We have people buying personal islands. There is no limit to human consumption. In fact given the existence of positional goods (which are valuable because other people don't have them) it is questionable if that is even possible.
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We have people buying personal islands. There is no limit to human consumption. In fact given the existence of positional goods (which are valuable because other people don't have them) it is questionable if that is even possible.
Yeah, status consumption is indeed a thing. But this is not really a problem because status consumption is not vital, it is a choice for a person do he/she wants to work for that or not. You do not really have a choice to work or not to work too keep a roof over your head or to have something on your table. Humans really have only a few truly vital needs - sustenance (food, water, air), protection (both from elements and fellow humans), socialization and, well, reproduction.
First two things are perfectly finite and we are already able to fulfill these needs for the entirety of Earth population on at least basic level with a more efficient and just distribution system (which of course unrealistic but theoretically possible). Third thing is somewhat harder but again we already have all the means to fulfill it with a current technological level as theoretically any human almost anywhere in the world could be in a communication with any other human. And reproduction here is most difficult because costs of raising children are indeed increase steeply with technological development but in the same time there also would be a plateau at some point (especially within the system where lodging, education and medical care are essentially free), so this need is also would be fulfilled but maybe at a cost of harsher birth control (as there are good arguments that current trend about decreasing natural population growth in developed societies is only a temporary thing).
And communism first and foremost is about satisfying vital/basic needs. There is a famous "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" slogan which is used to describe communism often. It is not about sport cars, private islands or personal starships. All of these are things for status consumption and you need to work for that even in hypothetical communist system. You live in a communist society and you want a fancy thing that almost no one have in their personal possession? Work for it. It is as simple as that.
And capitalism cannot survive on the status consumption alone. There is simply not enough private islands for anyone. And if almost everyone have a private island it is not a status good anymore. It is why acquiring new markets are so important for the capitalist development.
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We already do. Thats why Fascism is a shit System by definition because it explicitely espouses war and authoritarianism. Just ask Mussolini. Fascism as seen in Germany and Italy isnt "gone wrong" it is exactly as it was supposed to be.
Early Fascist thought was actually non-aggressive.
This quickly went out the window, for obvious reasons, and really anyone who actually believed it was a fool. But then again, the exact same is true of Marxism.
Slave owners became feudal lords and those became the capitalists due to new eras coming. Maybe in the future the latter will become the brand new class of the social exploitation, but definetly will not disappear due to robotic drove economic revolution. They rather will remain wealthy caste as always.
Of course the social relations are the function of economical ones, but they are rather not linear as communist utopists would like to see them, but strongly interferred by the human nature functions of the upper grade
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No, they didn't. Some probably. All? No. The capitalists recruited themselves out of the bourgeoisie not the nobility.
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No, they didn't. Roman elite didn't transform into feudal one even in Italy itself. New feudal class was even ethnically different from the Romans. It is slightly less obvious with feudal-capitalist transition as the later country undergone the transition the more feudal class had already intermixed with capitalist one.
As I said quite a few times already, the main problem with people who critique Marxism, historical materialism and communism is that they do not actually know what they are talking about. Marx (or any other scholar of note) ever stated that correlation is linear. So why use an essentially a strawman? It is my main problem with such kind of discussion - constant usage of meaningless buzzwords instead of arguments.Of course the social relations are the function of economical ones, but they are rather not linear as communist utopists would like to see them, but strongly interferred by the human nature functions of the upper grade
Second thing is that 'human nature' argument is a really stale especially for a modern culture with its liberal tendencies. Human 'nature' change all the time. It was natural to treat women as subhuman. It was natural to treat black africans as subhuman. It was natural to own slaves. For some groups it was natural to eat other people. There were plenty of stuff that were 'natural' but they aren't anymore. Why? Because standard of socially acceptable behavior change all the time.
How do you do define 'wealthy'? Because this word means different things in the different time periods.
For example medieval lord is not wealthy at all from the modern stand point. An average modern human from a developed country would be miserable in the position of English 13th century baron for example because most of such baron's wealth is utterly meaningless for a modern person. He/she will not simply care enough about vast (or not) tracts of land, suits of armor and weapon sets, about the right to judge and sentence or most of the other perks of the title while lack of the modern clothing, hygiene appliances, medicine and entertainment will be devastating. In the same time if you move the medieval baron into the position of modern middle class citizen (which is insane increase of standard of living by the first glance) he wouldn't consider himself wealthy either because he will be lacking most of the perks of his previous position at the cost of marginal (from his point of view of course) increase in comfort of living.
