Capitalism VS Communism

[ElHorsto]

I still believe that preferences of economic models is very much based on cultural premises. Free market in Russia works differently from free market in the USA, due to cultural and mentality reasons. In the pre- as well as post-Soviet Union capitalism is characterized by a lot more brutality than in the USA. And as also the interpretation of the bible carries different doctrines, the longing for socialism in Eastern Europe is or was much higher than it could ever get in the USA. I also believe there are not many regions in the world in which the social-market solution such as in parts of Northern Europe would work trouble-free.

I agree it has to do with culture and tradition, but I don't see much longing for socialism in Eastern Europe, neither now nor in the past. East Europeans are not ashamed when one is extraordinarily rich, similar to America. Russian millionaires are especially flamboyant and shameless. Also I find east europeans to be very conservative. This is not quite ideal for socialism. Until today I'm not aware of any significant renaissance of communist parties in east european countries.
The Russian Revolution was merely the result of a unique combination of oppressive zarist regime, extraordinary mass poverty and a smart leader Lenin, who himself was a cosmopolitan (descending from 6 nationalities!), influenced by Marx who was more a western than an eastern European. Lenins main financial support came from Germany (Ludendorf) and even further west.
The other east european countries became socialist only by force as a result of WWII.

This is much different in Scandinavia, where - without any imposed dictatorship - private income of everybody can be openly researched from public databases. There is a norwegian web site which maintains an up-to-date list of the richest norwegians. It is not socially accepted to appear extraordinarily rich in Norway. Individual achievements are judged strongly with respect to public benefit. Sweden had a 70 year tradition of almost continuously, democratically elected social democratic government, which is more left than German SPD. Swedish communist party occasionally reached more than 10 percent in addition. Note that many americans think of scandinavia as socialist states . Italy was on the brink to become communist in the 20s. Germany also had a strong communist movement in the 20th and 30th. I'm not aware of anything similar in eastern europe. Instead I know fascist movements in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and even in Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Fascism).

 

[LeBrok]

There are actually indicators that the Soviets would have beat the US in the cold war, if they hadn't lost 20+ million people and half their major cities and instead the US did. Imagine if Los Angeles was devastated to the same degree as Stalingrad was, or if 1/5 of all American males had died fighting in the war.

No chance, USSR collapsed partially thanks to cold war, because huge part of soviet GDP had to be spend on arms to keep up with US. Otherwise, instead of spending money to improve citizens lives, money was spent on military needs.
Russian loses, that you mentioned, where huge by any standard, but if you are right in your assumption then Soviets should be able to catch up to US with time. GDP gap should be getting smaller in par with Russia recovery from WWII, and with new technologies soviets acquired with US help during the war. On contrary though, the gap in GDP and new technologies was growing larger with every decade.
In short, think this way, there must be an obvious explanation why USSR collapsed and US is still the strongest in world. Three reasons: economy, economy, economy.

 

[LeBrok]

I also prefer frequent bankruptcies than taxes for instance. The problem is that our evolution is made by humans for humans. I once simulated evolution in a computer model and tested among others self-evolution of the fitness function. It was not surprising to see that individuals "learnt" to cheat the fitness function instead of obeying to it.

I wish I could experiment like this. Anyway I think what you found to be "cheating" is human ability to change environment according to our needs, and species benefits. Not many species can do that, at least not for grand scale. Instead of complying with nature and hunting whatever for miles, we keep herds by the house and even breed (genetically engineered) meat to our taste. Same in gathering department, instead of looking for plants where nature seeded them, we grow fields of corns by a village and have apples in back yard. I don't know about cheating, but this is damn hard work, lol.

In the distant past, the fitness function of humanity was mostly imposed by the external overwhelming natural environment. Yet, the evolutionary pressure to cheat nature was latent from the very beginning. For instance collaboration is a typical evolutionary side product. One should also not forget that 99.999 percent of all species that ever existed are now extinct.

Not mentioning that even the species that are managing to survive now were somewhat different even few thousands years ago.

The need of banks naturally evolved (still invented by humans) because of chronic money shortage in feudalism, regardless of the monetary system. Interest is the price of money. It was the evolutionary fix for the problem of chronic deflation, invented by smart entrepreneurs. Without credit the social mobility of capitalism would vanish and something like feudalism would remain.

