[mikema63]

How general you want to go?

Some people want stuff, so some people do stuff, and stuff happens.

To be a bit less glib, it depends on what structure an economy has, and how exactly it's decided what ideas get to be implemented.

In one, a manufacturer of cars and/or gas powered dildos I owned by the people who work at the company. They determine how and if they will manufacture something by whatever system that particular coop sets up.

Alternatively a couple of people could start their own coop to do so.

Exchange for goods may be done monetarily using a currency system similar to today, but with a different sort of banking system.

That's one possible system, remember that there will be different stages to communism as well, initially there will be a state but the ultimate goal is to eliminate it.

You could have a state operated system where government decides wht gets built or made and how it's distributed, hopefully such a system would be as local as possible with as much reliance on experts an manufacturers as possible.

You could have a technocratic system where the people in government who run automotive and gas powered dildo manufacturing are the experts and manufacturers of the manufacturing process.

There a lot more possible ways of doing it, with as much variation as you like.

The point is, for me, that capitalism is an emergent system, it developes an react to changing conditions, but moody sat down and really designed it.

I would like to build a system designed to maximize human life, instead of merely relying on a system that just happened to develop.

Capitalism was a system that mainly developed out of the needs of capital owners over a long period of history. It has a variety of problems because of that. I want to see a system designed for all of humanity, taking in to consideration all we know about ourselves, science, and the world.

[lucky]

In one, a manufacturer of cars and/or gas powered dildos I owned by the people who work at the company. They determine how and if they will manufacture something by whatever system that particular coop sets up.

Thank you. That is an interesting model. It already is allowed in capitalism though, no need for a revolution to achieve this. Indeed, if you want to force everybody else into this same ownership structure, that would be a new system. We could discuss its pros and cons (and I have done so in the past). But: I doubt that's the kind of communism that TIG is after, given that under his link to Lenin's writings I find things like "The means of production belong to the whole of society", i.e. not to the dildo factory self-employed people.

You could have a state operated system where government decides wht gets built or made and how it's distributed, hopefully such a system would be as local as possible with as much reliance on experts an manufacturers as possible.

That's another interesting model, and we could discuss pros and cons. But again, I don't think that's the kind of communism TIG is after, as he and his link both talk about reducing the role of the government rather than increasing it.

[The Immortal Goon]

As Mike, Marx, and Lenin said, there are going to be different levels of the transition from private to public property. I mean, the ultimate goal would be to have a post scarcity society with organization (at best) instead of government-to live in the United Federation of Planets. But that's hardly realistic, at this point or very soon , so other models are used. The important thing is the end of private property and the alienation of the worker. After those things, it's up to a classless society itself.

[lucky]

The important thing is the end of private property and the alienation of the worker. After those things, it's up to a classless society itself.

So, we're talking about Mike's second model then (government investment and ownership of all businesses), en route to yet another, but not quite yet worked out, system with zero government ownership?

[mikema63]

Like I said, that the final goal.

You do have to understand however that such a radical shift is economic structure away from favoring the owners of capital, will be opposed by the owners of capital, who have all the resources and power of the government to prevent any change. Any hope for change can only be brought about by action of some kind.

You also have to understand that the entire reason I can theorize a bunch of different possibilities is because when it comes time to build a new system you need to be able to build whatever will actually work.

When people complain that some aspect of, say, Soviet Union production was bad, then we shouldn't do that.

We should consider the pros and cons of every aspect of the system, we could even test various systems in local pockets to see how they work.

I don't want to tie myself down to yet again arguing about how large corporations have lobbied for all kinds of laws and regulation that prevent coops from competing (or any small competitors).

I would like, before anything else, for people to simply admit that if we tried as a society to design an economic system, we could probably do better than one that developed over time based on the needs of the rulers and owners. That we could build a Bette system than one that evolved.

We can do better than a system that evolved out of the desires of hundreds of years of the owners and rulers whims.

[lucky]

when it comes time to build a new system you need to be able to build whatever will actually work.

Which is why I am asking questions about the proposed mechanisms! I don't think your system works to achieve the outcomes you think it does.

When people complain that some aspect of, say, Soviet Union production was bad, then we shouldn't do that.

I would say that it was the screwed up incentives of bureaucratic investment decision-making by people who manage other people's resources on a large scale that were primarily bad... The classic agency conflict of interest that you are so aware of in the case of company CEOs, only scaled to much larger levels. And yet you're saying we should do precisely that.

So dildos would only get produced if somebody petitioned the government on behalf of the people that they could use some dildos, and one randomly assigned bureaucrat would approve of the idea, with no efficiency incentives in the process for either the petitioner or for the bureaucrat. So, they would simply not get produced, and something else that seemed cool would randomly get over-produced because somebody had an idea that seemed right to somebody else, and they would both get rewarded for the economically inefficient outcome of producing that instead of the dildos that are more in demand.

I would like, before anything else, for people to simply admit that if we tried as a society to design an economic system, we could probably do better than one that developed over time based on the needs of the rulers and owners. That we could build a Bette system than one that evolved.

Perhaps, but your plan still seems to me to achieve the opposite. Good intentions are not enough for a proposal to be accepted, you need a system for which you can convincingly show it works better than status quo. Performing any random "action of some kind" is not going to automatically create a better system.

[The Immortal Goon]

Which is why I am asking questions about the proposed mechanisms!

We are, essentially, proposing a system of analysis. The proposed mechanisms will be dependent upon the material conditions of whatever we're looking at.

[lucky]

We are, essentially, proposing a system of analysis.

the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat

That's a ... revolutionary way to go about analysis!

[mikema63]

Marxism is a system of analysis.

Dictatorship of the prolitariot is an almost universally held conclusion based on that analysis.

[lucky]

Marxism is a system of analysis.

Dictatorship of the prolitariot is an almost universally held conclusion based on that analysis.

Useless blabber to avoid the topic at hand. I did not even use the word Marxism! I wasn't asking about semantics of Marxism. I was trying to discuss your communist political preferences of how to go about organizing production in the economy, which you clearly hold, and have been expressing throughout this thread. TIG flip-flops between rooting for a revolution with planet-wide expropriation, and having no actionable political opinions at all.

[The Immortal Goon]

I'm not flip-flopping. Revolution is part of the process for the kind of society that results.