Socialist labor tax:The solution to market driven economic woes

Reading up on on some world history, cause that's the type of dude I am, I came across an interesting society called the Incas. The Incas, a pre-columbian amerindian civilization in south america had a most fascinating economic system that can only be described as a "labor tax". That is, working itself is your tax, and in return you recieve clothing, food, housing other neccessites etc. They flourished, and created a huge, effecient empire with good roads, a simplified (if you could call it that) criminal code, and a loyal ,comfortable, egalitarian society. It was probably the worlds first example of state socialism (ancient sparta it could be argued too I suppose), and by all accounts it was extremely successful. Unfortunately since it does'nt exist anymore (destroyed by conquistadors) we can't see it in practice or how it might have ended up left to its own devices. Also, the common socialist "incentive to work" problem is solved because your incentive is goods produced by other producers and a comfortable lifestyle.

Whats interesting about its economic system its there is no medium, (money) just simply work and you have all you need.Now this system can be described rather scathingly as an "100% tax", but tt bypasses all of the problems that plague market driven economies, a more flexible workforce, increased effieciency,full integration of producers (no nasty competetion), no homelessness, virtually no poverty, no unemployment, no tax burden (ironically a %100 tax is not a burden at all, but exactly the opposite, you are freed up because capitalist producers dont want to extract surplus value from your labor-hours to turn a better profit) and society can more rapidly integrate environmentally friendly technologies without harming their economy.

I think socialism in some form is pretty much inevitable. I have quite possibly revived an idea for a perfectly harmonious economic system with all interests intact (no counter-productive antogonistic class warfare). What do you think of my "labor tax" and how could it be implemented in our modern world if at all?

 

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Hmm, interesting ...BUT I read just recently that we still haven't cracked their language or writing. And if that's so, just how the hell does anyone know all this about their government and taxes and social systems? Please explain ...and a reliable website on this issue would be quite nice, too.

Baron Max

 

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Lol, even if we did'nt still who cares? Its still a great idea nonetheless.............hehe

 

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Whenever I see such posts or articles about a "Brave New Society", I always wonder immediately .....who in that new society is gonna' clean out the sewers? ...haul out the garbage? ...clean the kitchen grease traps? ....sweep the streets?

And then, of course, I wonder who's gonna' make someone do it if no one volunteers? then what? How does the "Brave New Society" stack up then?

Baron Max

 

Yeah, but what you are leaving out is that the labor involved building enourmous temples without the benefit of machines in the hot humid jungle, tediously burning crushed shells for plaster which was feet thick on the temple floors in some cases. ...And the simple criminal code was you get your heart cut out for anything.

OK, I'm just guessing about that last part.

 

Yeah, but if that was the case, then they didn't have to build expensive prisons for the criminals. ...and so save lots of sweat for the poor workers. Hey, geez, maybe modern society should try that approach???

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Baron Max

 

It's an interesting idea, but I immediately see some problems. First, not everyone is going to want exactly the same “payment” for their labor. One person might want average clothes and food, but some other person who likes fine dining might want lower-quality clothes and better food, and a third person who didn't care much about food might want to eat cheap food but have nicer clothes.

Also, some people will want to work harder than others. One person might be willing to work 12/hours day in order to have a large house and nice car, while someone else who values their free time might be willing to live in a small house and take the bus if they only have to work 4 hours/day.

You'll need to have some sort of system for quantitatively comparing the value of one thing to another so that people can figure out how many steaks they're entitled to if they don't get a new jacket, or how much bigger their house should be if they work a certain number of extra hours.

Pretty soon the workers are all getting a certain number of “credits” based on how much they work, and they decide what they want to spend it on...and you pretty much have money again, just with a different name. Unless you want to require everyone to work exactly the same amount for exactly the same payment, which I think everyone will agree would suck.

 

Hmmm, some good responses here, perhaps I can adress it with a recent idea of mine. What I was thinking about was allowing certain perks to go for people with high-demand, high-stress jobs to make up for the lack of money. Things such as travel bonuses (money for other countries), restaurant vouchers, ultra-luxury apartments etc could provide an excellent incentive for high-performance careers.

You mentioned money coming back, No doubt there will still be a need for the market, albeit in a small role such as limited to services. Atleast in the early stages. People can work in the services sector (while still receiving state benefits) and earn money to pay for other services (restaurants etc) since they are hard to automate, and difficult to for free beucase of the abuse that could ensue (bad, slow or irresponsive irresponsible service).

My system would be about 90% socialist 10% market to make up the inadequacies.

 

And in all of that, you can't see ways and means of corruption sneaking into the system? If not........WOW!

Well, when you lean toward the market system, you've already begun to corrupt the system ....just ain't no way around it. Humans are too greedy and you're not taking that into account .....and you should! Humans lie, cheat, steal even when they have the biggest share of the pie!!

How can you consider that humans won't corrupt your system? Or any system, for that matter? Human greed is THE number one problem with almost any system of government or social system. And if you have an adequate policing system, then who polices the police?

