/sci/ - Science & Math

>There is a factor of luck.

Life is unfair.


Also, no matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse. At the same time, it is often within your power to make them better.

op is poor and wants my money

i don't want to give you any

come at me bro

>A person making millions of dollars did NOT earn this - no one's work is that valuable.

Justify your bullshit.

I'm with you OP. Resources should be distributed by need as a matter of ethics. The logistics are like, a nightmare though.

>>2171591
come at me bro, no but seriously you think the wealthy will just hand it over willingly?

come at me bro

>>2171590
>In 2005, the average CEO in the United States earned 262 times the pay of the average worker, the second-highest level of this ratio in the 40 years for which there are data. In 2005, a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than an average worker earned in 52 weeks.
>http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/
How do we interpret this? CEOs consider themselves 262 times more important than any particular worker, and growing?

CEOs need 262 times more than their workers?

CEOs deserve 262 times more? They are able to take 262 times more?

It doesn't matter. Just like theres a part of your brain that searches for faces in random noise, there's a part that assigns justifications for any reward you see parceled out. If they have good things, you make up reasons they deserve it. If they don't have good things, you make up reasons they are being punished.

Wealth redistribution isn't something that can be discussed rationally with a wide set of people.

>>2171590

The wealthy are wealthy because we as a society allow them to be wealthy. The rich in our economic system are unlikely to have been rich in a centrally planned economy or a feudal system.

>>2171591
We tried that. It didn't work.

>>2171529
>When talking to "greedy dumbfucks" about socialism....

fixed that for you

>>2171606
"greedy dumbfucks" = republicans

>>2171605
>1 country tried that. It didn't turn out, thus proving that it can't be done.
Yea. About that.

OP I i couldn't agree with you more, but in the unfair world we live in the distribution of wealth with never be fair nor equitable.

>>2171599
CEO pay increased with hierarchical decrease. the companies structure basically got flatter, the CEO and his stooges are able to control more aspects of a business because of technology. His decisions are more decisive for the businesses fortunes.

>>2171599
>How do we interpret this? CEOs consider themselves 262 times more important than any particular worker, and growing?
>CEOs need 262 times more than their workers?
>CEOs deserve 262 times more? They are able to take 262 times more?

It's the "deserve 262 times more" one. If one man out of two can be a worker but only one out of 500 can effectively manage a company, that sure sounds like "deserves 262 times more" to me.

>>2171619
Only one man out of the whole country can be the president. We owe the president our entire GDP.

>>2171621

Get back to work, Barrack.

>>2171529
You're looking the wrong direction. Society is not best measured by the condition of its rare richest, but by the mass of its poor. If the poor are fed, housed, and clothed then it doesn't matter how much or how little work they did. If they struggle for those same things despite equality, then their society has failed.

Pointing out that a few people are very rich means nothing. It isn't even interesting. Nobody is rich or poor because it's what they "deserve". What's important is that every individual has the opportunity to lead a healthy, rewarding life... and to offer the rest of us as much wisdom and innovation as they can provide.

you want my money come at me bro

>I'm typically met with opposition when I advocate redistributing wealth in a society.
Well, I hate to be predictable, but...

>I see no reason for a person making over a certain amount to be entitled to such excessive fortune.
I see no reason for a person to need an "entitlement" lest you use the power of the state to take away his money / assets by force.

>"the person earned it, therefore it's theirs."
They might say that, but it's not required to argue against your coercive scheme.

>A person making millions of dollars did NOT earn this [...]There is a factor of luck.
Well, I'm a capitalist, and I'd agree in most cases, depending on the definition of "earn."

>I can't look two people in the eyes - one that earned millions off a website put together over a few months, the other a farmer that works 12 hours a day to feed his family - and say they equally earned their keeps.

Well, it requires a rarer skill to build a successful website, and it's less likely to achieve fruition, so there's less supply of that type of labour and part of the compensation is for the risk incurred by the web business entrepreneur. He gambled on a risky enterprise and happened to make a fortune.

What right do you have to take his money? What right do you have to decide what is earned? What right do you have to even decide that compensation must be paid only to worthy accomplishments? The one seeking to impose a restrictive regime has the obligation to make these justifications. Allowing people to keep their shit is the default position and the condition that obtains when liberty is maximized.

