Remote View
Explaining capitalism to aliens
Explaining capitalism to aliens
195 comments
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I meant profit of Use-Value.
I already asked you this question before, but you did not answer it, and I remember you were the one to use the word "profit" (in quotes) when talking about Communism for this same reason (I did notice).
How do you ensure the ones who work the hardest get the most Use-Value of the community "profit"?
Or do we no longer care about unfair redistribution of goods / services / food / water / housing / etc ?
Is it only under "private ownership" where we need to make sure we give more value to the ones who work the hardest? is it not unfair if someone who works the least gets more than someone who works the most? what about someone who happens to be friend with the one distributing housing?
... And with this I go to bed, it's late here... thanks for the discussion!
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It depends on the phase in Communism. In lower phases, Labor Vouchers (centrally administered and destroyed on first use) would likely be used to for goods and services that aren't essential, essentials would be free. Rates of Labor Vouchers would be based on hours worked, with more for higher skilled or more intense labor, and the same vouchers payed for less time worked in more strenuous or dangerous conditions. In higher phases, it likely wouldn't matter, productivity would be high enough for the mantra "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs."
You can read more on economic planning, but again, please research AES to see how these countries are already attempting to work towards such a system.
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Again, I'm not asking what form that distribution takes, I'm asking how do you ensure it's fair.
If there's unfair exploitation, I could not care less if it involves Labor Vouchers, cheques, salt or cryptocurrency..
What I'm looking for is methods to detect and punish those who manipulate the system to distribute those goods unfairly. Those who lick the right boots to try and get favors from their distributing friends. I want to see how those countries are placing measures to punish THEIR OWN friends if they are unfair EVEN when it would benefit the one executing punishment to let it slide, I'm asking what method of PROTECTION (not prosecution) those who denounce problems in the system will receive. I'm asking how do you ensure transparency... how can people detect if something might be wrong? and if something is wrong and someone finds Xi Jinping with heir hands in a pot of foul honey, how can they guarantee they'll be able to openly criticize and denounce leading to punishment in the same way my ideal State would punish those who distribute unfairly for their own benefit.
Those are the things that are important. Those are the things that prevent exploitation. I have not yet heard one measure against abuse that could not be applied in a system with private ownership. You could perfectly provide free essentials in a "private ownership" society, in fact many countries considered capitalists already do some level of this (admittedly, not enough, but it's a good direction), my ideal State would have this cranked to 11.
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Are you asking about how to remove people from government? Recall elections.
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No, I wasn't asking that. And I feel I might have answered why I think that's not a sufficient response to my question in the other comment.
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We are getting nowhere with this. Why don't you start over from the beginning. Tell me what your approach is, what your Utopia looks like, why it's a good thing, and why it will come to be.
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We reached max comment depth in the other thread so I cannot reply there... I'll post the response here to your question:
That's decided by the State, they are the ones enforcing those rights and demanding those obligations.
This is idealism, not materialism, ie this believes ideas create reality, rather than the inverse.
No, materialism is the view that all of reality can be reduced to the material, while idealism is the view that all of reality is in the realm of the mind / mental experience. I think you are mixing concepts, and in any case, neither of those positions has ever been able to be proven true.. I'm perfectly happy to talk about philosophy of the mind (though you'll find I'm more of an epiphenomenalist.. even though all positions in this case have their issues), but it's a completely different topic and you are not applying the concept correctly here.
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I am applying them correctly, and it's important, your shift in definition of them is more semantical than functional. You think the name of a concept is the driving factor in what it is, functionally. I can point you to Georges Politzer's Elementary Principles of Philosophy if you don't trust my knowledge of philosophy.
When it comes to your argument, "Ownership" is just an authority position recognized by the state as falling under that term. There's no functional requirements or powers. This is an absurd definition that adds confusion, rather than clarity. A society where "owners" have no actual ability to buy or sell what they "own" and who are selected by society to "own" rather than by virtue of posession aren't owners at all. They are administrators and managers that society has chosen to refer to as "owners" despite not being such in any traditional capacity, and by "traditional" I mean in all of history.
This form of "ownership" is so far divorced from the common meaning of the term that its only purpose is for the semantical game you've decided to play.
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Georges Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy
He's definitely mixing things up, so I'm not surprised you mix them too... he's even involving a "God", as if this had anything to do with religion. He even talks about a "soul"...
There are theists who are hard materialists (eg. Thomas Hobbes), and there are atheists who are hard idealists (eg. Bernardo Kastrup). It's also possible be atheist and believe in a soul (eg. Michael Humer) or theist and believe there is no soul (eg. Peter van Ingwagen). The ideas in that book in relation to philosophy of the mind must be a product of its time. It's full of assumptions and pre-conceived ideas.
And he uses the generic term "materialism" in a way that's too specific, despite of all the different forms of materialism that exist, I'd say he seems to be more of an epiphenomenalist, or perhaps emergentist (which are just particular forms of it), but he does not seem to develop it well enough to clarify it. However the way he talks about it excludes many other forms of materialism, particularly the more extreme ones like eliminative materialism.