I'm sure it wouldn't vanish, but it would have much harder time to find capital to grow and expend. We might have been living in 19 century at the moment, brrrrr.

It was Karl Marx himself who predicted the final fix to be socialism, later communism. Therefore he adored Charles Darwin and actually liked capitalism due to its innovativeness. He expected the final innovation of capitalism would be socialism and then communism. I'm not sure if the evolutionary direction is that much predestined as he claimed. It can by anything else than communism.

We might be at doorstep to communism in few short decades. It will come with fully blown robotics, armies of robots working for us in factories, services and homes. If most of us won't work (who would hire people if robots are cheaper and faster), how will we get our money to get needed things? Same as people on social securities/welfare, fairly equally,...how else? Robots will produce all the GDP, there will be no shortage of things to buy, we will just need a fair system to give people money to buy things.
Not only the chain of money flow, from production, to workers, to customers, to store and production again, will be broken, but the taxation system will be broken too. You can't tax not working population or robots? Will we tax corporations at 10% or 60% to make it up? What if they go away? Why would they, all the world is covered with factories with robot at that time. New taxation system would need to be invented and quickly, or we are against another big financial mess in few decades.

One thing might be fixed though, the disproportion in GDP per capita will even out when robots do the production job, even if nation is rich in "lazy" gene.

 

[Mzungu mchagga]

I agree it has to do with culture and tradition, but I don't see much longing for socialism in Eastern Europe, neither now nor in the past. East Europeans are not ashamed when one is extraordinarily rich, similar to America. Russian millionaires are especially flamboyant and shameless. Also I find east europeans to be very conservative. This is not quite ideal for socialism. Until today I'm not aware of any significant renaissance of communist parties in east european countries.
The Russian Revolution was merely the result of a unique combination of oppressive zarist regime, extraordinary mass poverty and a smart leader Lenin, who himself was a cosmopolitan (descending from 6 nationalities!), influenced by Marx who was more a western than an eastern European. Lenins main financial support came from Germany (Ludendorf) and even further west.
The other east european countries became socialist only by force as a result of WWII.

Oh, now I think there are many terms you are throwing in a muddle. For instance, for me "conservative" means to maintain and preserve existing structures, regardless of what kind of structure. In Europe it is often synonymously used as "center-right", which is not correct overall.

Recently Maciamo brought the theory of individualist vs. collectivist societies, which I think has a lot to do with this matter. People in collectivist societies rather seek for security than for (individual-) independence. They gather in groups and try to form some sort of "group-protection" against the outside. It is not of very importance how this protection is preserved, whether the group is run by some kind of collective decision or by an authoritarian leader. If a strong leader exists, he will be regarded as the one who is responsible for the wellbeing of the whole society, whether it is the Zsar, the priest, the president, the rich businessman or whatever. Unlike strong individualist societies, in which people with power are yet not regarded as that important for personal wellbeing and fortune. Extreme forms of authoritarian rule, like for example fascism and communism, are nearly impossible in individualist societies right from the start.
When you look at the party systems of Eastern Europe, you can see that besides moderate parties, also a longing for an authoritarian rule exists! Not all people necessarily favour a socialist economy, but also not many people are reluctant to it.
The social state system with a social market economy would be a possible structure of a society in which both individualist and collectivist mentality meets on an equal level. It would neither work in strong individualist nor in strong collectivist societies.

 

[ElHorsto]

Sorry that my reply is that vebose, I try to avoid that.

Oh, now I think there are many terms you are throwing in a muddle. For instance, for me "conservative" means to maintain and preserve existing structures, regardless of what kind of structure. In
Europe it is often synonymously used as "center-right", which is not correct overall.

Thats also my opinion. Conservatism originally was correctly defined as preserving existing structures. The problem is, that it actually depends of what kind of structures existed. If communism existed, then conservative Russians might tend to prefer communism. If Russia wasn't communist, but capitalst, then the same people certainly would be capitalist now. However, in this context, by conservative I meant the common political orientation, which means "right". Of course, "right/left" remain fuzzy terms, but it is commonly used today. Are you actually questioning my thesis that east europeans are not specifically more "left" oriented? Or are you questioning that communism and socialism are politically left wing?