(continued below)

>In my opinion, that's an irrational, childish, selfish view.
Well, in my opinion you're just jellly. You're fixated on the fact that some people have a lot of money, and you don't like that, even if it doesn't decrease the amount of money you're able to obtain. You just spitefully detest other people's prosperity. Those are just my general opinions of people with views like yours.

>>2171638
JUST JELLY.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST FOLKS

>>2171613
russia failed
china became a bastard wicked child of communism/capitalism
cuba said socialism doesnt work
On the 9 o clock news watch out for venezuela

>>2171529
I think that mental work > physical work and should be priced accordingly

ITT
Op got told status:
[]not told
[x]told

>>2171646
Indeed, and work that requires neither brains nor brawn ought to be priced highest of all. Like being born into the right family, the right country, or the right year.

>>2171621
More than one man out of the entire country _could_ effectively run the country.

>>2171646

>At the time unprecedented improvement in living standards
>Goes from sick man of Europe to international superpower
>Sparks space age and goes toe to toe with America for decades
>mfw people claim Russia failed

>>2171642
hey i feel as bad as anyone for this kid, why don't you give him half of your money and i'll give you a thumbs up

>>2171636

But how are we in the wrong to tax the man? It is our social institutions that make it possible for him to make his fortune, so what if our social institutions decide to take some of that fortune away?

>>2171660
Because I don't make enough to live. If you mean my money in the bank, it's negative.

Doesn't stop me from giving in a special way sometimes. Pic related.

>>2171663

i'm okay with this, as long as it's within reason and you also tax the poor

perhaps we could try a marginal tax rate of some sort

>>2171663
He uses his money to say no. Money is his influence, his authority over anything. His authority preserves his authority.

OP, as much as I agree with your ideals, I don't think it would work.
As we live under the capitalist system, if you're talking about wealth, therefore you're talking about Buying and Selling.
No matter what you do, you are buying and selling. If you're a janitor, you're selling your cleaning habilities in order to earn wealth buy your life (since, well, they took the life resources from us).
If you're a teacher, you sell knowledge to be able to buy the stuff you need and want. That applies to every fucking thing.
And, as we live in a world full of shallow minded people, it's obvious that some things will sell more than others. Everyone wants to be on a relationship website: it's creator will be very rich.
However, only a few people want to buy, let's say, pottery, even if it's creator is very skilled and works more than 15 hours a day.

What I think is... We cannot really change the system. BUT we could surely review the value of the product we are selling and buying.
I mean, how come a soccer player earns more than a doctor? I think the skill to save a life is a lot more honorable than the skill to kick a ball.
Therefore, you cannot expect a janitor to earn the same thing a doctor does. But you can expect and should demand him to have at least a regular living, with access to all that is necessary.

>>2171681
As we live under the capitalist system, the more wealth gets consentrated the less wealth is free to circulate in buying products. More people with spending money is more commerce. Ford made more money when he raised his factory workers wages because they started buying what they were paid to make. Turning luxories into necessities is what drives capitalistic growth, but if most people can't afford luxuries expansion stops.

World GDP per capita is $8500. It is only that high because a few hundred million rich people continue to promote scientific and financial innovation towards a more profitable tomorrow.

Anybody here live on $700 a month? Remember to include any subsidies you receive from the state in your calculations.

>>2171681
Hmmm. I like you.

Nitpick: teachers don't sell knowledge. Not at all.

>>2171686
That makes me feel kind of bad about myself.
Changing everything to a more equal system also means that there will be no investiments on "useless" things.
That means, no videogames or fastfood.
What a boring world. I'm not able to apreciate simple things anymore.

>A person making millions of dollars did NOT earn this - no one's work is that valuable.

Yes it is, someone paid for it didnt they? It had value in the eyes of whoever bought it.

>>2171695

You value fastfood more than scientific funding? Are you sure you're on the right board?

>>2171686
what if we reduced the surplus population?

>>2171657
http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2007/05/08/faces-of-russia-2/
HAHAHAA I CANT STOP
You still think russia hasnt failed? Go ask an average russian person and dont judge countries by their oligarchs
>space age bla bla
russia failed after the soviet union collapse and anyway my point was that COMMUNISM IN RUSSIA HAS FAILED TO ACHIEVE THE GOALS IT WAS SET TO, THUS COMMUNISM HAS FAILED. RUSSIA AT THE MOMENT HAS NO RESEMBLANCE TO A COMMUNIST STATE. That's all

>>http://www.truth-out.org/roll-back-reagan-tax-cuts65332

High income taxes are always egalitarian because employees are paid after tax wages. To be honest the social democracies carried out socialism better than the revolutionary socialists - though the anarchists did much better than either whenever they had the opportunity.

>>2171694
I'm glad that you like me!
And teachers... Damn, I know. They were just supposed to.

>>2171663
Everybody relies on the government to secure his physical safety, but you can't really say that the rich receive more by the provision of such basic defence service than the poor. Maybe the rich person's wealth could not be secure in the absence of government's stabilizing influence, but then again maybe the poor would not even be secure in their most basic freedom. Who says that the rich person's peace of mind is a more valuable endowment than the poor person's freedom from enslavement and arbitrary abuse at the hands of the powerful?

The entire justification for the taxation power is the promise to secure liberty for all, a goal unique in its universality and worthiness. Any taking by the government not so oriented, but instead arbitrarily preferential, is morally inseparable from simple theft.

>>2171692
I prolly live on 700/month, idk how much subsidies factor into rent, cost of food etc. I'm a poor as fuck college student tho just barely scraping by.

>>2171702
That would lead to even less commerce and an even slower economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8
This video's about this economic. It exposes some interesting points.

>>2171692

Bullshit. Governments fund that research. Capitalists don't fund science because it won't turn them a profit.

>>2171717
*economic issue

The best option is to use taxes on the whole of the population able to pay them, to ensure that no matter a person's productivity or capability, they will still be supported and taken care of with a good standard of living.

It would be difficult to achieve this with pure human labor - but with the advent of robots and machines, it's going to happen. Eventually all the manufacturing and labor intensive jobs will have been taken over by robot labor. There will not be mexicans picking fruit on large farms, or washing floors in supermarkets, there will be robots. Cheaper, more efficient, faster.

A large portion of the working force will not be able to work, even if they wanted to, while at the same time, productivity and money earned by those at the top will be reaching unprecedented heights.

There will of course be a LOT of resistance to it - most especially in the United States where you will have people screaming about socialism and how important it is for the 30% unemployed to fight each other tooth and nail for whatever job is available, at cents per hour, while the elite have even lower taxes and make even more money, that they do not redistribute into the population through spending. They'll just sit on it, and lord over the peasants who can barely even survive.

It is what is coming. The next decade or two are not going to be good ones.

>>2171706
No, i think you misunderstand. Teachers don't sell knowledge. You can get the knowledge anywhere, what you go to the teacher for is the teaching.

The teacher sells their services. They tutor you. Or well, babysit you while you watch a standardized curriculum. Spys sell knowledge. Teachers just sell services. Their like a better respected fast food worker. Or a worse respected one.

>>2171718
>won't turn them a profit.

Because innovation doesn't turn profits......riiiiiight.......

>>2171703

>russia failed after the soviet union collapse

That's the point, retard. It was the transfer to an enlightened, market oriented economy that did them in.

> COMMUNISM IN RUSSIA HAS FAILED TO ACHIEVE THE GOALS IT WAS SET TO

Lowest income inequality in the world? Free secondary education for all? Free tertiary education for all with reasonably good grades? Student accommodation, living expenses covered by the state? Free healthcare for all? Idk, anon, seems like they were making reasonable progress.

>>2171725
Oh, thank you very much for enlightening me.

>>2171713
i was joking obviously more labor means higher gdp

i'm done with this thread,

this man has laid out an excellent defense of the system we have in place, which is to say a fairer system than the one you propose
>>2171707
>>2171638
>>2171636

>>2171615
> OP I i couldn't agree with you more, but in the unfair world we live in the distribution of wealth with never be fair nor equitable.

If this is true then those people with the most wealth, the most power, those people who have the best educations, the most intelligent and beautiful, shouldn't have to rule surreptitiously. They shouldn't have to rule via the proxy of the "democratic state", always comprimising to the masses violent, thoughtless whims. They shouldn't have to fear the masses so much, they should be adored not despised and scorned. Having to live privately, ruling by constantly making shit like iPads and funding quarrelous debates in the media to keep people distracted and fighting amongst themselves.
This is the worst form of rule to ever have endured. The only way to have a democracy is if people are equals on economic grounds; if we can't have that then we should establish a proper unequal rule. Not an unequal form of rule where everyone is too embarrassed to admit who are the superiors and inferiors, or even that they exist.

