Maybe that's the problem? The last 30 years have been built on the phrase "There is no such thing as "society," only individuals and families". It's socially acceptable to be isolated and only care about yourself or your family (a position that would be abhorrent in other cultures), and some vague sense of belonging to the nation as a whole. As you pointed out, the kind of societies where less cut-throat policies work fine are ones where people actually interact with each other socially.
Maybe economic models are completely irrelevant if the root cause of the problem is actually in social organisation?

That's kind of the way I see it. I'm still sort of working through my own personal philosophy about these things, really, as until recently I've lived pretty comfortably and had few complaints. Had the blinders on, so to speak. But the past ten years have been pretty terrifying. It might sound dramatic to say so, but we've been seeing the failure of democracy and free enterprise in this country; unfortunately, the shape of that failure looks horribly like the worst form of communism from my current perspective,

I come from (and have recently moved back to) a very small farming community in Wyoming. Close access to large stands of timber, metal resources, and plenty of arable land. Close to the top of the water-shed, so abundant water. Locally we produce numerous crops and agricultural products: sugar beets, corn, wheat, barley and so forth, as well as plenty of cattle, sheep and pigs. A dam a hundred miles away provides hydroelectric. Our area isn't self-sufficient, but it could be very near to it if necessary, making up the rest through barter. I understand the allure of communism because I grew up exposed to a simpler form of it. (Though capitalism based upon trust-based barter might actually be a more accurate description) Still... the community is fairly tight knit. And we share and help each other, to a certain extent. For the past several years, our community has done a large community garden to which all contribute, and all are allowed to partake of the harvest. The product of the garden, as well as our own garden at home, has provided a very significant part of my family's food supply in the last couple years. It's all the best parts of communism/socialism, but it's based upon the simple necessity of everyone doing their part.

Take any society and break it down to the most basic fundamentals that it needs to survive and you have a list that is pretty much what an individual needs to survive: food, water and shelter. Food is the ultimate basis of any economy; everything else is a house of cards built on top of it. Take away the supply of food, and your society will die; all the technology, all the services and products, the gizmos and doodads are ultimately just markers representing food (or water or shelter). Even video games are just very far-removed markers. We make the games so that we can pay the rent and buy the bacon.

The recent election was an eye-opener for a lot of people here where I live, people who have until now been relatively content to do their farming and growing and herding, business as usual, not entirely happy with the federal government but not discontent either. That is, until recently. Look at the election maps for the recent presidential election, see who voted Romney and who voted Obama. The blue dots are almost a picture-perfect portrait of the urban areas. The red dots, conversely, outline the rural. The producers. This election, more than any election I have witnessed in the context of this place, struck fear into the hearts of the producers of this country. We had record voter turnouts, and record new-voter registrations, levels unheard of in any past election. The reason can be summed up with one stupid, made-up word: Obamaphones.

Now, yes, most people around here are decent. If folks are in need, most people around here will help. We are pre-dominantly LDS (Mormon), and at any given point in time there are any number of service projects (quilting, sewing, care package assembly, even "exports", if you will, of volunteers to disaster areas around the area or country) in progress. We enjoy helping others; it brings us happiness. But "help" does not, in our minds, translate to "give that lady a phone". Why should we labor and sweat so that she can have her food stamps and her phone, given to her on a platter if only she'll vote the Democrat line? That is the worst form of communism, right there. That is a boot on our necks. That is armed force taking from us the fruits of our labors in an act of forced compassion to sate the greed of someone who is simply unwilling to do the work for themselves. It doesn't matter if we have a surplus; that sort of imbalance is, and should be, an outrage to any free person. Charity and kindness are great, and there are people who truly need help. We don't begrudge anyone who truly is in need, but that's not what we're seeing. We're not seeing people truly in need, we're seeing people who have been promised food stamps and Obamaphones and free healthcare, and all of these are markers that boil down to that most basic of currencies: food. And it's us, the people of my community and of thousands of other communites just like mine, who are going to ultimately have to foot that bill. We're going to have to labor, above and beyond the level of our subsistence, so that those folks can have their phones for free.

That's the brand of communism we face.

