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

Sorry, I am not able to hold this high level discussion. In USSR there was definately no communism, Captain Kebab is right here. And most of the people are not happy in these free market conditions. People weren't slaves in USSR, they got very small money indeed, but everything was very cheap then - low taxes, free health care, extra cheap goods for children, kindergartens almost for free etc etc.
I know that for sure as I have been living there for years.
I think that there was nothing extra wrong with the ideas of Marx but they way these ideas were handled or (ab)used made them end where they are now. I don't want to go back to these days but I am not happy with the way things are now. This is not what we were fighting for.

~sigh~

As ever, people missed the point. Marx created an ideal. I think the last thing he expected was for people to take him seriously, let along try to run a society on it.

He was right about a lot of things, was Karl. Put two people in a situation, you've got a co-operative. Add another and you have a political situation. It happens everywhere.

Answer: on no account should human beings be allowed access to developed ideals until they have grown up a bit. Or a lot.

In short: Socialism - a three am chemically inspired strokey-beard conversation. Damn fine idea, sloppily executed by flawed people.

"Marx created an ideal. I think the last thing he expected was for people to take him seriously"

What was he doing at all those International's then? Taking advantage of the free sandwiches?

Very true, execpt Marx himself fully believed in what he wrote. But yes he didn't think other people would take him seriously.

Dorian

Zagreb - the Marxist doctrine of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" was created to address Marx's own fundamental poverty problem.

He had nothing. He made nothing and he had no skills other than writing. So he wrote, and provided a reason to hold Internationales in the first place. He knew, being well versed in capitalism, that there would eventually be free sandwiches (supply and demand), and this would solve his food problems.

In dealing with Karl Marx, you should never underestimate his intelligence or his capacity for cheese and pickle on crusty white.

Shall I start a new thread entitled "Marx's favourite sarnies?"



Ste

Comical, and sad, but true

Dorian

well.. might be so.. but that was what a seriouspaper I had in history told me... I haven't read the original sources, I fear, but still according to that paper, social democracy only goes for partly equal opportunities, a gradual difference

this was a reply to an ageold posting, this conversation is going too fast for me...
And hardly any ideas can cope with the real world. I quite agree, they are beautiful as they come, but they can so easily be wrecked

> "The great communist states (USSR and now China) have added virtually nothing to the body of knowledge."

Yeah. It's not like they put the first man in space or anything.

-MyRedDice

And those Mig-29 fighters? Pah! rather have biplanes

"The great communist states (USSR and now China) have added virtually nothing to the body of knowledge."

"Yeah. It's not like they put the first man in space or anything."

"-MyRedDice"

FYI most of the work of the Russia space effort and the US space effort was "borrowed" from German efforts in WWII with the V1 and V2 rockets.

Statistically most of the 20th Centuries most (approxiamtely 50%)important and successful technical innovations and advances originate in the UK (source a Japanese survey).

The US, Germany and Japan are also major contributors.

Care to dispute this?

The problem with socialism as I see it, although I haven't made any special study of it, is that it only works if everybody agrees. The rich must want to give up some of their wealth to people who want to work hard. It is far too easy to freeload in a pure socialist society, and impossible to deal with freeloaders without doing irreparable damage to one principle or another.
There have been plenty of occasions when small communes of consenting citizens have been a success. Revolution, though, means trying to shout down or brutally eliminate the dissenters, which is a bad start.
If everybody wants equality, they can make equality. If one person wants to be unequal, they can subvert the trusting system to the extent that they are in a superior position, and the experiment has failed.

The way you put it makes it sound like game theory.

Every scientific advance builds on earlier ones - so yes, both space programs built on German developments in rocketry, amongst other things. And? If you want to claim that fascism is a wonderful way to develop science, then go for it. Almost all science can eventually be traced back to the Greeks - should we return to their political systems?

I haven't seen the specific survey. I would guess that it rates 'success' as monetary success. If you apply capitalist criteria to judge science, is it any wonder that you come up with results which show a correlation between science and capitalism? Besides which, correlation still isn't cause: capitalist countries have the majority of baseball teams, but I'd be hesitant to say that the one causes the other.

Point is, major science projects are done by the state anyway, in both capitalist, communist, fascist, and every other sort of system. (except anarchy, which doesn't do large scale science at all). So it's all an identical, and it's frankly silly to claim that one is better than the other.

For smaller-scale projects, I think it's fair to say that capitalism has an advantage in production. On the other hand, in communism the fruits of such research are not restricted by patents or other nonsensical ideas, so Communism has an advantage in consumption. In addition, Communist countries are free to develop technologies without excessive concern about exploitability for profit.