>>2171707

The government does more than provide security. Even though you're probably a private road retard, the fact remains that existing roads are public and we could well have a different set of people being wealthy without them.

Don't you see the point? Depending on which social rules we institute, we will have a different set of people coming out as the winners, the wealthy. Therefore to argue against changing the rules on ethical grounds is circular logic. If you want to argue in favour of the current system you have to do it in terms of efficiency.

>>2171724
Yea that's kinda the vision of the future I have. But I have this strong suspicion that it's not going to be so cut and dry. What if there is work for the unempolyed labor somewhere? What does "no work to do" mean? Who will the "rich that are getting richer" be SELLING to?? What if we poor make a bunch of our own robots, break off and found a community with robot labor serving all basic needs, with a normal capitalistic society on top? Theres a bunch of little details that are gonna wreck that grand picture, right?

But i think the big one was this:
If you replace the labor with robots, who do you sell the products to?

>>2171747
the people that make and service the robots

brb becoming a robot technician

>>2171745
>>2171745
here's a real response though, maybe you should read it or not whatever you clearly jelly

I think that an economic system should be based on scientific principles such as Darwinism and human psychology.

Capitalistic elements such as supply and demand and high profits/bankruptcy fit nicely into Darwinism.

Socialistic elements like government subsidized education would help to provide variance and allow individuals to mature and realize their full potentials.

As long as the abusers are not punished for blatant abuse of the rules, the disparity will keep getting wider.

Do your part for global stability!
Kill a rich fucker today!

> Who will the "rich that are getting richer" be SELLING to??

This is the problem with capitalism. If capitalistic forces can manufacture machines powerful enough to make the basic-labour force obsolete then many will go unemployed and demand will plummet, leaving the economy in ruins. The only way to counter this would be to forcefully redistribute wealth to the unemployed so that they could continue to circulate wealth by buying goods.
If artifical labourers mean a halt in the circulation of money, then money will be artifically circulated.

Marx had this view over a century ago. My guess is that many rich don't want technology to advance that far for the very same reasons.

I think that an economic system should be based on scientific principles such as Newtonian Gravitation and human anatomy.

Capitalistic elements such as rising and falling markets and high profits/bankruptcy fit nicely into Newtonian gravitation.

Socialistic elements like government subsidized medicine would help to provide variance and allow individuals to mature and realize their full potentials.

>>2171757
You can take any system and make some bizzarre analogy with scientific principles that matches it, if you are cunning enough.

I think that an economic system should be based on scientific principles such as uncertainty and undecidability.

Capitalistic elements such as stealing your money and running away would fit well with the quantum idea of you not knowing my velocity and position at the same time, so you wouldn't catch me.

Socialistic elements like setting me free if I do get caught arise naturally if to prove my guilt is not computable by a turing machine.

>>2171747
Well, there won't be new work for these people.

Too many jobs will be lost too fast, and there will not be an entire new industry that springs up out of nowhere to give jobs to this unskilled labor.

Some job loss will go into maintaining and fixing the robots - but that will require degrees, again, not something for unskilled labor.

Even the service industry will be overtaken by robots and computers. Self-checkouts are already here. Tomorrow you will talk to a chatbot when making appointments.

It is very difficult to predict what the future economy will look like. It will likely hold onto vestiges of capitalism, but end up being dramatically different in its own ways as well.

Why not just settle for a happy medium OP. Equality for all minors (especially in term of education up to the highest standards) ensures equality of oppitunity. Ofc this kind of social base requires higher tax, but not outright redistribution of current wealth

>>2171756
For what same reasons? What would change?
Current situation: rich employ working consumers. rich's money gets distributed to working consumers, working consumers create products. consumers with money buy products, rich receive money.

Tech system:
Rich create robots. Robots create products some of rich's money gets distrubted to consumers. consumers with money buy products.

Do the rich have some illusion that the money they receive is unrelated to the money they dole out?

