taps PTTG?? on the shoulder*
I live in a Kibbutz, population over 1000 people, which mine specifically is highly secular. it is completely democratic, as in, we vote for the "secretary" (leader) every term or two, and then we vote for each major resolution separately, leaving the smaller issues to an elected committee.
Also your concept of wealth is ill-defined, methinks. But I don't want to go busting up your ideology, so please, continue~

(In another thread though. This tangent is interesting, sure, but not exactly Ameripol material. If someone opens up a new thread to continue I'd be glad to join!)
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TempAcc

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: 2016, Version 2.0
« Reply #17654 on: January 17, 2017, 09:50:39 pm »

Ye, mind you, the whole methology behind the lolstudy that said around 8 of the richest people on earth hold the equivalent weath to half of the world's pop is kiiiiiiinda, like, shitty? I need to sleep cause I have to get shit done tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure its already being called out left and right already.

Also, sorry, no universal income economic utopia until post scarcity societies are a thing, if they ever actualy become a thing, that is. Until then, all you get are temporary welfare states with rollercoaster economies that dump the costs of the previous generation's economic safety on the backs of the younger generation (or immigrants, if you follow the EU's model, lel).
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