Role of Government, Role of Money

Quote:

Originally Posted by robbo203

Quite true. It seems to me to be an oxymoron to talk of a "workers state". The only reasonable thing to do upon capturing the state is to get rid of it, to prevent it from being used by the capitalists to hinder the establishment of socialism. The removal of the state and elimination of class society are, in my book, two aspects of the same thing and for that reason are simultaneous events. You cannot keep one without the other.

I agree, in theory that the major reason for capturing the state is to get rid of it, to prevent it from being used to hinder the establishment of socialism.

But consider, in practice, the role of a greatly reduced state (i.e. temporarily keeping the treasury and temporary keeping of safety-net/social welfare programs) in transitioning to a socialist economy with an ad hoc concomitant development of local/inter-community/inter-regional worldwide planning, policy, implementation, and dispute resolution functions involved with the implementation of an economic democracy. Such would comprise a minimalized "government of sorts".

In the ideal, we would need to temporarily keep national treasuries to evolve to a world currency, to eventually evolve to a moneyless socialist economic democracy.

Other than the reality check of ever getting there (moneyless economy), I question the assumption that it presupposes that all work is equal. For example, should someone WHO TAKES GREAT RISK and has busied him/herself in becoming eminently proficient in their work, such as the people who put up downed power lines be considered to have access to the same amount of scarce natural and economic resources as someone like me who does knowledge and communications work? No, I think that utility (wo)man should be compensated more than me.

As long as there are differences in the quality of environments (housing, neighborhoods, and the like) there will be a need to have a method to allocate who gets what. Of course, one of our major goals needs to bring approximate parity/equity to all environments. However, I wonder that even in the ideal world where everybuddy's environment was of approximate parity/equity in quality, would we need some (much reduced) remunerative reward for risky, good, and hard work? What would be the motivation to take the risk, to hone one's skills, and to work hard? True, the latter two, especially, could be motivated by love for others and self if one knew that they would have access to all their needs and some wants in an egalitarian environment. But we don't have that, now. Not even close.

Also, there will be work that no one really wants to do, but needs to be done, at least until we can transition to a humane world economy. What will motivate people to do that work?

Will it be necessary and sufficient, while we are evolving towards parity/equity in environments to allocate the differential based solely on need especially considering that we have so much in the way of opulence and ostentatiousness in environments and property holdings in the status quo (which nobuddy needs)? Shouldn't re-allocation of real and personal property be re-allocated based on an individual or families need and their contribution to the good of the (World &) community while socially re-allocating resources to a quality of life, parity/equity/humanity paradigm in lieu of a standard of living lifestyle based on exploitative relationships?

If not money, how will such reallocations be managed?

Seems to me, the only alternative would be class warfare and/or a ridiculously over-bearing State.

How will division of labor be managed? There has to be a fit between what people want to do and what needs to be done? An economic democracy is the ideal, but hierarchies (not monetary) will need to evolve or the satisfying and effective educational and placement activities will not occur.

We need to identify and try to get consensus on the ideal, for sure. That's called defining our mission. We need to come up with something succinct and believable, something that the majority of the world will understand and will work towards.

But we need to give even much more thought and reach consensus about how we get from Globe C to World S.

I will be criticized for being a Vanguardist, for sure. But who are we participating in these discussions? Are we the totality of workers on the planet?