Vitaliy wrote:

> Xiaofan, do you know what it's like -- to hand over 60% of your earnings to 
> the government, while watching your neighbor cheat the public welfare 
> system? A business acquaintance from Denmark told me about it, and I sure 
> hope I never get to experience it firsthand.
> 
> Sweden is considered to be the poster child for socialism (even Kruschev was 
> impressed). One Swedish lady wrote a bestselling book on knitting. She 
> received 1% of the proceeds -- the Swedish government got the rest. The lady 
> was a grandmother of my professor of economics.
> 
> Communism, too, is a great system. In theory. 

None of the systems take into account greed - whether it's individual greed by 
staying on welfare unnecessarily (taking without giving back) or group greed, 
as in a democracy when groups find they can vote themselves a piece of the 
country's wealth.

I think everyone needs something to throw themselves into completely. It could 
be a national threat (lots of individuals together), your own business with 
opportunity to grow (with limited regulation and restraint), some charity or 
cause, whatever. Then the individual is motivated to make decisions for the 
good of the effort, and to make sacrifices if necessary to get to the goal. 
Other than that, humans are like unguided goal-seeking missiles, and their 
efforts end up targeting things like welfare scams, crime, or just plain 
scamming others.

Communism and socialism don't address that.

There are probably 3 basic human attributes that any structure needs to address 
- greed, cause, and creativity. A free market with minimal constraints can keep 
greed occupied, but communism never addresses or assumes this.

A national cause makes a great nation, and a personal cause makes a great 
person. Without a cause, or with conflicting causes, neurosis or an existential 
questioning ensues (either blatant or subtle). Both probably need to exist. 
Sorta like individual magnetic domains in a lump of iron. If there are none, 
there is no force. If there are many and they are randomly oriented, they work 
against each other and there's no net effect. If they are strong, and oriented 
the same way, you get a good magnet.

Creativity shows up in execution of the first two, or, when there is a lot of 
regulation and constraint (socialism for instance), it shows in ways to work 
the system and its loopholes. Then, regulations become a patchwork upon 
patchwork to address creativity. Just look at the US IRS code.... ;)

Every person or nation has different levels of need (but they exist in all), 
and the extent of how the institutions and environment around them satisfy each 
area determines how it is applied. If you feel like you're being paid well 
enough to get by and that's OK, greed is satisfied. If you're skilled and have 
autonomy in your job, your creativity may be satisfied, and if you think your 
work has purpose (helps others, helps the cause, makes the world go 'round, 
brings support to the family, whatever), then cause is satisfied. Think about 
when there was dissatisfaction in your work and see if it doesn't boil down to 
one of these three in some way.

I would be interested in comments on this, as I'm doing research in this area 
currently. It seemed to be fitting as a reply here... Thanks.

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist