People are neither inherently selfish or inherently generous. People are survivors regardless of what is necessary to do so. A human will give the shirt off his back to his neighbor but will spite a customer service worker because they’re in a bad mood or feel slighted. Your tribe is your most important social aspect
But it is that selfishness that communism can’t control for and that capitalism only dampens the effect of. You need a system that counteracts those selfish tendencies in order to reach lasting stability.
In that it makes it open. In capitalism, ot is assumed that everyone is a selfish actor. Under communism, everyone is supposed to work together for the greater good, and when they aren’t, you can’t call them out, because they would accuse you of ‘undermining the unity’. And because they tend to be in positions of power, you will end up in the Gulag.
I agree with this. Communist like systems where there is central control of resources encourages corruption as people vie to get closer to the central control of the resources. Capitalism is just more honest about the fact that many people - not all of them - are fundamentally self-interested and entices them into cooperation with others by offering the carrot of individual rewards. Those are probably the same people that would try to exploit the system if it were more centrally controlled.
People are neither inherently selfish or inherently generous. People are survivors regardless of what is necessary to do so. A human will give the shirt off his back to his neighbor but will spite a customer service worker because they’re in a bad mood or feel slighted. Your tribe is your most important social aspect
But it is that selfishness that communism can’t control for and that capitalism only dampens the effect of. You need a system that counteracts those selfish tendencies in order to reach lasting stability.
In what way does capitalism “dampen” selfishness?
It reserves selfishness for a handful of weirdos, and allows every worker to be selfless.
In that it makes it open. In capitalism, ot is assumed that everyone is a selfish actor. Under communism, everyone is supposed to work together for the greater good, and when they aren’t, you can’t call them out, because they would accuse you of ‘undermining the unity’. And because they tend to be in positions of power, you will end up in the Gulag.
What have you read or where did you get your understanding from?
I agree with this. Communist like systems where there is central control of resources encourages corruption as people vie to get closer to the central control of the resources. Capitalism is just more honest about the fact that many people - not all of them - are fundamentally self-interested and entices them into cooperation with others by offering the carrot of individual rewards. Those are probably the same people that would try to exploit the system if it were more centrally controlled.