In the few centuries the concept of 'wealth' could (and most likely will) change again.
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Where is the strawman here? If I criticize Marxism, or at least Marx's communist utopia, I may disagree with this "linear function" thing and add human nature factor, so mistakenly omitted by him. This criticism has solid grounds in the real time experience so far, in the first place with your Soviet Paradise as the example.
And I must admit that I still consider Marx the genius...
Only in details. The lust for power and wealth is too deeply written in our genotype (as the alpha male attitude) to be abandoned in any predictable future.
And who is using strawman actually?
Wealthy men means always the same. They are of course rich in their times. Their absolute sum of assets is actually irrelevant for our dicussion. The point is they will not allow their position to be changed. At least not without the next revolution.
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It is impossible to critique what never existed because communist formation is yet to be reached. You can validly critique soviet-style socialism. But it was socialism not communism.
And 'linear function' here is a simple buzzword because there is no actual meaning behind this.Marx never stated that there is linear correlation between economical and social relations because transitional forms are actual thing. And there is of course stuff that simply outside classical formation theory. It is the reason why Marxism have stuff like 'Asiatic mode of production')
It is a stupid idea. Wealth is entirely social concept it have nothing to do with genetics. And power is a very basic thing indeed but it is also made it entirely dependent on current social relations. What was 'Power' a thousand years ago? What is 'Power' now? What would be "Power' in thousand years into the future?
No, they are not. I shown that definition of 'rich' is different in different time periods and it have nothing to do with amounts of stuff. It is about what considered important and what is not.
It is absolutely inane idea that bourgeois revolutions of 17-19th centuries were the last.
There is a problem with a capitalism and I will use a fantasy metaphor to describe it. Capitalism is like Sauron. It is incapable of imagining anything but itself like Sauron was incapable of imagining someone not like himself in motivations and goals.
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Socialization and reproduction require status consumption. So no, it is never going away.
Anthropology exists. There is a general consensus on what counts as human universals.
http://condor.depaul.edu/mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm
And did I state (or Marx ever stated) that it will go away? It remains the same - you need status consumption? Work for it.
Why not? Because what I see here is casual ignorance about discussed concepts.
That's a rather long lifespan, they must have been eating their veggies.
If it doesn't go away, then you don't ever get post-scarcity because status is a scarce good!
Hey, don't you remember when Trump waded into the Birther controversy, causing the Obama and Dunham Clans to turn out and avenge the insult? And then the Trump clan called on their vassals and the young heir earned his spurs when he killed Marquis Biden during the counter charge in front of Castle Trump?
Do you really think that 'post-scarity society' means that literally everything is post-scarity? This whole discussion reeks of ridiculous strawmanning and it is apparently of a subconscious kind. Western propaganda on the subject was insanely effective.
Even freaking wikipedia knows that:
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Actually you are the most ridiculous strawmaner here, taking funny Marx utopian theory as the axiomatic natural law, and in the process denying all others to have their point in the mater
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Actually you are the most ridiculous strawmaner here, taking funny Marx utopian theory as the axiomatic natural law, and in the process denying all others to have their point in the mater
No, the problem is he just declared the US reached post-scarcity in the 1980s. You know, being able to meet your needs of disability or the dole. What is considered vital is a constantly moving target and status means it will never stop moving.
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I have logical and, which is most important, actually refutable argument. You guys try to use meaningless buzzwords (like utopia) or simple strawman (post-scarity society is a society where everything is not scarce).Actually you are the most ridiculous strawmaner here, taking funny Marx utopian theory as the axiomatic natural law, and in the process denying all others to have their point in the mater
So again - another strawman here.
I'm not ridiculous here. You guys are. You are so much invested in the concept that 'communism is impossible/bad/whatever' that you simply cannot engage in the discussion honestly. In Russian we have a special expression for that: "template breakdown". It is similar to what described in English as 'out of context problem'.
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Can you please explain how the goal of a classless society can be achieved if "status consumption" exists. The mere idea requires classes and different degrees of privilege.
Is not the idea of working harder to acquire "status consumption" <aka wealth> antithetical to communism? Isn't that actually Capitalism?