Recently Maciamo brought the theory of individualist vs. collectivist societies, which I think has a lot to do with this matter. People in collectivist societies rather seek for security than for (individual-) independence.

So why calling them collectivist then? Why not just risk-avoiding? Actually I was not claiming east eropeans to be more individualist or collectivist. I avoid these terms.
I think the traditional Collectivism/Individualism paradigm is
problematic, because it lumps many different traits together.
Actually, scandinavians are much more seeking social security than most east europeans, as I explained. Is that collectivism or individualism now?
BTW, the most popular private hobbies in Sweden are also rather "collectivist", like singing in choir. Or look how important the kings are for the peoples unity.

They gather in groups and try to form some sort of
"group-protection" against the outside. It is not of very importance how this protection is preserved, whether the group is run by some kind of collective decision or by an authoritarian leader. If a strong leader exists, he will be regarded as the one who is responsible for the wellbeing
of the whole society, whether it is the Zsar, the priest, the president, the rich businessman or whatever.

I absolutely agree, there are vertical and horizontal communities. But do you notice which european countries are monarchies today, and which countries elected mostly social parties?

Unlike strong individualist societies, in which people with power are yet not regarded as that important for personal
wellbeing and fortune.

Ones individualism is irrelevant if the people in power really just are important. In most cases people are not free to be just individualists, even if they want to. Often they look for a compromise instead, like family for instance (BTW, Funny thing is that conservative white Americans consider families as best "vaccine" against "collectivism").

Extreme forms of authoritarian rule, like for example fascism and communism, are nearly impossible in individualist societies right from the start.

Maybe, but are you implicitly claiming now there were no significant fascist movements in England (Mosley), Norway (Quisling), Italy (Mussolini), Germany ("him"), because these are individualist societies? I think both is not true.

When you look at the party systems of Eastern Europe, you can see that besides moderate parties, also a longing for an authoritarian rule exists! Not all people necessarily favour a socialist economy, but also not many people are reluctant to it.

I did not deny that, I just meant that longing for socialism is not traditionally higher in eastern europe then elsewhere. It seems rather normal to me. Also it is obvious that it depends on wether there is a crisis or not. Putin for example (not a socialist!) was just popular because of the terrible Jelzin crisis before. A russian once told me that people are electing Putin only because they are afraid that somebody like Jelzin might return. Or take England for instance, where the BNP
was strong during the 70s economic crisis. Not to mention the 30th, where even in USA communism became popular for a while. I don't think this has much to do with individualism or collectivism.

The social state system with a social market economy would be a possible structure of a society in which both individualist and collectivist mentality meets on an equal level. It would neither work in strong individualist nor in strong collectivist societies.

Except for the collectivist/individualist thingy, I agree.

 

[ElHorsto]

I wish I could experiment like this. Anyway I think what you found to be "cheating" is human ability to change environment according to our needs, and species benefits. Not many species can do that, at least not for grand scale. Instead of complying with nature and hunting whatever for miles, we keep herds by the house and even breed (genetically engineered) meat to our taste. Same in gathering department, instead of looking for plants where nature seeded them, we grow fields of corns by a village and have apples in back yard. I don't know about cheating, but this is damn hard work, lol.

Who claimed that cheating is not hard work?
But you are right of course, there is no absolute difference between cheating and real performance in real life. Only in context of my computer experiment it was easy to define cheating, because there was an absolute static final goal given (e.g. a problem to solve). Then when I encoded parts of that goal (fitness function calculation) into each individual's genes, the evolution changed that goal instead of solving it, which is cheating from user's point of view. As a result, the algorithm failed to solve the given problem. Interestingly there is indeed no clear boundary between both cases in real life. We humans are increasingly forced to define ("cheat") our own evolutionary goals/problems as we increasingly solve them and become increasingly interdependent. The lack of problems may turn out to be the biggest problem eventually, because evolution might start to create its own problems (wars, artificial enemies, corruption, artificial shortage of goods, short-term profits, financial "innovations", etc.). Thus, evolution's solutions can be very destructive sometimes, mind the extinct species. Coming back to capitalism, its fuel is the demand for something. Latest, if all demands are satisfied, capitalism has no fuel -> crisis/deflation. Usually this happens much earlier because destructive solutions become increasingly profitable compared to constructive ones.

