I think that we have to be careful about communism solving the distribution problem. Yes indeed, everyone may have had something to eat and a place to sleep in the USSR, but in millions of cases that consisted of a very cold bed and mouldy bread in the Gulag. Take a look at Anne Applebaum's "Gulag, a history" for examples of what distribution meant under Stalin. And I don't think capitalism should be expected to solve the distribution problem. It's job is to be efficient and productive. Government's job is to siphon off as much income as possible from the productive process and undertake distribution as necessary.
And Sally, I don't think the economy is a good place to try to find meaning in one's life. Meaning has to be found elsewhere, in the arts for example, or in spirituality and religion, or in working for the good of your fellow man. The economy should be seen as a place that provides you with the resources to do meaningful things, nothing more. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sally Lerner" <[email protected]> To: "RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 9:00 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Keynes again from 1933 Can part of the problem be that vast numbers of people find so little meaningful in their lives? Of course, if so, what to do about that and, most important, how to recognize and avoid the dangers inherent in the yearning for meaning. Sally ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Arthur Cordell [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 9:13 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Keynes again from 1933 The tragic irony is that communism solved the distribution problem but couldn’t solve the production problem while the reverse holds true for capitalism: production problem solved but can’t solve the distribution problem. arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of michael gurstein Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 8:53 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Keynes again from 1933 It seems that as a civilization we have resolved the production problems but can't figure out how to make the distribution work in any decent and humane way. M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 5:29 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Subject: [Futurework] Keynes again from 1933 The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war(one) is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods. In short we dislike it, and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed. * National self-sufficiency (1933)<http://www.panarchy.org/keynes/national.1933.html> Section 3, republished in Collected Writings Vol. 11 (1982). _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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