Quotations and Literature Forum

This is just a passing thought want to get it written down. Could a small group of individuals test socialist philosophy by joining together financially?
ah im losin it. Lets say if they formed a business and pooled all their income into it.

Now the sole responsibility of the business is to provide for their basic needs, meaning a good standard of living. With the rest of the money they provide the next desired luxury or invest in say a newsagents. Now the newsagents is being owned and operated by this democratic council. The shop wont have a blind ambition of profit maximization. The business will be run according to what is best for the community(business). the profit from the shop is taken into the communal fund and the benefit is spread among all.
The business may invest in new members.

_________________
The first step in fixing something is to realise that its broken

Say they set up housing, essential services, food, and every luxury afforded to them and offer it to someone in exchange for their pooling their income into the community fund. they could offer this to the employees of the newsagents.

In theory, they could offer this to everyone as long as a job existed that could cover their basic living expenses. Expansion of the community could be done in phases with continual reinvestment of the joint fund in new factors of production which would perpetually increase the wealth of the society. At this point the group would be operating as a large investment co-operative in its interactions with the external capitalist system.

_________________
The first step in fixing something is to realise that its broken

Internally it will function as a democratic socialist community. In this community, the workforce will receive the full value of their labour. Wealth wont slowly shift away from the working class towards a much smaller group of owners. This increase in a normal persons affluence would be huge. The money would be more than enough to perpetually increase the size of the community, as any job in a capitalist system creates more wealth than the value of the workers wages.

The organization could be run just like government, the only difference being that the government controls all the factors of production within the community. This would be an extension of democracy. To avoid bureaucracy, the government obviously would delegate responsibility for each area down along through its workforce. Businesses would be run by their workers. As the community develops the ability to satisfy many of the 'wants' as well as 'needs' of its populus, Money would be redistributed back individually but equally. It wouldn't be possible for individuals to use this money to make more money, only to accumulate personal goods.

This is of course a loss of a 'freedom' but in reality would it be so bad relatively speaking? All your basic needs guaranteed to be covered, much better public services and the financial ability to buy at least as much luxury goods than you do now. The top richest people in our current system would slowly lose their excess but would hardly starve. They'd enjoy at a minimum the same standard of living as everyone else.

Back to the original principle of investment as opposed to increased luxury. Eventually everyone who wants to be in is in, and everyone is on a very good standard of living. at this point all the excess wealth of society can be devoted to;

- Increasing technology based production and eliminating human labour.

(This couldn't happen in a capitalist system because without paid workers the system doesn't function.)

- Investing as much as is needed in renewable energy.

- Funding Education, research and the arts

Essentially the wealth of society would be used to continually better society, based on a democratic decision making process. It would be nice if it worked. Would it?

Regarding the loss of innovation, competition would still exist on luxury goods and let it not be said that a profit motive is needed for scientific research.

Regarding the loss of motivation, Jobs would still be allocated on a merit basis and the natural desire for status would lead people to strive for promotion and to enter professional fields. Also a goal of government would be to reduce the need for labour as much as possible, Focusing instead as much as possible on education and research.

I've never heard a proper argument as to why democratic socialism wouldn't work. Anyone agree that this is something we should strive for?

Sorry, I live in the US. I don't know much about Socialism, other than what I read in 1984 and Animal Farm.

Do you think that the state should own and operate profit making companies?
It would be good if the state had more money for essential services wouldn't it?

_________________
The first step in fixing something is to realise that its broken

Been tried, failed.

_________________
السلام عليكم

See these two:

http://loshorcones.org/start/index.html

http://www.twinoaks.org/FAQ.html

isn't this commune-ism you speak of?

I agree with your view that Penny stocks can increase ones trading profits. The inexpensive kind of investment is perhaps penny stocks. Many investors have on oath to this kind of investment but the others do not even dare think about it. These stocks a good decision to double or even maybe triple the investments, in addition it is based on a short term only.

Thanks....

I agree with your view that Penny stocks can increase ones trading profits. If someone wants to make some money quickly using investment, then he should buy penny stocks. This can be a great way to turn a profit extremely quickly.

Investors should also bear in mind that penny stocks are extremely high risk and unregulated.

_________________
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
e e cummings (1894 - 1962)

We won't always know when we are right in the middle of a life lesson. It is only later with time and hindsight do we realize what we learned.

Thanks

I agree with you that now the sole responsibility of the business is to provide for their basic needs, meaning a good standard of living. With the rest of the money they provide the next desired luxury or invest in say a newsagents.

You have done a fantastic performance by sharing this stuff. Thanks...

It is not surprising that some Forum members are reluctant to post in case their efforts do not match the very high quality of posts such as the above.