Article discreditng the thesis that Mao "killed millions of people" in The Great Leap

[kandrathe]

By and large, people want to contribute to society to make it better, this is historically observable or we would still be living in the Dark Ages, or something worse.

You believe altruism is an inherent trait of homo sapiens.

When people get into a serious car crash, usually within a couple minutes, someone stops to make sure the parties involved are all ok - if they aren't, they call paramedics. These types of things happen now, there is no reason to believe people would cease to do them in a communist society? The same rationale applies to production. Example: we may not care much for doing jury duty, but we do it anyways because we believe, at least in theory, that doing so helps create a more fair and just society - and I am speaking in the context of capitalism. Why would this rationale not exist in communism? Not that we would have jury duty in communism (because we wouldn't), but nevertheless this rationale is applicable to production as a larger concept in general.

So... This social altruism exists already in all societies, not just communist ones. There is no need for communism therefore to engender an increase in social altruism.

I don't think the 'free loader' problem is an issue as many people believe due to what I articulated above. There is far less incentive to work NOW than there would be in communism, yet today, we still make society go - even though its often for piss poor wages, shoddy and sometimes dangerous working conditions, crappy hours, and accomplishing repetitive, mundane tasks that we wouldn't be doing otherwise.

Or, otherwise known as the free rider problem. Anything that is provided as a "public good" will likely suffer from free riders. This includes "the tragedy of the commons" type of benefits as well. A very hard working fisherman will catch more fish from the common pond, depriving other communcal fishermen of the fish, and even in a fairly distributed "communist" society, he would be rewarded for his above average work production. Unless, there are rules, which require police, which are provided for the common good and taxed against the production of the community. You see where this goes... from altruistic fantasy, to despotic police state...

And after all, the biggest freeloaders currently are the capitalist class - who produce absolutely NO social value whatsoever - they live entirely off the value produced by the working class, and they enforce this power and privilege violently through their state apparatus, courts, and police force. It's nothing less than legalized, forced robbery.

A claim without any evidence to support it. The one service Capitalists provide is the risk of capital to create new ventures, with the hope for lucrative rewards for their risks.

No one here is disputing that wealth distribution in the US (elsewhere) needs correction, which can be done by placing the burden of the "public good" more fairly through fair taxation. Marx correctly pointed out a problem with "surplus value" and exploitation, and IMHO, one "labor law" that makes sense to me would be that every worker should be informed of there annual production value as a part of negotiating their annual salary, or wage.

Though alienation is generally a symptom of capitalism, people who refuse to participate in a socialist or communist society may find themselves isolated from others around them and not be taken as seriously. *shrugs*. That's my thoughts on it. Communism is a very long ways off so its difficult to say for sure exactly how this issue, if it were one, would be dealt with at this time.

Generally, the solution to the Free Rider problem is;

• place a nominal charge for the good or service requiring the minimal amount of labor participation
• Appeal to altruism, fairness, social cohesiveness (rather than shaming, ostracism, exclusion)
• Make the public good private requiring a fee to access
• Legislate, which of course thn requires police and consequences for violations.

How do you ensure that the people genuinely enjoy the job that they have?

Production in communism gives your labor (and your labor power!) a purpose, and work, in turn, gives meaning to you and your family's lives. It (your work) also improves society, which in turn, also improves you and your family's lives, and collectively gives all of our lives more existential meaning.

Presently, work doesn't do this. Instead: we are simply viewed as instruments of production by those who purchase our labor power, to be cogs in a never-ending, revolving profit machine - to be chewed up, spit out, thrown away when we are no longer useful; to be replaced by another cog that will go through the same mundane process (see Marx's concept of alienation)....or, in less colorful terms, communism doesn't objectify you, your labor, or your existence as a whole as capitalist society does.

The key to understanding why this is so lies in an observation of how production is carried out under communism and capitalism respectively: products manufactured under communism are done so for their practical application and use; under capitalism they are done so on the market for exchange value as a commodity.

Why couldn't a person in our current "regulated" capitalist society enjoy their work? I like my work. I feel I'm fairly compensated. I believe most people are mostly content with their jobs. My bigger concern is the declining need for humans in the production process.

Enjoying your work in a communist society isn't a "rule" per se (it can be and often is a rule under capitalism though, since many places can discipline or even fire you for simply not providing service with a smile, which needless to say is undemocratic to the extreme), its just the logical outcome of us being able to own, use and/or consume what we produce. This in itself would make a world of difference, quite literally, on how we consciously view not only our work, but the resulting products as well. Also bear in mind, that communism would allow you to pursue multiple endeavors if you chose to do so. This would be helpful in circumventing 'burn out' or boredom, since many people eventually do get tired of doing the things even that they like.

Again, with some attention to wealth equity and perhaps my earlier suggestion of a UBI thus eliminating the "neccesity" of working for survival.

Remember, there is no state in communism, so all decisions on production are democratically decided and carried out by the given community per its needs. To have any input in these decisions, some participation is likely required - that's how democracy works (and by democracy, I mean in the realest sense of the word, and not the meaningless empty sham that is bourgeois democracy because capitalism and democracy are absolutely incompatible with one another - you can't have it both ways).

If there is now only capitalism, then your claim is that there exist no democracies. Um, like Switzerland.

But, let us consider some thinking on "factions" in a pure democracy, such as James Madison in Federalist No. 10.

Consequently, the democracy of Switzerland held a referendum on a UBI this year. It gained a 23% yes, vote. Not passing this time.