>>2171761
Thank you that was exactly the point I was trying to make.

>>2171766
>Current situation: rich employ working consumers. rich's money gets distributed to working consumers, working consumers create products. consumers with money buy products, rich receive money.

There will be less and less "working consumers" which "create products", because that work will be done by the robots you were talking about. The only way to remedy this would be to take all of the uneducated people who used to do the menial work and educate them for jobs like robotic engineering: but do you think this is possible? Do you think it would be effective? Would there be enough educated-jobs to accommodate all of the people that used to do the uneducated-jobs?

>>2171763
The service industry's gonna be the last to go. People like other peole serving them. It's not that they can't check themselves out, or they can't use a buffet. They want to feel power and control over people at these places. Feeling power and control over a robot is shallow, empty, fleeting. What will kill the service industry is no people with money who want to be served. Not robot servants.

>>2171776
Or you can have the rich pay a citizen for the robots work by proxy. It should always directly correlate to the replaced labor.

>>2171785
>Or you can have the rich pay a citizen for the robots work by proxy. It should always directly correlate to the replaced labor.

Yes, and that's the forced, artifical redistribution of wealth I was talking about. That's the "socialism" that many people despise. "Having the rich pay" means making the rich pay for the robot (by their own choice) AND pay the unemployed people's wage (not by their own choice, not in a capitalistic manner).

>>2171790
Forced and artificial? high Wages are forced and artificial. But low wages would be worse for everyone, less money for the workers to spend. Any wage to a robot is a high wage. It's just another high wage.

Wages are wealth redistribution. The rich are forced to redistribute their wealth to workers to makes products. The products are sold to workers who paying using the wealth distributed to them. Capitalism is wealth redistribution.

>>2171795
> The rich are forced to redistribute their wealth to workers to makes products.

Yes, but they don't see it as "forced" in the socialist redistribution of welath sense. They see that as their own choice, to pay someone to work for them so that they make a profit. Being forced to give money to people who doesn't work for you is not directly profitable (even if it is good on the whole and for the economy, but capitalism is not in the business of seeing things "on the whole"; it deals only with immediate interests).

>>2171803
>people who doesn't work for you

who don't*
sigh :(

>>2171729
More like free bullet in the head and free trip for family to siberia. Dont make me laugh.
The soviet union started declining in the 80's and the final hit was the Afghan war. Those people had statues of srsbzns-looking workers holding hammers and sickles, one male and one female. Serving the same purpose happy family ads in the us serve now. They could have erected big signs saying arbeit macht frei in russian, there would be no difference. Thousands of intellectuals or simply people who disagreed with the government were persecuted and executed or sent to serve the glorious motherland in siberia for the rest of their lives.

>>2171729
Oh you with this fucking chart. Russia took a hit when reorganizing economy, but the high point of GDP in this chart was never there.

Quality of life was always shitty in USSR even though the GDP numbers might show you differently.

Let's take a small (personal) example of how this GDP number was created (using ~88 dollar value here). If I were lucky I could buy a bicycle from the shop. It cost 110 roubles or by official exchange rate ~$130. This official $130 was recorded in GDP, you are showing there, but it really didn't matter as exchanging rubles to dollars was impossible in other places as black market and there the 110 rubles would have bought you 11$. The bike was so shitty, that no one in the world would have bought it for $130.

All the prices were skewed like that. The big drop happened, when Soviet Union went to freely convertible currency.

Adding a picture, that shows some indicators of living standard. Average person lived in cramped apartment. Telephones were a luxury and very few people had a car.

>>2171803
>but capitalism is not in the business of seeing things "on the whole"; it deals only with immediate interests).
and this short-sightedness may very well be our ruin. But that doesn't matter.

Capitalism is a model of how people want to behave in their own self-interest to better themselves, and it only happens to benefit everyone in our current situation, with the artificial restrictions we have placed on it. It cannot be depended on to always provide acceptable results "on the whole". It is not currently providing even very good results. It is providing better results than some alternatives, while being more emotionally gratifying to the participants then other alternatives. It is the system we know, it is the system we trust, and it is the system that can hold itself together even in the face of strong opposition from a large faction. So it is the system we're stuck with, so we might as well decide we should keep using it.