If you want to claim that capitalism has an edge in science, that's fine - and I might even agree with you to some extent. That's a long way from a claim that the USSR has produced 'virtually nothing'.

-MyRedDice (contributing to the communal body of knowledge known as h2g2)

"If you want to claim that fascism is a wonderful way to develop science, then go for it."

Sorry but facism is abhorrent.

"Almost all science can eventually be traced back to the Greeks - should we return to their political systems?"

Have no idea, weren't there elements of early democracy in there?

"I haven't seen the specific survey. I would guess that it rates 'success' as monetary success."

Good guess, the measure certainly was commercial success, but then what other measure would you apply?

"Besides which, correlation still isn't cause: capitalist countries have the majority of baseball teams, but I'd be hesitant to say that the one causes the other."

India has more tigers and China more pandas, but like you say the link is tenuous.

"Point is, major science projects are done by the state anyway, in both capitalist, communist, fascist, and every other sort of system."

Oops. Sorry but that's tosh. Have you looked at just how much an organisation like BP-Amoco spends in R&T? How about Glaxo-Wellcome? P&G? Microsoft? If you add up the R&T spends of the major corporations (let alone the smaller ones) and add to that the private research conducted by academic establishments and charities and compare that to state funded research in the west and you will come up with a bit of a surprise.

Furthermore the track record of state research in west is absolutely abysmal when you look at how successful it is in comparison to its cost.

"Communist countries are free to develop technologies without excessive concern about exploitability for profit"

Therein lies the point. Communist countries have little or no incentive to develop new technologies. Communist cultures are inherrently conservative when it comes to risks and with no reward available why would any one want to rock the boat?

A471467 describes some aspects of greek democracy. But my point is that (almost) all science is based on previous science, so you can't dismiss USSR achievements simply because they were based on previous science.

> "Good guess, the measure certainly was commercial success, but then what other measure would you apply?"

I'm not the one making unjustified claims about the state of communist science...

re: state science. I was referring only to large scale projects. Unless Microsoft have set up a supercollider while I wasn't watching, I think my comment is accurate... I was also including academic research that's state funded, which is essentially equivalent to state science.

But I did say (in the next para ) capitalism has an advantage in science production - and this is due to the private sector being more prolific.

> "Communist countries have little or no incentive to develop new technologies..."

Most scientists don't do science for the money. They do it for a bunch of reasons - and all those reasons are just as valid under communism as capitalism. Science will still be done, and it'll be done a lot more effectively in many arenas. Linux is a communist operating system, and it competes with the commercial unixes.

"But my point is that (almost) all science is based on previous science, so you can't dismiss USSR achievements simply because they were based on previous science."

I've been there before and elsewhere I posted a fairly reasonable description of the scientific method (I probably ought to convert it to a guide entry at some point). Of course science is built on the foundations of earlier effort.

Hmm, I haven't dismissed the achievements of the USSR and China. All I have done is indicate that relatively speaking they haven't pulled their weight while operating as communist societies.

"re: state science. I was referring only to large scale projects. Unless Microsoft have set up a supercollider while I wasn't watching, I think my comment is accurate. I was also including academic research that's state funded, which is essentially equivalent to state science."

Okay, particle physics, space and astronomy are areas where the private sector hasn't made a big impact. I can accept that. But on the other hand there are legislative restrictions on investigations in to these sectors that prohibit private sector investigation (probably a good thing too). If it weren't for government interference HOTOL might have been a commercial reality in the UK by now.

Most academic research in the US is privately funded, not state funded, and a growing proportion of European academic research is also privately funded.

"Linux is a communist operating system, and it competes with the commercial unixes."

Hmm, it's original development was carried out privately by someone outsde of a communist regime. It's further development into a successful product has been heavily reliant on commerical exploitation by others, for example Red Hat. Try and find a better example.

> "Hmm, I haven't dismissed the achievements of the USSR and China. All I have done is indicate that relatively speaking they haven't pulled their weight while operating as communist societies."

If that's the case, then I misinterpreted your original comments in post 14. Mea Culpa.



Let me explain what I mean by a communist operating system...

Yes, it was started by a private individual. It would have been started just the same in a world communist system. It was not started for profit. People contribute to it out of altruism, a desire for knowledge, a desire to research, a desire to code, a desire for a decent operating system. Some contribute out of a desire for money, but not many.

I happen to disagree that it's been benefitted hugely from commercial exploitation. There has been a benefit, but I don't think it's significant. Commercial companies have helped with distribution, but that's really a seperate issue to the science and technology discussion we're currently on.

If all the world suddenly converted to Communism, linux would still continue to be developed. Arguably faster. And that was my point - science (and technology) still gets done under communism. Does that make the example clearer?