Communism

Incentives: Incentives"such as higher pay for doctors"are necessary to give people the energy they need to work hard in a difficult job. When there are no extra incentives available"such as in a Communist state, where all reap an equal share in what some have worked harder to sow" the people in difficult jobs quickly lose their motivation. For example, workers would stop caring about how thoroughly they inspect the cars on the assembly lines, since it makes no difference to them either way. Or chefs won"t care about how nicely they cook the food because they get the same out of it either way! They are also likely to grow bitter at the government for failing to give them recognition when they do a good job. Revolts become a distinct liability; many Communist states have fallen because of this problem of reduced incentives. This is common logic. You stated that monetary incentives can actually decrease the motivation to work, while history has proven that wrong. In Russia, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, , etc.. You say intrinsic motivation leads to better job performance, that"s true. But there is no intrinsic motivation without monetary motivation. Because in an Communist society you will have no motivation whatsoever because no matter how much effort you put into what you are doing, you will get the same outcome. What is the logic in putting in a lot of input but getting the same output as someone that has put in minimal input. Yes some people do jobs that pay less because they love it. But that job still pays. If there were no money involved whatsoever their would be no motivation whatsoever.History shows this. And this is why Capitalist society"s succeed. You can"t say that monetary incentive doesn"t work because it works in every capitalist country in the world. The fact that Communism has never succeeded and never will is because it is devoid of monetary incentive! Imagine two people, Person A and B. Person A works hard. B slacks off, skips days, and chats at the water fountain. To no one's surprise, A is much more productive than B. As a result, A is given more work, since A can finish the work faster. Since they both receive the same compensation regardless of their work, A ends up getting screwed. Ultimately this does not encourage effort. https://whistlinginthewind.org... This is a quote that you cited without any given source. "The more people focus on their salaries, the less they will focus on satisfying their intellectual curiosity, learning new skills, or having fun, and those are the very things that make people perform best. The fact that there is little evidence to show that money motivates us, and a great deal of evidence to suggest that it actually demotivates us, supports the idea that that there may be hidden costs associated with rewards." [1] This quote is irrelevant because either way. All forms of Communism are known to induce almost 0 intellectual curiosity. It diminishes the geniuses and the innovation that they create. This is linked with incentives and my other examples of it. Geniuses and businessmen and women would not feel the slightest bit encouraged to create when they wouldn't get profit or wouldn't even get rewarded! Money: Fifty years ago, Ludwig von Mises exposed the total inability of a planned, moneyless economy to operate above the most primitive level. For he showed that money-prices are indispensable for the rational allocation of all of our scarce resources " labor, land, and capital goods " to the fields and the areas where they are most desired by the consumers and where they could operate with greatest efficiency. The socialists conceded the correctness of Mises challenge, and set about " in vain " to find a way to have a rational, market price system within the context of a socialist planned economy. Example- You say that "War Communism" wasn't just a moneyless economy. The reality is that extreme economic centralization, authoritarian state control, and centralized distribution always ensues with any form of Communism. That is why any form of Communism has never worked and will never work. It looks good in theory but isn"t good when implemented. You also cited a quote that represented the failing of communism in Argentina in capitalism when this was not real capitalism. That we, in the U.S. have implemented. Things looked a little brighter more than 10 years ago, when President Carlos Menem took office. He aligned his government with the U.S. free-market philosophy and executed an aggressive economic liberalization plan. He privatized state-owned enterprises, discarded price controls, deregulated the banking system and removed restrictions on foreign investment. These steps brought high economic growth and helped cut the number of families living below the poverty line from 38 percent in 1989 to 13 percent in 1994. But these reforms alone, good as they were, could never have created an adequate environment for capitalism to flourish in Argentina. To achieve prosperity on a long-term basis, Menem's government should have reduced, first, the cost of doing business in Argentina. Argentina's stubborn 18 percent unemployment rate is deeply rooted in the rigidity of its labor market. Every thing that in the United States is a negotiable benefit -- vacations, health coverage, bonuses -- is a legal mandate in Argentina. In addition, all businesses, from large corporations to the street-side booths that sell ties, face high taxes and burdensome regulations. And by keeping trade barriers high, Argentina supports a few inefficient local industries at the expense of consumers. http://www.heritage.org... 1) The Idea Itself is Silly and Divorced From Reality. A lot of people say "Communism is great on paper, but it doesn't work in reality!" I don't think it is even a good idea on paper. Every place that has tried to implement communism on a large scale has resulted in one or more of the following A) Dictatorship, B) Mass Murder, C) Abject Poverty. Every single one has resulted in at least one of these three things. Now before you start with the "Well that isn't true communism!" I agree with you. Nowhere does Marx advocate these things. I agree completely. But at what point do we stop supporting the idea? When do we say "Well maybe it isn't the implementation of the idea, but the idea itself that is stupid?" For example, if I convince a hundred people to drive with their feet, they could try it. And what would the result be? A lot of car accidents and a lot of needless injuries and deaths. Now, that wasn't my intention. I just wanted people to free their hands up, not kill people. But any rational person is going to see that my idea was stupid. They would see why X caused Y. Yet for some reason, despite the countless attempts to implement communism, people are still not putting any blame on the idea. Just on those who try and implement it. Besides that, the idea itself is completely divorced from reality. I could start a system called "Rainbowism" where we all live on rainbows and nobody has to work because the magical leprechauns feed us Lucky Charms all day, but of course this could never exist in reality. And if somebody tried to implement it, it would be a disaster. Then a hundred years later people would be arguing "Well that wasn't true Rainbowism! True Rainbowism would be great!" 2) Human Greed/Incentives. The incentives simply aren't there. This doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out. If I'm a college professor and I tell my students that each one will get an average C no matter what, how many do you think are going to take the course seriously and do their work? Not that many. People need incentives. This is well documented. Every book on psychology, economics, leadership, business, etc. will tell you the same thing, as will common sense.