>>2171745

>Even though you're probably a private road retard, the fact remains that existing roads are public and we could well have a different set of people being wealthy without them.
That's just another fortuitous circumstance like the web entrepreneur's successful gamble. The government still doesn't have the right to appropriate private wealth in this case for all the same reasons.

>Don't you see the point? Depending on which social rules we institute, we will have a different set of people coming out as the winners, the wealthy.
Even if you instituted no rules at all and allowed anarchy and violence to reign, there would still be *some* winners.

>Therefore to argue against changing the rules on ethical grounds is circular logic.
Nope, and in fact you've constructed an equivocation fallacy by allowing "rules" to mean first public infrastructure like roads, and later coercive schemes to appropriate private wealth.

>If you want to argue in favour of the current system you have to do it in terms of efficiency.
Arguments in terms of efficiency are always messy, and certainty is unobtainable. I would make one only as a last resort. Fortunately, it's not needed in this case because the system you propose is simply immoral. It can never be right to implement a scheme that includes wrongful acts, and so we can drop it from consideration as to the proper course of action without even considering its efficiency.

>>2171745

>The government does more than provide security.

>>2171814

No one's claiming that living standards in Russia were as high as in America. They were a lot higher than, say, Brazil, which is a more fair comparison given the states of the economies in the early 20th. Furthermore, the economic system allowed the Soviet Union to contribute to science above and beyond what could be expected from a nation of similar GDP/capita, which means a lot more than your shitty bike anecdote.

>>2171821

> there would still be *some* winners.

Yes. Now if you read carefully, you'd see that I said the same thing. Except, it'd be different winners, wouldn't it? Because different skill sets are rewarded in different social systems? Which was the point all along?

>>2171729

>Lowest income inequality in the world?

Yeah, everyone was equally poor. Whoopti-do.

>>2171821
>immoral
Why? Because you think that somehow the wealthy deserve what they have, and redistribution is basically theft? Do you say this because you believe the outcomes of the free market are fair, if you do, please elaborate.

>>2171841

As opposed to Czarist Russia, whose living standards were the envy of the civilised world?

Please.

To the people who are saying that robots will destroy capitalism because workers won't have jobs: you are making the exact same argument that the Luddites did. Your problem is that you're looking at the issue on a first-order basis. The Luddites said "machines weave cloth, so all the people who weave cloth will be jobless." You're saying "robots will pick fruit, so everyone who picks fruit now will be jobless." While it is true that those jobs will disappear, the overall growth of the economy opens up new jobs. Because the machines wove cloth, cloth prices dropped, everyone became a little richer, and people bought things they didn't buy before, creating new jobs. That basic mechanism is one of the big drivers of economic growth, and is why we are richer than they were in 1800, and we are not all unemployed. Look at whatever job you do right now. Odds are that it didn't exist in the year 1800, or was very rare.

In summary, economies are not fixed piles of resources for you to distribute, and looking at them that way leads to conclusions that conflict with observation.

>>2171845

False alternative. How about we compare socialism to capitalism. I thought that's what the debate was about.

>>2171846

But what if robots can do /everything/?

>>2171846
So name those new jobs.

What are all the ditchdiggers, fast food workers, and liberal arts majors going to be doing when all unskilled labor is handled by robots?

>>2171858

You can't even predict.

>>2171831
Totalitarian system can do something by creating small enclaves of relative freedom. Science was important for Soviet Union. Academics were paid 30 times the average salary. It got some results, but not as much as the propaganda in both Soviet Union and fearmongering in USA makes it out to be.

Kind of ironic, that when wanting results Soviets were willing to pay huge sums of money to scientists. Kind of what you are arguing against here.

Overall science was declining though. Contacts with western world were not allowed for many and academic world, while well compensated, was rather rigid. There was a joke that Soviet Microschemes are best and biggest in the world.

Just have a look at the number of science nobel prizes awarded to Soviet Union scientists. You might be surprised how few there are.

Comparing Russia with Brazil is unnecessary as they are too different and there are enough of much more similar countries to have the comparison on.

How about:
West Germany - East Germany
Austria - Hungary
Italy - Romania
Finland - Estonia
Czechoslovakia - Netherlands

I chose pairs of extremely similar countries in most aspects where one was subjected to socialism and other was not. After enduring Socialism for 50 years the GDP per capita of socialist countries was roughly 6-7 times smaller, than that of their free market counterparts.