It's pretty easy to say "provide useful labor for everyone and people will be happy to do their fair share" but will they? Will they really? I don't think so. I think that the welfare-state mentality, the handouts and the Obamaphones are very persuasive bribes. As you say, who wouldn't want to kick back and let the robots gives us food so we don't have to work for it? I have lived in the city as well (8 years in Phoenix, 5 in Seattle) and I have seen the other side of the coin. I have lived among people who, for all that they knew about where the food actually comes from, might as well have been living off the sustenance of those magical robots. They were consumers in every sense of the word, taking in and taking in and not giving back so much as a cent or an ear of corn. I have done drywall and tile work in the apartments of countless people, able-bodied and young, who had no gainful employment nor any inclination to seek out such, but who had their Obamaphones (and ObamaXBoxes, and ObamaHDTVs, and ObamaMacs) regardless.

Romney was hung out to dry for his remarks regarding the 47%, but he was only voicing the same concerns that have suddenly become grave matters sitting at the very forefront of the minds of the majority of my friends, family and associates in this place. We are the producers, the very foundation of one of the 3 legs of society, and this particular unsavory brand of communism that this country is embracing is a jack-boot aimed directly at our necks. We aren't facing some sort of communist utopia, where there is plenty for all and everyone is happy to pitch in and help how they may. We are facing a communism where 10% of the population will sweat and labor so that 47% can have their Obamaphone.

In a free-market economy, we can farm for our subsistence and sell our surplus for markers or barters for luxuries and conveniences provided by someone else. But if that boot comes down and the communists come in and say "you must labor and produce so that these others can have their unearned share" then what markers do we get in return? What does that lady with her Obamaphone contribute back to us, such that society is made better for her contribution? What good is it to us? Should we just throw up our hands and say "We don't want to work anymore, so give us our Obamaphones and our food stamps so that we don't have to!"

Sorry, this is turning into kind of a crazy rant. I know it's currently fashionable to affect an air of compassion ("We have to help those illegal immigrants, we have to have compassion, why can't you just give your Fair Share and help out these welfare recipients? Why are you so cruel, that you can't pay for everyone else's healthcare? Why are you so selfish that you can't pay your crushing tax burden to help out these people who won't help themselves?") I know it's currently "in" to talk about socialism and wealth re-distribution, about taxing those filthy evil rich people because there are poor folks out there who still haven't been given an Obamaphone. But replacing free enterprise with the jack-boot is the only thing we're looking at here, and to hear other people (outsiders, people who won't have to live with the immediate, direct consequences of what is happening) say "Just embrace communism already, you damned capitalist pig" (maybe not in so many words) is frustrating and infuriating, to say the least.

Anyway, again, this has kind of brought out the bad side of me, and I really don't have the understanding of society and economics that I really need to make reasoned decisions: an oversight of mine that I am seeking to rectify, slowly and painfully. I kind of feel bad and dirty, really, for even taking part in this discussion, simply because I don't know enough. But I have a healthy amount of real fear (we are already seeing plenty of ripple-effects, of this election and certain bad bits of policy) and, for me and my neighbors, the brand of communism being brought to us is a pretty scary sight, rather than the hopeful one that some people would have us believe it is.

Waste is a price of democracy, so the deficit will reappear until democracy is gone forever. The nature of the vote causes democracy to put human flaw into law. Since humans are all flawed, democracy is flawed. Compromise results in the dilution of solutions to problems and creates many new problems to solve.

No political system made in this world has succeeded in all major areas - not even close.

Wasteful parents give birth to wasteful offspring and democracy channels their wastefulness into public policy creating debt.

Only direct intervention by a superior culture not of this world will guide humanity to solve more problems than it creates in combination with a global catastrophy to terminate many of the billions of wasteful people, though I hate the thought of this reality.


[color=red]Waste causes Deficit and only will be permanently elliminated by a global purge of everyday ordinary wasteful people.

Though I am an advocate of peace and prosperity, reality can not be ignored. My view is not extreme, it is an admittance of what is inevitable.



Clinton

Under the current system you get the problem of having enough resources to meet the needs of the people, but because tax revenues aren't high enough, governments can't provide the services (people doing a job) that are required. How many of you know someone who is qualified to work as a teacher, but is unemployed or working some other job till they can get a full time position?

Even in an entirely planned economy, you cannot work things out or predict things exactly, decades in advance. What happens when you have more teachers than are currently needed in your economy?

