h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think people are really lost when it comes to this topic, which is what compelled me to write it out as simply as possible. First thing one has to know is that there has never been Communism existent on the planet at any point in history. All of what Capitalist would call Communism is Socialism. There is a major difference between the two, but no one is going to understand it until I give a lot more reasoning. The cardinal rule in every system of government is economics come first, not philosophy. No matter how many ideas are proposed or how good they sound, none of them will work without money. So, first I will have to explain Capitalist economics vs Socialist Economics vs Communist Economics. During all these examples I will use two people, Joe and Bob, and the factory, which for simplicities sake will produce one thing. This one thing, a chair, we will pretend is the only thing necessary for human survival. Also, it might help if you write it down somewhere as I take you through it.

1) Capitalism:
Joe will own the factory and Bob will work in the factory. Joe owns a factory in which he has the materials to make the chairs. Bob makes a chair which is now worth 100 dollars due to the work that went into it. Joe pays Bob 50 dollars for the chair. Bob cannot buy the chair yet because he only has 50 dollars not 100. So, Bob makes another chair worth 100 dollars and Joe pays him 50 dollars for the chair. Joe now has to sell 2 chairs, but Bob can only buy 1. Bob buys 1 chair and now has to make 2 chairs in order to buy the one he just made. Bob makes 2 chairs and buys 1 chair so now Joe has 2 chairs. Bob keeps using up the chairs mind you so he has to keep getting money to buy more. Bob makes 2 chairs and buys 1 so now Joe has 3 chairs. Joe has a problem. Since Joe has to make a profit to stay in business he has to sell the 3 chairs. He can’t sell them, however, because Bob does not have the money and they are the only two people on the planet.
The problem began with the fact that Joe owns the factory and did not pay Bob the full amount that the chair was worth. In other words, since Joe did not pay Bob the full amount because Joe has to make a profit, the profit making is the problem.
Joe will have to keep paying Bob as long a he has the job, which will only make Joe’s loss of profit grow. Therefore he will have to fire Bob. Bob will die because he cannot make the thing he needs, because Joe claims he owns the factory. The factory is the only place chairs can be made. Joe will die a little later, because he is lazy and does not know how to make the chair, and he cannot rehire Bob because Bob is dead.

Question:
Quite a predicament Joe and Bob are in under the capitalist system. I know what your saying, there will always be other people to sell the chair too. By doing that all you do is dump the problem on to someone else and eventually everything will fall apart. Now lets see how Socialism solves this nasty problem.

2) Socialism:
Joe and Bob own the factory in common. Once again the materials are present, but since there are two people they only have to do half the work. They make one chair worth a 100 dollars, but both only receive 50 dollars for making the chair. So, they make another chair worth 100 dollars and they each get another 50 for that chair. We now have 2 chairs to sell and 2 people who each have enough for 1 chair. Beautiful math isn’t it. Both chairs are sold, 1 to Joe and 1 to Bob, therefore the net profit was zero.
No profit was made and thus the problem was solved through common ownership of all the things that produced money. In this case the only thing that produced money was the factory, but this same scenario can be applied to real world societies just as easily. All you have to do is apply it to everything that produces money, which excludes things like your house.

Question:
I know what your thinking, “Where does that communist “dictatorship” thing come in, I mean people only talk about how “evil” it is all the time.” Communism is nothing but Socialism in it’s final stage.

3) Communism:
Joe and Bob have been working a long time, and together have made a lot of chairs. So many chairs is fact, that they now have an over abundance. Let’s assume about 100 more chairs than what is actually needed. This makes 50 chairs per person. That is a lot more than the 3 Joe got under Capitalism and more importantly Joe has someone to share them with, namely Bob. Also, since the more there are of the chairs the lower the price of the chair goes, then now the chairs have to be worth about zero dollars. So, we can throw money out the window so to speak. Joe and Bob do not care because they have more chairs than they could ever need.

Back to the “dictatorship” question. The fact is all governments are a dictatorship of some form or another. That is not the problem. People make the government and the economics make the people. The reason the economics make the people is because people are dependent upon material possessions for survival. If people choose an economic system which favors one person over another, like capitalism, you will get unemployment, war, no health care, and etc. If people choose an economic system in which people get what they worked for, then you get good people.

Question:
Another thing you might be saying is, “Well then you would have to pay everyone the same wage.” This is solved through percentages. The objective is not to give everyone the same wage, but to make the net profit zero. No profit is good, contrary to what you may have been taught in school. What this means is no one gets ripped off and instead gets paid what they deserve. This in turn means the harder you work the more you get. What could be more fair than that.

Well, that is the basics for you. Obviously, philosophy can really get started once the over abundance is achieved. The problem is Capitalism seems to dominate the world at the moment. I hope this helps all the people out there who are curious about the topic.

Hey you forgot though mate....socialism and communism don't really need to involve the profit margin, so in socialism a chair could be produced for say, 70$

Well, if you sell the chair for $70 then the workers/owners(Joe and Bob) each get $35 of pay.