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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Very reasonable take. I'm here for it.
Hard pass.
Communists should take a long, hard look at how well communism has worked elsewhere. Capitalism has many problems, and wealth inequality is one of them, but it's the economic system that has worked best so far. The fact is that my surgeon should earn a lot more than my gardener.
Really, the problem stems from the idea of wealth in general. To use a Communist structure like that would require eliminating the concept of non-tangible “wealth” entirely. Because otherwise you get the kind of incongruencies that you describe.
It’s hard though, right? Without wealth, how do you value the work of others? It used to be done by bartering. Or perhaps people did it because they were good at it, and didn’t mind helping out. People worked together.
Obviously this doesn’t fit in the modern era, when people generally work specifically to earn money, rather than for some general purpose. People probably aren’t going to want to do the job they already have in exchange for nothing but goodwill. They have to have a purpose. Our purpose in Capitalism (unless you are very lucky) is to earn Wealth so we can continue to exist, and as a guiding philosophy that does a decent enough job for most people.
You're romanticizing an era that never existed. Even if we can build such an economy, it's absurdly impractical in a modern, complex world. Sure, if we only had to build homes, hunt, and make babies that's fine, but too many modern necessities, such as sanitation, require a reward beyond being good at it or helping out.
Yes, this was my exact point. Money is how we quantify the value of effort in the modern era. It’s why Communism will never work with our current framework. They are fundamentally incompatible. Our purpose in life is to make money, we cannot just start giving everyone equal quantities of it — life would be meaningless. It requires a paradigm shift on how we value effort.