Society has the food, the clothing, the housing, and nearly everything else these people want[/quote]I'm not sure what you mean by "society". If we're talking about something that everyone might want, rather than need, I'm not sure that there is enough for everything that everyone wants.

but I personally know half a dozen people working part time jobs in places like coffee shops and the like, because the government can't 'afford' enough positions to have them doing something far more useful. Why? Because they don't have the money.[/quote]What would be something more useful? If it's really true that people are happy to do something more useful for no extra reward (which you seem to be suggesting - if not, I'm not sure what you're suggesting?), then the Government could get away with creating these skilled jobs for no extra pay.

Unplanned economies are gambles. They are bets, where millions of people are secretly making plans and trying to figure out how they can pull a win out of their ass before someone else does and ruins their chance. With a planned economy you sit everyone down, figure out what is actually wanted, decide who are the best people to address a given want, and have them figure out what they need in order to fulfil those requirements.[/quote]There is much planning in our society. And there is just as much a gamble in your proposed society. The difference is that you only have one set of people responsible for planning an entire economy, rather than different specialised groups of people able to independently plan what they want to do themselves.

There are no wasted resources because someone else brought their product to market a few weeks before you did and killed your sales. Less duplication of R&D efforts, because everyone working in a field would be expected to share information and developments. Sure, you get fewer product choices over all, but in theory all can be higher quality because open planning is more likely to go with the better options.[/quote]Being first to market often doesn't guarantee a monopoly on sales, or anywhere near that, especially just by a few weeks.

It's not clear to me that everyone working together on a single product is better than lots of groups working independently. It's like saying that rather than having lots of different game companies, we should have every game developer in the world working on just one game, to create the most super game ever.

It should be obvious how flawed this is on several points:
* Beyond a certain point, adding extra people to a single project gives diminishing returns, and it's more efficient to have people working separately.
* People do like choice - not everyone likes the same kind of game, and even within a given genre, people like more than one game.
* It's not clear at all that the one game you get from this would be higher quality than anything else. For example, you may have disagreements about the best way to do a particular thing, and with a single project, the best way might not be the one that's chosen. With independent projects, people have the freedom to try out different ideas - some may such, but you have a chance for better ways to succeed.

If we're judging economies on their ability to economize, then capitalism is a complete and utter failure. Where's the cost of using up stores of non-renewable resources in it's equations? Where does reduction in biodiversity fit into it's models? Why are we ok with the fact that we choose to have a poverty class, and choose to have less than 100% employment as a matter of economic policy?

If reducing waste or expenditure is the only criterion, then the best "economy" would be to remain a stone age society, or perhaps go extinct. But I don't think that's a good measure of an economy - this is just a play on words that "economy" has two distinct meanings.

You have to compare like with like - if we have to ways of say producing a set of products, or building a set of things as a society, then we would prefer to choose the method that minimises cost. But if you're saying capitalism is a complete failure, then where is the comparison? Can you point me to a society that achieved the same level of modern technology and products, with less waste?

I don't see that having less than 100% employment is a waste, on the contrary, it's more efficient if you can achieve something with less work.

Note, I'm fully in favour of things like welfare, and there are other examples of things that are better off managed by the state - things don't have to be polarised from one extreme to the other. I just don't believe that _everything_ should be.

@JTippetts: Wait - are you actually comparing Obama/Democrats to communism? That's not at all the same thing. Both US parties are predominantly capitalist, though both with support for some state funded and managed parts of the economy (Republicans still support state managed child education for example, and try arguing against their state funded/managed military...) Democrat are more "left wing", offering better support for things like welfare and state healthcare, but neither are remotely anything to do with communism.

@JTippetts: Wait - are you actually comparing Obama/Democrats to communism? That's not at all the same thing. Both US parties are predominantly capitalist, though both with support for some state funded and managed parts of the economy (Republicans still support state managed child education for example, and try arguing against their state funded/managed military...) Democrat are more "left wing", offering better support for things like welfare and state healthcare, but neither are remotely anything to do with communism.

Communism / Socialism ( almost the same thing ) is one of the core "values" of the Democratic Party.

I would suggest actually researching Marxism / Socialism, and stop assuming they have nothing to do with "left wing" politics .

@ JTippetts - That was a very well written post.

*snip*

This is why we need up-votes in the lounge.