How exactly does an economy work in which people only produce whatever they feel like making at the time...

How exactly does an economy work in which people only produce whatever they feel like making at the time? How do you distribute resources that are scarce solely because nobody wants to make them (free rider problem)? All I see in muh moneyless pureansoc paradise is a primitive society with a glut of useless etsy garbage and not enough necessary goods to sustain modern infrastructure

I've been wondering the same thing. I'm that hvac technician user who talked about my gripes with capitalism and planned obsolesce multiple times here.

I know that things will be produced bases on social need and not for profit, but I can't really fathom how that would even be possible.

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This is honestly my biggest concern.

I imagine a solution to transport would be an all electric system, but then who would man and maintain electricity, especially cross country? Everyone would have to be a jack of all trades just to keep things running smooth without requiring a specialist to come all the way over just to fix something he has no incentive to.

An economy could never work like that ("people only produce whatever they feel like making at the time"). People would produce what was needed for other members of society, who would do likewise for them. Unlike capitalism, where unemployment is endemic to the system, under socialism the right to work would be guaranteed for anyone who wanted to work. Thus, it would not be unjust to drastically reduce benefits for people unwilling to work. You could also deal with the free rider problem by raising work as a central social value, and publicly shaming those who refuse to work. With more people working, people will be able to work shorter hours. With automation, the amount of work needed to sustain social need becomes less and less, and people will have more free time for cultural pursuits, like music, art and science.

This is absurd, the electrician brings electricity because he knows he benefits from the illuminated society.


the same way we do so now, only the production would be controlled democratically. we would go to work because we know we actually benefit from the work, rather than the hollow feeling from going to work for survival. as social being it is easy to see when you work directly with people how your work can benefit others and by extension yourself.

How does it work now? Because that is essentially what we have, with a few bourgeoisie determining what gets made upon market trends, market research, and mysticism.


Automation and community participation. Between these, we can produce most necessary goods with an 8 hour work week for most people. In terms of distribution, not really sure but that's because I have no idea how a non-market economy would function in practice.

Spoken like a true pampered academia ideologue. How many people do you know that build electrical infrastructure in their free time? How many people do you know that make shitty bangles and knick knacks?
Plugging your ears and shouting TABULA RASA TABULA RASA TABULA RASA doesn't make game theory go away

I have an extremely hard time believing that. The best examples we have of total strangers taking each others' words on "I'll be nice to you somewhere down the road" is hippies trading used clothes and sharing drugs at rainbow gatherings.
Automation is a theoretical, if very likely, technology. Are we writing politics, or science fiction?
I'm not saying the global economy would fall to pieces without a 40 hour workweek. My problem is not that not enough work would be done, it's that there's a disconnect between what is needed and what is decided that needs to be made that remains unaddressed in a moneyless society. The market is that ultimate check and balance, free trade and money more or less being the same thing. You're not going to get a community to mine widgetium and just give it away to total strangers on the *promise* of equivalent exchange somewhere down the road maybe.

total strangers from faraway lands they'll most likely never see again*

Money would probably be the last thing to abolish under socialism, right on the edge of true communism. Money would continue to be used as a measure of value and a means of exchange for quite awhile, I believe. It's a good way of keeping track of what someone has contributed to society through their work. You could only get rid of money once you could take for granted that almost everybody contributes more than enough to cover their upkeep.

Also, automation isn't science fiction. It's here now and it's being deployed. Under capitalism it means thousands of workers lose their jobs and become paupers. Under socialism, it would mean more time to devote to leisure and culture.

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This is why socialism is the state before communism.

Communism is the point where people just do whatever, because all our needs are provided by robots/minimal effort/whatever. Socialism we organise ourselves to produce what we need, and people are required to put effort into this system if they want to receive the benefits of it.

You're using examples from a capitalist system. Socialism is a gradual change both of economy and people's minds. There will be a change in thinking over time as the hindrance to sharing and giving changes us from the hoarding and isolationist mentality we have developed.

More utopian tabula rasa hogwash.

I have no idea where you got that from what I posted. We're talking about neighbhors taking shifts to keep the community going by performing necessary tasks. This would be done out of self-interest, because working 20 hours a week and being better compensated is a better option than working 40 hours a week for fairly low pay. Think of it as an alternative to being taxed.


Automation is already here, albiet not full automation we talk about one day having. With our current level of technology and elimination of unemployment and unproductive jobs we could cut the work week in half. With technology being driven by usefullness rather than maximising profit, we could probably cut that down to 10 within twenty years. Obviously we're not going to have FALC right away, but a significant reduction of the work week is realistic, just not politically realistic in liberal democracy.


But the market contains those same contradictions. For every great invention we see there's bullshit like the 474847 different chain restaurants selling the same shit and for every skilled worker or techfag there's 10 business majors who want Tinder 2.0 or some business to get them rich. I'm not saying an app to get laid is necessarily a bad thing, but capitalism does have the same problems. As to exchanging a good or service for a promise, there's quite a bit of contracts that do just that now(and a lot of breaches that end up in court), we'd probably have some sort of enforcement for them or have community leaders who aren't stupid enough to give away shit without being sure they will get something in return.

At any rate, a market is probably the best method of allocating scarce resources right now, but planning isn't completely unfeasible if computer technology increases at a fairly standard rate. As a transitionary stage I see something like Mutalism or Market Socialism being a great improvement and fairly good for allocating resources in a scarce economy. At least until planning (preferably democratic) becomes feasible or scarcity for necessities becomes a non-issue.

That doesn't explain away the free rider problem. Again, the best examples we have of gift economies where people work in exchange for the goodwill of others is swap shops filled with inconsequential items that wouldn't be missed anyway. It's like saying capitalism could solve poverty by charity alone because Goodwill exists.

Funny thing about taxation is that people tend not to do it voluntarily. We need a state organization to ensure everyone's doing it in the correct amounts as well. Unless you're a very, very small community (which incidentally also makes it easier to police without a statist police force), a Prisoner's Dilemma type situation (in which what needs to be done for maximum personal benefit and what needs to be done for maximum community benefit are mutually exclusive) seems inevitable.
It has the same useless efforts being made, however market forces act on these efforts to curb them naturally (see: Sony blowing half a billion dollars on a movie nobody cared about), that's the "invisible hand" you hear libertarians talking about.
Those are called considerations, which are explicitly trade, which is money.
Which is trade, which is DAS KAPITAL. Not socialist moneyless paradise.

I guess my point is that relying on speculative technology is less political science and more science fiction. Couldn't ANY ideology work with enough phlebotinum? Not much else to be said considering I pretty much already agree with everything I haven't taken issue with in this post

It doesn't. A good think communism isn't such an economy.

Fully automated luxury communism.

All the necessities of life are handled by machines.

A utopian fantasy unlikely to occur in our lifetimes? Sure, but I wouldn't want to be a part of any ideology where utopia wasn't at least on the map.

That's why I think of myself as a technocrat and not a communist. An administration with rules, rewards and punishments would still be needed in a moneyless post-socialist society. Still, until then we have the cooperative mode of business which solves some of the contradictions of capitalism, while keeping the market built by capitalism working.

Communism cannot come until we've automated to the point where this is somewhat possible.

Also you can still have public duties you need to full fill. So instead of paying tax, you fix the cables once a month.

?

Holla Forums's understanding of socialism: Protestant work ethics.

Not everyone is as hedonistic as you.