Under modern food production systems that are entirely for profit we have had less famine in the world than any prior generation and especially far less famine in the world than in any communist nation that has tried to go and produce food without profit motives.
Ideas like this one will lead far more people to starve.
@bioemerl Many many more people who would otherwise starve no longer starve. Many many more people who would otherwise have access to nutritional food are now surrounded by food that makes them sick.
I hope we can agree that both are true and there are ways to do better.
We failed with no profit motive and we failed by maximizing profit motive. I don’t think this idea would cause any more people to starve. I worry about our ongoing, collective failures of imagination.
No, I don’t know how to solve the problem.
No, I don’t know how to solve the problem.
It’s really not hard, You just push for regulations. Problem is, people like their junk food so they are almost always against regulations against it.
We are a democracy at the end of the day and taking away people’s favorite foods is going to cause politicians to get voted out of office, even if it’s better for them.
Under capitalism there is so much food that most people are overweight. Under communism on the other hand, people can’t afford food and subsequently starve to death.
Lmao, gotta call all the people living in the street and starving to death in capitalist countries that it’s their own fucking fault, they probably havent noticed they are in a capitalist country and not in a communist one i guess.
No system is perfect. Which would you prefer, the one where many more people starve to death, or the one where significantly less people starve to death?
Why are you presenting those choices as if they’re the only ones available? We can choose to have a system where nobody starves to death.
Things holding us back: fascists, capitalists, dictators, monarchs, oligarchs.
Steps in the right direction: socialist policies like social security, universal healthcare, road management, electricity distribution, public transportation, public education, and others. Including welfare, which includes food and other basic necessities.
Oh, and mustn’t forget people like you, who like to deem themselves the arbiters of all such choices and demand reality bend to your silly whims. Or rather, you like to misrepresent reality as a narrowminded fantasy, because in it you may not be powerful, but at least you can pretend like you know things.
It costs money to produce food.
The more people you want to feed, the more money it costs.
Food production is not free. Food distribution is not free.
If you have an alternative to capitalism, I’m open, but you can’t just stamp your feet and go “but it should be free!” It’s not, someone has to pay for the seed, irrigation, fertilization, equipment fuel and labor involved in production and distribution.
p.s. Is it just me or is it the same people wanting $20+ hour minimum wage who also think food should be free?
It costs money to produce food.
The more people you want to feed, the more money it costs.
Food production is not free. Food distribution is not free.
Then it should be a task of the State, as “feeding people” is, quite obviously, a task Too Big to Fail. And, as such, the State can (and should) just automatically print the money needed to reward the work done. Feeding the hungry should not depend on a “budget”. A budget is basically putting a price on human lives.
Great, you just caused hyperinflation for everything else and destroyed the economy.
https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/business-strategy/hyperinflation.shtml
Of course, but maybe destroying the modern economy is a good thing. Things like serving essential needs causing hyperinflation showcases that modern economy is purposefully built to make people lose. No matter what you try to do to help society, something (or rather, someone) counterplays you.
IMO the real solution is that things that are essential, like food and health, should not depend on money exchange to be provided, period. Sure, producers of food and providers of health should be paid for their work, but that payment should not have a codependence with the fact that the hungry or unhealthy person get the attention they need.
“Our labor has conquered scarcity”… Bro they’ve conquered scarcity now? I didn’t even know! If someone has conquered the universal reality of scarcity they can ask whatever they want as minimum wage. 🤣
Yes, you are correct, food is not free. So does that mean it is good (per your morality) that people starve? The military is super expensive, but that hasn’t stopped us from deciding all Americans need protection and making that happen.
Capitalism has done some good stuff, but it has also done some bad stuff too. It’s not an all or nothing proposition. I think if the majority of us agree everyone should have access to food, money should be a detail to solve, not a barrier.
The question is, do you think food should be free? Have you ever thought about it seriously?