Baron Max

 

Yeah I can deffinetly see some signs of corruption leaking through there. Natural human behavior is to wan't more, if you put those there people may fight over who gets those jobs. If you never show them anything better than the normal job that everyone is equal and happy there won't be depression about how much your job sucks. Or how you wan't a better one.

 

The alternative ,ofcourse, is the system we have now, I'll take petty moneyless curruption over life/job-destroying scandals and financial breakdowns any day really.

The market system is not strong, its is weak. it need to be supplemented by something, or else it naturally distributes wealth in an unstable pyramid structure.

If it were "natural" would'nt we have alot more millionaires and billionaires all battling it out for supremacy? LOL according to you, we should'nt even be here posting, but instead trying to get more money.

But I totally understand your concerns. Truth is, there really is no ceiling to accomplishment in this socialist society. I've already thought about it. People who are truly driven by such things will find themselves rewarded the most for their efforts, meritocracy is not lost. However most folks just want to live comfortably. My system would provide virtually everyone with that option. As time goes on, my society would have per capita, the highest average standard of living in the world, probably leaving welfare-capitalist europe in the dust.

Why not? because of money? there is none to lose.

 

Ahhh, the old "...most people just want to live comfortably..." argument, huh?

Most people? Comfortably? What does that mean? and to whom?

Mr. Popo, you're stretching this dream of yours much too far ....whenever there is any issue of concern raised, you do nothing to answer it ...well, other than just more unrealistic dreams. Sorry, but I'm done with this thread!

Baron Max

 

What is the value of an idea? How much credit/clothes/food will I get for a good idea? Who would implement this idea? Where is the motivation for trial and error?? Motivation with this system (communism) will be nill.

 

What is "motivation" ? Define it really. Were cavemen motivated by money? Small tribal communes are they motivated by this mysterious substance to which we give arbitrary value called money? Think about it.

Before attacking my system, think about the current system we live in and how we can make the general lifesytle of the majority of human beings more sustainable and comfortable. That is what I am after. If you must call it "communism" then so be it, but I don't particularly subscribe to any rigid idealogies. I believe in what works best in due circumstances.

We are still evolving socially speaking, this is not "the end of history" like so many americans think we are at the highest possible social state. American style market democracy. Socialism, in some form is the future, it is the inevitable in the course of social evolution. A state in which favors a more equitable share of wealth.

Why recieve some sort reward for an idea? Are'nt the benefits reaped a reward in and of itself the reward? LOL why are people so socially conditioned to believe for in order for people to be motivated they have ascribe arbitrary monetary value as the reward, it reminds me of training dogs with biscuits or something. There are no absolutes in the universe, at the quantum level not even physical laws are absolute. Everything should be viewed through a relative, not absolute lens. Only then will you have a better understanding of the "labor tax" system.

 

I might be mistaken, but wern't they chopping eachothers heads off for sport, and sacrificing innocent virgins for their polythestic desires?

That's idiotic. I wouldn't take such scifi obsessed bantering seriously.

 

Last time I checked this site was called www.sciforums.com LOL thats the whole point of this board. Maybe your out of place? Look they even have an entire section debating the intracacies of star trek LOL. Not to mention parapsychology.

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No maybe you are out of place asshole.
I guess you are completely unaware that you are in the economics section.
This board is called www.sciforums.com. They have sections for science fiction and such. Nobody said they didn't/ What is your point?

Sure fiction including science fiction have thematic lessons within their entertainment value. There is no harm in using them as to set certain examples. But to base your frame of reference around the worship of such themes is completely retarded.

Running around claiming "Calamity is inevitable! Look at what happened in Jurrasic Park! Didn't you see the chaos entropic themes?" Give me a break.
Scifi has a trend in dystopian themes to drive the story. It is used for entertainment value as well as to give us insight on the nature of justice and injustice. But to degrade any attempt towards betterment by framing such attempts around a mindset of automatic fictional distopia is rediculous.

 

here I just solved the problem get robot workers as good as human ones then have them mine gather farm make all the things and have the people live on perment vaction with like a 3k a month spending money no taxes no nothing everyone one gets 3k a month to spend on what they like... if that be a car save for it if you want to spend it on crack then get crack but if you do a crime of any magnatude you get kicked out into the real world. limit everyone to one child. using deep water power generation and solor wind towers to provide the power that is needed some time in the next 50 years it might just be posible.

 

WOW, you just called me an "asshole" on a messageboard, an internet tough guy LOL.

Whatever. What you just said has no bearing whasoever, your just rambling off irrelevant shit. Listen, if you have nothing productive or relevant to say, get the fuck outta my thread. You don't have to be here.

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Good luck in life.

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Interesting, an automated economy where everybody just reaps the rewards. I thought about that too. It might eventually be practical, theres no argument here really, but AI and robotics would have to get pretty good. Plus some people just like to work, we should allow them that.