We might be at doorstep to communism in few short decades. It will come with fully blown robotics, armies of robots working for us in factories, services and homes. If most of us won't work (who would hire people if robots are cheaper and faster), how will we get our money to get needed things? Same as people on social securities/welfare, fairly equally,...how else? Robots will produce all the GDP, there will be no shortage of things to buy, we will just need a fair system to give people money to buy things. Not only the chain of money flow, from production, to workers, to customers,
to store and production again, will be broken, but the taxation system will be broken too. You can't tax not working population or robots? Will we tax
corporations at 10% or 60% to make it up? What if they go away? Why would they, all the world is covered with factories with robot at that time. New
taxation system would need to be invented and quickly, or we are against another big financial mess in few decades.

One thing might be fixed though, the disproportion in GDP per capita will even out when robots do the production job, even if nation is rich in "lazy"
gene.

I agree. I think we already now experience overproduction. You mention to give people money to buy things and higher taxation for corporations. I think this is already happening currently, called "Keynesian economy". The leftist party in Germany is now suggesting a relatively minor extension of keynesianism: a minimum income for everybody ("Bürgereinkommen"). Note that really everybody would get it, regardless of how much money one
earns in addition. I have no clue if that would work. And further, this is prone to corruption as long as it is man made. The main question currently for me is wether the states can get rid of debt. From a legal perspective I believe it is allowed to confiscate borrowed money. This is partially happening already by taxation. I just wonder to which extent this is fair and doable. It appears somewhat paradox. Taxation so far was the most efficient mechanism to modify the capitalist fitness function. But I'm afraid that corruption is evolving in parallel.

 

[Mzungu mchagga]

Are you actually questioning my thesis that east europeans are not specifically more "left" oriented? Or are you questioning that communism and socialism are politically left wing?

My thesis is that East Europeans tend to be more radical oriented, which includes "left" as well as "right". Although I agree that the traditional terms of left and right are not valid anymore. My personal observation is -but I might be wrong- that people in Europe nowadays tend to long for two opposing state models. The first one is some sort of benevolent welfare state, closed to outsiders and misfits. The other one is more or less the liberal laissez-faire state, which welcomes everyone. Now which one is "right" and which is "left"?

So why calling them collectivist then? Why not just risk-avoiding? Actually I was not claiming east eropeans to be more individualist or collectivist. I avoid these terms.
I think the traditional Collectivism/Individualism paradigm is
problematic, because it lumps many different traits together.

I agree that the usage of these terms is complicated, and yeah, it seems that some traits go hand in hand. Risk-Avoiding alone for collectivists is not enough, but individual risk-avoiding. As a group they might take risks, but the main phrase remains: Together we fall, together we stand!

Actually, scandinavians are much more seeking social security than most east europeans, as I explained. Is that collectivism or individualism now?
BTW, the most popular private hobbies in Sweden are also rather "collectivist", like singing in choir. Or look how important the kings are for the peoples unity.

I wouldn't say that Scandinavians long for more security than most East Europeans, just because in Scandinavia, due to political and historical circumstances, the welfare state works better. But yet, Scandinavians remain an in-between thing for me, as on other hand for example they are very open to outsiders, and besides group events, often rather love to be alone on their one.

I absolutely agree, there are vertical and horizontal communities. But do you notice which european countries are monarchies today, and which countries elected mostly social parties?

Well, that also has historical reasons. Monarchs in Western Europe don't have much to say politically. Also, I highly doubt that someone blaims the monarch for financial and social troubles in a country.

Maybe, but are you implicitly claiming now there were no significant fascist movements in England (Mosley), Norway (Quisling), Italy (Mussolini), Germany ("him"), because these are individualist societies? I think both is not true.

I don't think that individualism and collectivism is so much based on genes, but mostly on culture. So first of all, cultures can change. Secondly, Mosley and Quisling never reached the broad masses of their country. And third, also according to Maciamo, Italy and Germany are both on the brink between collectivism and individualism. Depending on political and environmental circumstances or trauma, these countries have less problems to switch between several forms of government.

 

[ElHorsto]

My thesis is that East Europeans tend to be
more radical oriented, which includes "left" as well as "right". Although I
agree that the traditional terms of left and right are not valid anymore. My
personal observation is -but I might be wrong- that people in Europe
nowadays tend to long for two opposing state models. The first one is some
sort of benevolent welfare state, closed to outsiders and misfits. The other
one is more or less the liberal laissez-faire state, which welcomes
everyone. Now which one is "right" and which is "left"?

