"You grow big by being nice, but you can stay big by being mean. You get away with it till the underlying conditions change, and then all your victims escape."
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This also rhymes with Justin Murphy's idea that "communism" (which he thinks of in an unorthodox way" requires "accurate social valuation of individual characters".https://theotherlifenow.com/aristocracy-and-communism/ …
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Murphy notes that "intentional communities" fail because people don't reward helpfulness and competence, or punish freeloading and sociopathy. The kinds of people who join those communities aren't even *trying* to do that, because they don't believe character matters.
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Murphy's proposal is strangely simple: "Each person in a community agrees to assign status (i.e. distribute their respect) to all the others according to the others' contributions to the community, however each person honestly evaluates the others' contributions."
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You can start doing this *now*, immediately, wherever you are. Is someone doing something you think is a public service? Praise them or donate to them! Is someone doing something you think is harmful to your community or to humanity? Say so, and withdraw your help!
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Unilaterally choose to, as best you can, make the incentives you send match the things you value. No human incentive system, including the market, can function if people don't *mostly* succeed in doing this.
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The basic idea of communism is "the workers do all the actual work, and they are being exploited by a tiny number of people who contribute nothing and just leech off them. But if the workers do all the work, they *have all the power.* Why do they tolerate exploitation?"
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"The workers are *strong*, not weak; if they are systematically exploited it must be because they are confused, lack confidence in their strength, or lack coordination mechanisms. Therefore, raising their awareness and confidence and helping coordinate will solve their problem."
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I'm not a communist. But my only real disagreement with *this* argument, thus far, is that I think people who do genuine professional, managerial, mercantile, or intellectual work are not parasites but contributors. The "workers" are literally everybody whose work is useful.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
In rigorous Marxism, all those people are workers, their beef is not with the bosses, it's with the capital owners. (Which of course one can argue, provide a valuable service) https://nintil.com/the-role-of-capitalists-in-capitalism/ …
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right, that's fair. I do think that productive capital allocation is useful as well!
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
In my blogpost I also wondered the same thing you do: Why don't workers just band together and pool capital? Capital owners also act as entrepreneurs, solving a coordination problem and absorbing risk
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Replying to @ArtirKel
I didn't know that worker coops are more productive on average! That's interesting.
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