When I listen to most Marxists, it seems to me that they essentially talk about Moloch. Which I agree is a huge problem; possibly the largest problem of humanity.
The part where I disagree is equating Moloch with a specific economical/political system, and assume that it will magically disappear as soon as we change the system. This, I believe, has been sufficiently falsified by historical experience.
Some propose that the solution is to eliminate scarcity. I am skeptical about that. First, this is easier said than done; in long term, humanity will keep growing exponentially, and the laws of physics as we know them only allow quadratic growth of resources (space colonization limited by the speed of light). Second, people also have preferences over things other than resources, so the motivation for conflict remains.
A possible solution to Moloch might be a singleton superhuman Friendly AI.
If I understand it correctly, the idea of Communism is that the right kind of central government could in effect achieve the same outcome as the superhuman Friendly AI. But this ignores, among other things, the competition to become a part (preferably the leader) of that government, or the fact that the leaders are actually not so Friendly.
Interesting, I never made the connection to Moloch. I think the claim would be that it works better than capitalism at reducing inequality, not that it would work better than FAI (like Debunking Every Anti-Communist Argument Ever—YouTube this video).
I think the claim would be that it works better than capitalism at reducing inequality
It would be interesting to measure the actual inequality in various capitalist and socialist countries, in various decades. I am not sure how that would properly be done, though. A naive solution would be to compare how much money people have, but that would not reflect the reality correctly; in a command economy, money is relatively less useful. -- There is no point in having lots of money, if the shops are empty, and the things you want most are illegal anyway. On the other hand, if you are a Party boss, all your wishes get fulfilled immediately, often without any corresponding flow of money.
When I listen to most Marxists, it seems to me that they essentially talk about Moloch. Which I agree is a huge problem; possibly the largest problem of humanity.
The part where I disagree is equating Moloch with a specific economical/political system, and assume that it will magically disappear as soon as we change the system. This, I believe, has been sufficiently falsified by historical experience.
Some propose that the solution is to eliminate scarcity. I am skeptical about that. First, this is easier said than done; in long term, humanity will keep growing exponentially, and the laws of physics as we know them only allow quadratic growth of resources (space colonization limited by the speed of light). Second, people also have preferences over things other than resources, so the motivation for conflict remains.
A possible solution to Moloch might be a singleton superhuman Friendly AI.
If I understand it correctly, the idea of Communism is that the right kind of central government could in effect achieve the same outcome as the superhuman Friendly AI. But this ignores, among other things, the competition to become a part (preferably the leader) of that government, or the fact that the leaders are actually not so Friendly.
Interesting, I never made the connection to Moloch. I think the claim would be that it works better than capitalism at reducing inequality, not that it would work better than FAI (like Debunking Every Anti-Communist Argument Ever—YouTube this video).
It would be interesting to measure the actual inequality in various capitalist and socialist countries, in various decades. I am not sure how that would properly be done, though. A naive solution would be to compare how much money people have, but that would not reflect the reality correctly; in a command economy, money is relatively less useful. -- There is no point in having lots of money, if the shops are empty, and the things you want most are illegal anyway. On the other hand, if you are a Party boss, all your wishes get fulfilled immediately, often without any corresponding flow of money.