>>2171846
You are assuming there will always be a profitable frontier ready to hire. Cheap cloth production made people richer because the people making the cloth spent less on workers? So the cloth producers were the ones paying money to the new job market? Who was buying the cloth? The people who lost their jobs to the machines didn't. Who had to spend less money on cloth, but had lots of money from elsewhere? What would happen if machines replaced not just cloth, but each job market in rapid succession? I'm not sure your historical example is infinitely applicable.

>>2171855

Check anarchist catalonia. The problem with the socialists states established so far was they did away with democracy. In anarchist catalonia they expanded democracy and did the whole collectivization thing voluntarily. The organization was done by unions, not governments.

We need libertarian socialism, not authoritarian socialism.

>>2171865

Actually it is, you will eventually see everyone working in entertainment.

>>2171833
>Yes. Now if you read carefully,
I'm sorry you're stooping to this sort of petty condescension.

>you'd see that I said the same thing.
You didn't, but since it doesn't change the argument either way, let's just move right along...

>Except, it'd be different winners, wouldn't it?
I don't know, nor does anybody else. Probably, but it depends on how skills can be translated from one context to another.

>Because different skill sets are rewarded in different social systems? Which was the point all along?
Hurrah, we found the point! Now, the problem is we've lost the plot. I don't see how this provides anyone any justification to do anything. All you've done is state a sort of truism, in that any substantial change in society will have broad rippling effects. This is not restricted to the government. A change in private industry could have similar effects on the constitution of society, but it doesn't entitle that industry to control the wealth that people are able to generate by taking its product for granted.

>>2171859
Well, I tell you that I don't see any new significant jobs forming. Not in the numbers necessary to replace the jobs lost.

Manufacturing is already moving significantly overseas. What little is left here is already heavily automated. Pretty soon farms will be automated too, and warehousing [there are already trial robotic warehouses in Japan!], as well as transportation of goods.

We will soon have robots grow our food, store our food, and deliver our food. That is an incredible number of people to lose.

And it won't stop there - from construction to newspaper delivery, call centers to data entry, jobs are going to be hemorrhaging like no other in the face of automation and machine intelligence.

I just don't see any significantly large, newly emerging industries popping up that can put all the unskilled labor available to work. I just don't see it.

>>2171858

Unskilled labor will move more into "luxury" services, and do less basic production, consistent with what's been happening since the industrial revolution. To use one of your examples: you mention unskilled people being employed in restaurants. Restaurants were actually very rare before the 20th century; most people rarely ate at them. That phenomena will continue in the future. As the standard of living rises, people will buy more goods and services that they don't now. Services from real people will always be at a premium. Not to mention the jobs created by new inventions.

>>2171879
Unskilled labor will eventually be mostly phased out. That or we'll redefine what unskilled labor is.

Dumbfags will have to go to school.

Oh dear. What a shame.

>>2171763
>>2171776
Have any of you guys ever taken an economics class? Geeze. If the rich get to the point where they can robotically produce as much as they want, money will no longer be scarce. There will always be something for uneducated workers to do. If you had virtually unlimited wealth, would you hesitate at all to have some poor sap do some trivial work for you? There will always be a niche. If i was a billionaire, I wouldnt think twice about hiring someone to do my shopping, cook, just do random shit. If things get to where robots are so advanced that they can do almost anything, whats stopping someone from just acquireing a robot and having it do shit for them? Economics works bitches. I'm a bit drunk.

>did history of arts
>just buy beautiful things from ignorant middle-class families
>resell them for 10 or 100 times the initial price
>sometimes buy nice shit from the local auction rooms
>resell it in big auction rooms
>repeat
>live like a king
>my face

And not a single fuck was given that day.

>>2171879
Farm automation has already happened. The farming workforce has gone from >90% of the population to <2%. And yet we have less than 88% unemployment. It's understandable that you can't see one huge new industry hiring like crazy, because the economy is huge, but there is growth in the economy overall: almost every industry grows in the long term.

Also, I'm a computer engineer, and I think you're probably overestimating the speed with which robots will take over jobs. Science fiction notwithstanding, we're a long way from making robots that can do things that even a human child can do. That goes for the processing part and the manipulation/locomotion part. And once we do get there, they'll initially be much more expensive than a liberal arts major. So adoption will be gradual rather than instant. So there's enough time for the economy to grow along with advances in technology, just like it always has.

