[Keith]

Originally Posted by Scin

I agree that tradition is a powerful motivating factor for those that care about tradition. People like myself who thrive on competition and, more importantly, independence will never fit into a communistic society.

Establishing a communist society is tantamount to a death sentence to the spirit of people like myself. This, above all else, is why I abhor communism.

Socialism is more than just communism. There's plenty of room in (some versions of) a socialist society for competition.

And societies can (and do) have both socialist and capitalist elements. IMO, Australia maintained a good balance (capitalist with universal health care, welfare etc.), though it's swung further to the right in recent years.

The ideal is possibly a society where a minimum standard of living (free healthcare - especially preventative, basic living quarters, etc.) is guaranteed for all and competition for jobs exists above that level.

Originally Posted by Brutha

Where there is no power monopoly in the hands of the government people go and say: "Stop hitting my little brother or I'll smack you". In a society where the power monopoly is in the hands of the government they let the goverment do that job. That reduces the amount of violence that citizens commit.

Certainly government punishes citizens if they commit violence (if they're not clever enough to avoid detection or rich enough to afford a good lawyer), but does it significantly prevent violence? It's hard to say without a basis for comparison.

You and I are looking at two different stages in the process. You say "people run amok and need a government to control them". I say "if you resolve what is causing them to run amok in the first place then you don't need a government to control them".

Originally Posted by Brutha

The problem is that reputation alone isn't enough to build effective production chains.

Reputation certainly isn't everything. But I was responding to your statement that there is no motivation to work in Communism - and as implemented in the USSR that seems to have been the case. But money is far from the only possible motivator.

In fact, money is often not even the best motivator. If someone is intrinsically motivated, monetary rewards replace that intrinsic motivation with extrinsic. ie. People who start motivated by the challenge and pride in a job well done end up motivated by making more money. And since the latter can be 'gamed' there's often a significant gap between the two.

The curve doesn't work the same all the way up. People who are desperate and starving work fanatically hard for tiny amounts of money. (I doubt you get the best labour out of these people, but that's an aside). But once people's basic needs are met and they are comfortable, money generally loses its motivational ability. That's when intrinsic motivation starts to really matter.

And on the flipside I suspect many of society's problems can be traced back to that part of the population living in fear that they won't make enough money to survive. Desperate people do shortsighted and harmful things.

Originally Posted by Brutha

In addition to quote a bit: "A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular".

It's not real safe to be unpopular in a democracy. Because sufficiently unpopular things have laws passed against them, and if you do them you end up in jail.

Originally Posted by Brutha

Not holding people accountable for their actions doesn't produce a environment of personal responsibility.

Government 'holding people accountable' doesn't produce an environment of personal responsibility. You can't be personally responsible when your actions are dictated by someone else.

At best, Government 'holding people accountable' produces an environment of compliance. People who disagree with the Government either comply through fear or rebel. The end result is a struggle between the values of the Government and the values of its people.

What produces personal responsibility is a culture and environment where personal responsibility is valued.

A centrally-controlled society does not value personal responsibility - it says "I don't trust you to be responsible. I'm going to decide for you what is right, and punish you if you don't do it". That's not how you treat a responsible adult, that's how you treat a child. Is it a surprise that many people react like children by losing all initiative (sulking) and rebelling to various degrees?

Originally Posted by Brutha

I don't think that there is a greater sense of personal responsibility among people who write open source than under those who write closed code.
In addition it is no society. The amount of people who live from gift money is very limited in the open source community. The majority makes their living with selling support nowadays.

I think you're reading more into the example than I intended. I wasn't saying "replace society with the open source model". I was explicitly responding to your claim that no money = no motivation.

The Open Source model is a good example of the way motivation works after basic needs are met. Many Open Source programmers work on commercial projects for a living to meet their basic needs. They then perform additional voluntary work in their own time on Open Source projects that interest them, challenge them, build their reputation and leave a legacy.

Again, the assumption behind pure capitalism is that monetary compensation is automatically the best motivator all the way up, and that's not true.

Originally Posted by Brutha

The advantage of written law, is that you know where to go to to erase it. When you have a problem with traditions (which we have), you don't know where to go.

You work to obtain a consensus by actually talking to people. Voting a representative is a vast improvement over hereditary dictatorship, but it's a still a poor substitute for genuine consensus.

BTW, you've probably noticed that I've been alternately arguing the merits of socialism and anarchy. I think the ideal society is probably a blend of elements and the labels forcing things into rigid, artificial categories aren't helping. I'm tempted to start a whole new thread just called "a better society" where we can discuss how things would ideally work without all the labels...