Yes, good question indeed.

I agree that the usage of these terms is complicated, and yeah, it seems
that some traits go hand in hand. Risk-Avoiding alone for collectivists is
not enough, but individual risk-avoiding. As a group they might take risks,
but the main phrase remains: Together we fall, together we stand!

I was just specifically refering to your statement "People in collectivist
societies rather seek for security than for (individual-) independence.".
In this particular case I find it overcomplicated to speak about collectivism,
when it is just seek for security (aka risk-avoidance).
Regarding "Together we fall, together we stand", I also doubt this is
a consistent definition. Take for example a wolf crowd, as a biological example.
It is a strongly hierarchical, competitive and darwinistic group. Still wolfes are
considered as epitome of social species. In my opinion this is very much
correct, due to the sheer amount of interactions betweed group members.
The type of interaction is irrelevant. Note that even competition is
collectivism then, because it still implies strong influence of own
behaviour by the competitors. For me there can be only one definition of Collectivism:
interactions of ANY kind. Individualism would be in turn lack of interactions
of ANY kind (being neutral, loner, eremit).
That would be a much cleaner and simpler definition. But I'm aware that
I'm fighting a hopeless struggle against established social sciences

I wouldn't say that Scandinavians long for more security than most East
Europeans, just because in Scandinavia, due to political and historical
circumstances, the welfare state works better. But yet, Scandinavians remain
an in-between thing for me, as on other hand for example they are very open
to outsiders, and besides group events, often rather love to be alone on
their one.

Well, maybe, I don't know. What I had im mind was "Folkhemmet"
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkhemmet) and "Kollektivhaus"
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kollektivhaus). It is interesting that originally
that term was borrowed from the right-wing ("Volksgemeinschaft"). That is an
ultra-collectivist concept. But if majority of people are happy with that,
they usually tend to keep that system further. Proponents of nature vs.
nurture might argue that this is due to "collectivist genes" of
scandinavians. But like you I also believe that genes play a minor role.

Well, that also has historical reasons. Monarchs in Western Europe don't
have much to say politically. Also, I highly doubt that someone blaims the
monarch for financial and social troubles in a country.

Frankly, I think most of these things have historical reasons
I'm also aware that the kings have not much influence officially (what about
inofficially?) I was just thinking about the regular collective happyness events
around the king, which shows some latent collectivism of the people in my
opinion. It seems like a kind of folklore. One german guy who settled
in sweden told me that the swedes "just need that". That was 20 years ago.
Don't know if this is still the case now.

I don't think that individualism and collectivism is so much based on genes,
but mostly on culture. So first of all, cultures can change. Secondly,
Mosley and Quisling never reached the broad masses of their country. And
third, also according to Maciamo, Italy and Germany are both on the brink
between collectivism and individualism. Depending on political and
environmental circumstances or trauma, these countries have less problems to
switch between several forms of government.

[/QUOTE]

Yes, Mosley and Quigley were certainly less popular than Hitler (BTW, I forgot to
mention the french Vichy fascism and Franco in Spain.). But in that, western
europe was not much different from eastern europe before the Soviet invasion.
Note the counter-example of Hungary, which is categorized as highly
individualist by Hofstede: Hungary was very fascist once in the past, and
now again.

Thank you for the interesting discussion!

 

[Mzungu mchagga]

But I'm aware that
I'm fighting a hopeless struggle against established social sciences

Actually, what we are talking about is not even established social sciences, so don't worry!

I don't want to go too much into detail now and cut a long story short. I tend to agree that individualism vs. collectivism and the longing for safety vs. liberty (the risk avoiding theory) are two different things, although the one or other parallel can be found. You've got a valid point for saying that individualism/collectivism can also be reduced to the amount of social interactions.

The establishment of different governmental forms in different countries has very complex reasons, based on history, economic and social circumstances and culture. Yet I believe that also mentality, which is mostly based on culture, plays a certain role in the choice of governments. And that is also a reason why certain forms work better, or less or not at all in different regions of the world.

 

[sherlockholmes]

Capitalism is best way
Socialism is outworn