>>2171844
>Why? Because you think that somehow the wealthy deserve what they have, and redistribution is basically theft? Do you say this because you believe the outcomes of the free market are fair, if you do, please elaborate.

If you follow back up the chain of replies, I already addressed this very issue in >>2171636.

In short, no I don't think market outcomes are always fair, but nobody has the authority to redress this sort of inherent unfairness that pervades our lives by taking things that belong to others. Nobody dictates a particular unfair outcome by allowing a free market, and nobody is actually slighted by "undeserved" earnings, because they're just part of the "shit" in "shit happens." Stopping this inevitability is nobody's imperative: it certainly doesn't furnish a justification for appropriating private wealth for redistribution.

>>2171869
>anarchist catalonia

3 year period in a country having civil war. About 4000 people killed and their property confiscated. Looting being a major source of income.

Yes Robin Hood and his merry men were also having a similar economic system. Couldn't have existed without traditional economy feeding it.

Noam Chomsky is an agile thinker. He knows how make himself sound smart and what appeals to young minds. He is not a very honest man though.

>>2171899
The hardcore socialists I've talked to usually have not taken an economics class. Part of the problem.

>>2171855

No, this particular debate started when >>2171646 insinuated that socialism fared poorly in Russia, when in fact it did very well. There is no expediency in comparing the Soviet economy to the American because Russia was behind before, during and after. The GDP figures suggest it was less behind during, but you clearly take offence to those.
>>2171873

>>2171873

>You didn't
>Depending on which social rules we institute, we will have a different set of people coming out as the winners

>Hurrah, we found the point! Now, the problem is we've lost the plot.
Your claim: It is unfair for society to take money from the wealthy because they earnt it.
My claim: It is society that allows the current elite to be wealthy so it should also determine how wealthy they're allowed to be. Ethics, therefore, is not in question here. Only efficiency.

PROSPERITY WITHOUT FREEDOM IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF POVERTY

>>2171948
> Socialism fared very well in Russia

It's not true. You want to compare Russia to Brazil, where even now >10% of adults are illiterate. This is not an honest comparison.

Could you spare a moment and explain why this message is wrong >>2171863

>>2171920

THIS! A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!

Why is it that non-economists always spew retarded crap around about a subject they know nothing of? I'm not a physicist and hence you don't see me making retarded claims regarding physics!

Income inequality always *seems* excessively high, due to a few people earning millions, but if you look at the big picture you'll see that a gigantic portion of the population earns fair and relatively equal wages, of which the height is to a large extent determined by the skill level involved.

Gini-coefficient is quite low in most of Europe.

>>2171948
>Your claim: It is unfair for society to take money from the wealthy because they earnt it.
That is not my claim. I explicitly renounced any association with the claim that the wealthy have necessarily earned their wealth, so your continued imputation of that claim to me is a rather tiresome straw man.

>My claim: It is society that allows the current elite to be wealthy so it should also determine how wealthy they're allowed to be. Ethics, therefore, is not in question here. Only efficiency.

Your use of "society" in this post, both in "your claim" and "my claim" (both of which are actually your claims, because you're misconstruing what I said) is a reification fallacy. A society is only an aggregating concept that exists in our minds, not an actual thing. This is important, because assigning actions like "taking," "determining" and "allowing" to "society" gives them undue authority.

>>2171529
Who are you to decide how much someone should be allowed to make? Sure, the farmer works harder, but the person who makes the website was smarter. The person who made the website made a better decision than the farmer, he didn't cheat or lie to get his money, he just made better decision. Fuckwad

>>2171981
I appreciate your posts, it's nice to see the cold light of reason applied to the socialists' emotional arguments.

>>2171992
Strictly speaking, you can't tell whose decision was better just by looking at this example outcome. That reasoning is unacceptably post-hoc. It's possible that the website builder's chances of positive return were so minuscule that even with the large payout for success, it was a losing proposition. Minuscule, however, is not zero, so it's still possible to get rich off a bad (irrational) decision (lottery winners furnish concrete examples).

Hence why I've argued that not all wealth is well-earned, even though I take the capitalist side on principled grounds.