Morality doesn’t enter into it. If you want something that somebody else puts effort into producing, they need to be compensated for their effort, materials, etc. etc.
I guess you could phrase that as a moral demand. You don’t have free access to the results of someone elses effort.
You want to eat without paying someone? Grow your own food. Nothing stopping you. Oh, but you’ll have to pay for the land, seed, water, fertilizer, animals. Learn how to slaughter and butcher on your own because you can’t pay someone else to teach you those skills. You could learn to hunt, but then you’d have to make your own weapons because even re-loading supplies cost money.
Ok, so it sounds like in your case, the market is morality, if I am understanding you. So you would be cool with buying and selling slaves and paying hit men to kill people? All that would be good because everyone was paid?
Have you though about this stuff seriously?
So, one has to pay for the means of production including the land, which is just sitting there and required nobody to go to any effort?
You see the problem there?
It does however get considerably cheaper to produce more food when production is scaled up. If enough people got together on the “free food” they could potentially do it cheaper than what capitalism provides.
The issue however is that capitalism has already made food really fucking cheap. It’s actually too cheap. And that is because someone else is paying the true cost of providing it. Obviously the animals who sacrifice the their lives, but also the human workers who also sacrifice their lives, just to bring food for everyone. Everyone eats, nobody gets paid, except for the owners who also do none of the work.
On a per capita basis, yes. But the Doritos that sell for $6 a bag come out of a multi billion dollar organization (Frito Lay, part of Pepsi).
Individuals coming together to produce a single bag of Doritos aren’t going to be able to do it for $6. They need the infrastructure of that multi billion dollar corporation to get there.
Yes, exactly. The problem is to get local produce cheaper than importing global crap. Distribution is a huge part of it. It shouldn’t be cheaper to transport crap food globally than for a domestic producer to deliver quality food, but it is.
It cost <insert human created construct> to feed people so let’s let them starve instead. Nice one.
Food should be free though - the basics at least. The same with clothing and housing. These are 3 essential things that any civilised society should be able to provide to all of its citizens.
Beyond that, people will want nice things. People will work for money to buy those nice things. There’s this whole fiction about benefit scroungers that doesn’t really ring true, very few people spend their entire lives reliant on social welfare, rather it allows them to pick themselves up and make money to improve their position in life.
If people are without food, clothing or shelter they run the risk of basically turning feral. No one should want that for anyone else.
First, I don’t think they ever said food should be free. Second, capitalism and communism and all the isms are the inventions of people - humanity makes the rules. Third, there is an awful lot of wiggle room between today’s food prices and “free”. Put it all together, and you might realize that feeding everyone doesn’t have to mean food is free and farmers and distributors go bankrupt.
You call into question whether there are any alternatives to capitalism as if nobody has ever proposed any, and you call out people who want a $20/hour minimum wage as if minimum wage hasn’t been falling behind inflation and cost of living for decades. It kinda sounds like you want to pin society’s problems on the failure of individuals and don’t see anything wrong with “the system”.
I don’t think anything less than a collective effort to support the vulnerable and dismantle the rotten parts of the system has any hope of improving our situation.
Yikes. Capitalism has its flaws but food production is far from one of them.
It’s not a bug that capitalism is based on greed, it’s a feature. It works (relatively speaking) because it leverages humanity’s shittyness.
Communism has failed to operate without corruption or authoritarianism, because it depends on people actually giving a shit about each other long term.
They both fail, but the problem isn’t the system. The problem is people. People try to put themselves into positions of power, retain their position of power and exploit that position of power. Capitalism and communism are simply attempted solutions, however unfortunately they don’t adequately deal with the human problem.
With capitalism, people exploit the value exchange. They lie about how much something costs to source or produce, then lie about how much someone else should pay for it, and also about how much a worker’s time is worth. Such that you end up with people doing a lot and getting nothing and people doing very little if anything but getting lots.