Personally, for a book like this one that's meant to be an introduction (he does not go very deep), I would have first made clear the difference between dualism and monism.. specially given that he seems to like the idea of including in materialism the concept of "matter" and "mind" (or "spirit" as he calls it) as two separate things, which would likely lead many to confuse materialism with a form of dualism after reading this book.
When it comes to your argument, “Ownership” is just an authority position recognized by the state as falling under that term. There’s no functional requirements or powers.
No, the executive power is a power. It does have a function.. in the same way, the management/administrative obligations of a position has a function.
A society where “owners” have no actual ability to buy or sell what they “own” and who are selected by society to “own” rather than by virtue of posession aren’t owners at all.
I don't agree with that, if I can't sell something that does not mean I'm not its owner, it just means I will be stuck with it (unless somehow I find a way to get rid of it).
I also did not say they don't have that ability, what I said that if the property is a means of production, the rules of the State would force them to require the approval of the State/Workers for any action related to that property. So if the State/Workers don't agree with the operation, it would not be allowed.
This is not dissimilar to how in many countries some properties are protected by the State, even when they are privately owned. Some States will try and place laws to prevent certain practices with certain properties. Like forest/woodland and so. Sometimes you will not be allowed to do certain things with your house if the State does not consider it sensible (like how I'm not allowed to install solar panels, because for some reason my city does not want houses in my neighborhood to have anything that could make them look modern -_-U).
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I hope that one day you will understand Politzer, or well, idealism and materialism, even if it isn't through reading Politzer. Then you will understand why I said you are doing idealism.
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What makes Hegel's "idealism" an idealism is the way it assumes that matter (eg. a stone floating in space) does not really exist beyond the domain of the mind (ie. if something doesn't involve consciousness, then according to Hegel, it does not exist). His notion that ideas drive social development is not a characteristic of traditional idealism. Pure idealism is not necessarily tied to that.
In other words: there's Hegel's methaphysical idealism, and then Hegel's philosophy of history and society (which is where his dialectic comes in).
All those sociocultural ideas Hegel had, and his opinions on what is it that drives socioeconomical progress, are not necessarily incompatible with even the most extreme forms of materialism (defined by the belief that matter is the one substance of reality).
Those ideas are in conflict with Marxist materialism (which is essentially the materialist version of Hegel's mix of ideas, which is intermixed with its own set of sociocultural claims), but not with materialism in its commonly used general term in metaphysics (which does not make those claims).
What Politzer calls "materialism" is also not strict materialism in the way it's commonly used in philosophy of the mind, not even when he does try to link it to it. He toys with the idea of "mind" being a separate thing from "matter" even within his explanation of materialism. And this gets him closer to dualism, not the monist ideas subyacent in what's commonly understood as materialism. Even in the most generous reading, he's at most a dualist of properties (ie. an emergentist) but he does not develop his thoughts enough in this respect, his ideas could be perfectly followed by a dualist of substances too, who wouldn't really agree with the monist view of materialism.
Materialism and Idealism, in the philosophy of mind, are not incompatible with the ideas of the drive of sociocultural change that either Hegel or Marx have when it comes to philosophy of history.
In a strict/pure (ie. not intermixed with separate Marxist ideas) materialist view, brains are machines and all within them is material and physical. Ideas don't exist as anything but a form of physical electrochemical interactions between the matter of the brain.
In a strict/pure (ie. not intermixed with separate Hegelian ideas) idealist view, all physical properties, including physical things like factories, the products / goods produced, etc. are real and they can be just as primary in the development of society as any real thing can be. Idealism just says that matter only exists in so far we experience it, it does not say that matter is a different thing that's separate from ideas and that ideas are somehow important and matter is not.. no. It says that matter (food, house, factories) is important and it is part of our experience, and experience is part of consciousness, which is part of the realm of mind.
For an idealist, matter IS mind, just the same way that for a materialist mind IS matter. They are both monist views, there is no "X" is "primary" over "Y"... but rather "Y" IS "X", there is only one realm of reality in both views.
That said, I'm a strict epiphenomenalist materialist that believes in determinism and rejects the idea of free will (beyond it being just an epiphenomenological illusion of our consciousness), I also reject the notion that consciousness in any way or form affects reality. I definitely disagree with Hegel's views in more than one way.
I understand why you called me idealist. It's because you were thinking about Marxist materialism and interpreted what I said (in your mind) as if it were opposed in some way to that view.
And yet, I do believe that the material act of punishing the powerful and distributing material goods efficiently and fairly is what can drive change in society.. not culture/ideas per se. And in order to do that effectively you need to implement real tools with real physical mechanisms of distributed transparency and control that so far have not been applied in any society, nor do I see socialist States (like China) to be steering in that direction.
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You never spell anything out, it's all semantics for you. Legitimately, your only work so far has been to change the nature of a thing by changing its name. I'm unsurprised that you don't agree with Politzer if this is how you genuinely view concepts.
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195 comments