>You make certain assumptioons about post capitalist cosciety I don't share. Of course there is money--a medium of exchange. In my PCS, there are markets too.
Then there will also be insurance. So society would still have to pay for professional carelessness, as it does at present. I believe the difference with my concept of socialism is that it is more cost efficient, no need for insurance because all economic risks are socialised, no need for lengthy legal wrangles over liability, because there are no winners and losers. Administration costs reduced considerably. Best of all, no one profits from the misfortunes of others.
>> > Or: you promised to deliver X and you didn't. Pay me. Etc.
>>
>>Pay you for what? It is a mere inconvenience, what damage can you possibly have suffered?
>
>Don't be dumb. If I can't prove damages I have no case. My car is smashed up. My leg is broken. My house isn't painted, Etc.
Your losses are predicated on your assumptions about the nature of a socialist society. My answer was premised on a society in which medical treatment and car repairs will cost you nothing. I'm not well-versed in the law, but a minor delay in painting your house is probably not something you could base a damages claim on even now.
>>I expect you are correct about procedural rules. You may be right about the need for specialised interpreters too. But my point remains that this is simply a question of misunderstanding, it does not arise from divergent interests.
>
>Not divergent class interests. But people in the same class can have conflicting interests.
Certainly.
>>The point is that a socialist society such as the one envisaged is a co-operative one. The good of one is the good of the other and vice versa. This creates a completely different context than a market economy, where the best interests of the seller is impossible to reconcile with the best interests of the buyer.
>
>Not at all. This is Adam Smith 101. I want to make good cheap products to beat the competition. You want to buy good cheap products. The conflict of interests in a market economy is among the competitoes, not between the sellers and the buyers.
Is that what they teach in economics classes? But then I've long suspected that the main function of economics professionals is to confuse and mislead people about something which is basically obvious. The best economics text I've come across is Jack London's War of the Classes (ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext98/wrcls10.txt) BTW. Its free on the WWW, its an entertaining read, its easy to follow and it answers all sensible questions.
In the real market, it is in your interests to get the best price for your product. It is in my interests to pay the lowest possible price. As London puts it, I want to buy "more for less", while the seller of course, constantly strives to sell less for more. A conflict of interest which is irreconcilable, whereas the clash between sellers has proven quite reconcilable. They need simply form a cartel and agree never to sell more for less. This is the what a labour union attempts to do.
Buyers can also form a cartel with which to fleece sellers. But instances of all buyers and all sellers of a commodity forming a cartel to rig the price would be unusual. Hence, my conclusion that it is an irreconcilable conflict of interest.
>> >Sure there are winners and losers. We need a waste disposal plant. No one wants it located near them.
>>
>>Oh I don't know. The sewerage disposal plant presumably produces fertilizer. The neighbour of the plant has easier access to this for his garden.
>
>Don't be naive. I easy accessto the stuff at the store, not the plant in my back yard.
OK, fair enough. I didn't think that through. Of course if the effluent is in liquid form it is a different matter. Sometimes partly-treated liquid waste from small country sewerage plants are pumped into a holding dam on the property of a local farmer, who gets free access to nutrient rich water suitable for irrigation. That was what was on my mind, but it is probably a bit irrelevant.
>I imagine the resistance to having the waste disposed of anywhere is likely to lead to a decision not to create such waste in the first instance.
>
>Not a real option in a rich society.
It seems a very sensible option. If no-one will take the rubbish away, you learn to reduce the amount of rubbish you create.
>>In any case, this is not a relevant issue in this context. In a democratic society, economic priorities will be determined democratically.
>
>And democracy is an arena free from conflict? That's silly. Democracy is a means for resolving conflict. The losers--the minority--have to put up with what the winners want.
Certainly. But all they have lost is an argument. The context is conflict of *interest*, I have never said there would be no disagreements about priorities. But this came up in the context of the need for legal arbitration of disputes and I was merely pointing out that decisions about economic priorities would be arbitrated by vote, not according to a set of rules. And in a classless society, good health and education services is in everyone's interests. No-one has anything to gain from agitating for poor services.
>In another thread you said that you didn't have the utopian idea that socialism would solve all problems. But it clear from this that you do. Socialism is meant to solve the problem of class oppression. It doesn't do anything about a lot of very serious frictioon involved in living together.
It removes many of the root causes of friction, I believe you have already said that yourself. But I don't think it is likely to remove all of them. The issue is how society might deal with inter-personal grievances, in the absence of official policing and punishment. It might cast some light to look at how human society did actually do so before government police forces were thought of. That was in quite different and far less ideal circumstances than those contemplated in respect to a society where no-one is starving too. I don't know a lot about it, but broadly speaking I think the social institution that took responsibility was the clan, or family structures. I'm not so far-sighted as to be able to predict the exact nature of social institutions might arise in the future, but I imagine that some combination of family, neighbourhood, workplace and other community organisations would be able to deal with personal problems.
But I'm a bit autistic when it comes to inter-personal friction to be honest with you. I haven't got a clue about human emotions, I don't even understand my own, so I'm the wrong person to ask how to deal with them.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas