>I think that human nature reflects a response to circumstancxes that I hold the views I do. I think the incentive structures of a nonmarket socialism of the sort you advocate will tend to produce systematic shirking, stifle innovation, and lead to generalized poverty. I am not going to argue for this here. I havedone so extensively in this list and you can look it up in the archives. I am only making the point taht you have misconstrued the nature of my objection. I do not think the statement "people are geedy and lazy, period" has any meaning. I think that your proposals would create a society that would make them greedy and lazy. I simply want to be clear about my conception of human nature. It is not what you attribute to me.
Yes, I understand your "incentive" argument. You think that the wages system, whereby people who refuse to work as directed are refused the necessities of life, is an essential "incentive".
You need to explain the phenomenon whereby most people who are freed from the need to work, denied the incentive to work, by reason of substantial personal wealth, nevertheless become highly productive members of society. I'm sure you can think of examples, how do you explain this?
As for innovation, this is almost the exclusive preserve of those who have a high degree of leisure and security. People who are forced to slave all day for their whole life don't have much energy, never mind the spare time, for innovation.
As for people becoming "greedy", that is a surprise. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would come to that conclusion. People in our present society are greedy for two related reasons, firstly capitalist society is insecure and it is rational under those circumstances to take what you can get while you can get it.
Naturally enough it follows that status is largely determined by material wealth. Everyone craves respect of their fellows, so greed is an essential part of achieving social respect.
Neither of these conditions would apply in the socialist society I was talking about. Greed would be quite irrational and meaningless. Material possessions wouldn't earn you any respect in a society where these things as freely available as the air we breathe. And greed would certainly be materially unnecessary, when economic security was a universal right.
So your fears about rampant greed are not even a remote possibility. Greed is a result of scarcity. You seem to be suggesting it would be a cause.
>I also reject the "stern" authority as a description of my own proposal. As far as democracy goes, I am not sure that there is any real difference between the kind of uathority that I urge and that you urge.
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>>I am assuming that co-operation is natural human nature, and that it is only the fact of a society which constantly rewards unnatural behaviour which has created what Justin sees as the normal and natural behaviour.
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>You, however, do believe an an unchanging human nature.
Not in the sense you suggest.
> I agree that cooperation is normal and natural. The right set of incentives can encourage it. Thedifference bewteen us is not this, but over what the right social structure to create that set of incentives is.
Let me be blunt. What you are advocating is not "incentive" as in carrots. It is largely "incentive" as in stick. I'll grant you that the stick is a tried and true method of getting people to work. But I think it is also an established fact that carrots work better than sticks. Slavery, which is stick with attitude, was recognised as resulting is significantly lower labour productivity that more modern systems of exploitation. It has been demonstrated that the more freedom people have, the more co-operative, intelligently and productive they are.
I suspect this has something to do with fundamental human nature. People prefer to be free. But if the find themselves unfree, living their lives under the stick, they either become surly and resentful, or lifeless and mechanical.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas