/marx/ - Marxism

>>1116
Ok, I guess I should explain my own beliefs first. I do not believe in equality. It's not a racial or sex thing either. A good driving force in society is to improve one's standing in order to provide better opportunities for one's offspring. A parent does live a little vicariously through his offspring, and will feel success when his child feels success. It is only natural that a parent will want the best for his child, and making a truly equal society will kill this desire since the parent's successes will have no impact on the success of his child. One may think that good of society is motivation enough, but the naivete of this statement is truly staggering. Society is a nebulous idea that does not carry much weight. Individuals with little room for economic improvement will think that others will pick up his slack, but this is not the case when everyone feels that way. Eventual stagnation is the only result of such thinking. There are methods of increasing output, but most effective method is rallying around an enemy. This causes needless wars and needless waste of lives and resources which only hurts the society in the long run.

>>1119
What is the incentive for innovation in this model? If a person improves on a method of production, then the government immediately owns it, and he can not profit from his work.

I guess equality means everyone is equally subordinated to each other.

Subordinating means decreasing someone's freedom to increase your own freedom.

Freedom means the ability to alter the world to suit one's own desires.

So I guess people have equality when they have equal freedom, meaning equal ability to alter the world to suit their desires.

Since even in system where people have equal legal rights, people have different abilities and desires, not everyone shares the same freedom I guess, so not everyone is equal really.

In the end I guess it's about balancing and maximizing the fulfillment of everyone's desires according to a utilitarian principle or something.

>>1120

Reputation, feeling-good about doing something new and useful, and the desire for increased productivity meaning easier work and more free time.

There was innovation way before capitalism or money was around. Human have been innovating since prehistory.

>>1119

Thanks for this. Based Lenin.

>>1119
Thanks for this. I just watched a video lecture a day ago by a feminist socialist on the Critique on the Gotha Program and the woman was interpreting Marx as standing by the ridiculous notion of biological and skill equality as an end goal of socialism, something that's just not going to happen while we're humans, don't engage in genetic engineering, or become post human robots.

Fuck absolute equality. I like my differences in society, it's what makes life interesting.

>>1120
Who says they can't profit from it? Workers who put in more labor than others were not only paid more, but were also given various psychological benefits, e.g. famous workers like Stakhanov (who achieved an ungodly level of productivity at work) were made deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR or to local SSRs (Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, etc.), were mentioned frequently in the newspapers as examples worthy of emulation, etc.

The USSR had inventors' societies which existed to encourage workers to find ways to improve the way work went at factories. To quote Sidney and Beatrice Webb in Soviet Communism, Vol. II, 1936, p. 770 footnote: "It was reported that, in the Leningrad district, 138 out of 700 postponed suggestions had now been adopted in the electric apparatus plant alone; whilst at the shoe factory 34 suggestions out of 83 had been put in practice; and at another plant 61 suggestions."