With communism, people put themselves in positions of power to decide how things should be distributed, then vigorously quell and dissenting voices that ask whether things are being distributed fairly. The end result is more or less the same as capitalism - a small portion of people getting a large portion of wealth.
Any solution must take into account human tendencies to abuse the system, and make efforts to prevent it. However quite often perfection ends up being the enemy of progress - we don’t try new things because they might be abused, and end up sticking with the current system which is definitely being abused. This only benefits the abusers. Rather, we should aggressively try new social systems, but also regularly review and either reverse or continue to improve upon them. If nothing else, the changing system will disrupt abusers, as they have to constantly develop new methods.
Thanks for the thought provoking reply!
My impression is that all systems fail long term and need to break down and be renewed after crisis. Once it becomes entrenched, I think odds are heavily against being able to try social systems.
Have you seen a system like you describe, where a structure to continue change and experimentation is built in? To me capitalism with strong controls seems the most stable and successful (assuming your benchmark is population qualify of life not just GDP), e.g. some European systems.
Arrrrg I wrote out a big reply, was about to post, then realised I’d accidentally downvoted you. When I changed that downvote to an upvote my reply was reset. #lemmybugs.
Here’s take 2.
My impression is that all systems fail long term and need to break down and be renewed after crisis. Once it becomes entrenched, I think odds are heavily against being able to try social systems.
I’d agree with this, genreally. It feeds into the point in my last paragraph: we need a changing system to destabilise incumbant powers, such that they cannot abuse the system as effectively. These changes must be driven by objective improvemnents, democratically decided. Furthermore, I would say that total democracy is a win.
People will point to Brexit as an example of the hazards of giving people a vote. However, the truth is Brexit was a disinformation campaign - such a campaign cannot be maintained indefinitely, it can only be focused onto key events - particularly when it was driven by targeted lies (primarily on Facebook) immediately before a vote. You can say whatever you want if only the people who won’t question it see it, and by the time anyone else does it will be too late. If people had subsequent opporunities to decide how Brexit would be done, along with votes on whether or not to proceed down any particular route, things wouldn’t have been anywhere near as bad.
I believe in a strong social safety net. The bare basics of human needs should be provided for any citizen: food, clothing, and shelter. Without these needs, people get desperate, and they turn feral. They resort to crime - which then easily becomes a habit. This is worse for everyone overall; by preventing this we help maintain a stable and productive society.
The basics should be provided. If people want nice things, they should have to work for it. If you want a nice house, you need to work and earn enough. If you want nice designer clothes, you need to work. If you want a PS5/Sexbox/1337 PC you need to work for it and earn it. If you just want to rest on your laurels with the bare minimum, that should be an option, too.
However lazing about doing nothing is incredibly fucking boring and unfulfilling. No one wants to live their life that way. The lifetime benefit scrounger is pretty much a myth - maybe there’s one or two who game the system, but it never lasts forever. People want to improve their position in life, they want to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”, they just need the opportunity.
I know this full well. I’ve had the luxury of not doing anything, I’ve skirted poverty but never quite truly fell into it. And it’s not anywhere anyone wants to be. However, even in my position success is limited - debtors and financiers prey upon anyone who falls below a certain line. If you pay off your credit cards every month, they’ll feed you more credit, then when you start building up debt they’ll rack up your interest rates such that your instinct is to dig in deeper in some vein hope of finding your way out.
Meanwhile, the past is littered with famous artists, many musicians, who have spent some time living off the state. These stories have become fewer and fewer over the past couple decades - no one can live off the dole anymore. This begs the question: how much social development has the human race missed out on, given that young people have been stretched to their limit, such that they barely even want to contribute anything because their prospects are now so bleak?
People shouldn’t be exploited to their limits. Particularly, citizens of any country shouldn’t be left to rot. Any great country that calls itself wealthy should be able to care for its people, such that these people can find their feet and positively contribute to the collective good. And that collective good must belong to everyone, not just those who sit at the top and do very little to contribute themselves.
I think it is interesting that when talking about systems designed to organize people, their labor, and what to produce, that you are blaming people. It’s kind of like blaming water for flowing down hill when you want it to go up into your kitchen sink. Maybe use pipes and pressurized water instead.
If these systems don’t work, the issues are with the systems and not with the people.
I don’t think they blamed people. I think they said the issue is that the systems didn’t account for people. That’s saying the systems are inadequate solutions for the scenario.
It’s like saying an iron rod rusts when placed in salt water because it didn’t account for the salt water. The iron rod might be a good design but it’s not designed for that use.
this is like playing poker with someone and blaming the game when they exploit their position as dealer to slip themself an ace off the bottom of the deck.
that said, i partially agree. the systems shouldn’t encourage greed or authoritarianism. we need a middle way and a system that accounts for peoples’ less wholesome tendencies and doesn’t reward them while encouraging wholesome behavior like sharing and generosity.
burning man culture does an interesting job of this with decommodification and gifting principles.
I feel like you’re misrepresenting or misunderstanding what communism is. You might base your opinion on the soviet union but they never actually achieved communism, and some would even say it was state capitalism and not even socialism. In fact it’s unlikely we’ll ever see what an actual communist society would be because it’s very much a vague utopia, and just a goal to strive towards.
Communism by definition actually isn’t very clear because Marx never actually got into the details of how a communist society day to day life would look like. But he did postulate the primary idea of communism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” One idea of communism is that it’s stateless and classless, meaning there literally couldn’t be a small portion of people getting a large portion of wealth. Marx himself actually said that future communist institutions should be designed to be decided democratically by the people.
I’m going to copy my other comment as it covers my thoughts on this:
I think a lot of the issue comes down to terminology. Communism has been bastardised and turned into a dirty word, it has very negative connotations for a lot of people. Most implementations of communism in the world don’t really fit the ideology, and now people think of the countries for the definition.
I would first define socialist policy: that which is made for the greater good of society as a whole, rather than for the benefit of select groups at the expense of society.
I think true communism is what you would get if you consistently implemented socialist policy again and again over a long period. If we develop robust policies that create a net benefit for the people as a group, we will end up having a communist society.
But trying to jump and change to communism straight away is fraught with issues, because during the change sociopathic people will take the opportunity and steer things in their favour by implementing policy that benefits themselves over others.
I absolutely agree with democratically deciding everything. I think technology has reached the point where we could give people that opportunity. We all have devices in our pockets that have the capability to communicate with everyone else, so we don’t need representatives to do it on our behalf (particularly when all too often they don’t actually represent us when they vote on policy). There are potential problems with this, of course, however these problems are primarily technical in nature and could be overcome.
Part of the issue with this take is that communism isn’t a system for organizing government, but rather that of labor and resources. It is not true that communism has failed. Rather it is true that communism under totalitarian regisms has failed. True Communism requires that the people have the power, which in turn would require a true Democracy
If a certain type of government is not possible to install is that a feasible form of governance?
Relatively speaking, I’d say yes.
The communist systems I’m aware of have failed hard on these due to not having built in outlets for negative human characteristics.
Seems like your understanding of communism comes from cold war propaganda
No, we tried communism, the weird dielectric system of government that Lenin came up with.
Communism, the market ideology, can exist within a capitalist framework - all we have to do is say “companies are owned and operated by employees. From now on, we cap ROI when loaning money, no more infinite payout because you provided startup capital”.
Communes and entirely employee owned/operated companies exist, and they do well. They just don’t grow until they implode - they grow to a point and then stop letting people in
Communism is a market system, not a system of government. It doesn’t need to be centralized - and centralization is the real problem IMO
In a way: when you legalize the most common forms of corruption and gaslight people into thinking of your favorite kinds of authoritarianism as normal and necessary, suddenly you don’t officially have a problem!
That’s how the US and many other supposedly free and uncorrupted capitalist nations do it, anyway.
