> Communism does not entail centralised markets, or even markets at all. The lower stages might have one or the other or both. There are also things like market Socialism and mutualism, which both fit into the Communist idea.
Well, thats why i wrote a question asking the OP to clarify what "No" means in this context.
> Saying this is missing a much bigger point, the point that in Communism wealth is irrelevant; the fact that you're saying this shows that you're thinking of Communism within the capitalist model, precisely the one which creates the "rich" and "poor" dichotomy. You must free yourself from this thinking if you are to talk about material conditions under Communism.
There is always a rich and poor, even within communist countries. Do you think the Fidels, Kim Jong Ill's, Chavez(if applicable) are poor? That they do not live in luxury? That they do not purchase goods from capitalist countries? If there is one thing common to all communist countries is trade restrictions and contraband, that ends up not being applied to the ruling class.
When we get to a Star-trek level of productivity, maybe central planning will be great, but for our lifetimes we are going to have differences in the value of labor of people, which makes it impossible eliminate the "rich and poor" dichotomy, even if you solved wealth accumulation perfectly.
> This is a false analogy, those million apples have to come from somewhere, and the fact is that they are products of labour. If that one person did indeed grow and cultivate those apples, then that's his personal property to do as he wishes with it. But really, those people who have 3 apples worked for them, and through structural threat of starvation or otherwise, had to hand them over to the feudal lord^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H rich man.
You are avoiding the thought experiment, saying its impossible to get that result without foul play. The original question is simple and clear, and the way you stand on one side or the other , i suspect, shows a fundamental difference in ideology or basic moral foundations.
In a behavioral economics study, it was shown that given the choise of having a 10% increase in salary, and everyone else getting 20% increase is disfavored to having a 10% decrease, and everyone el se having a 20% decrease. People are very willing to sacrifice something as long as it benefits them in their economical standing.
I personally prefer having 3 apples and 1 guy having 1 million apples. But i understand there are social consequences to that setup thats inherently unstable.
> Why should a worker trust the capitalist with his means of sustenance, literally everything he has? You don't trust the government with money (I don't either), and I don't trust the capitalist with my wage
First, the worker can choose from a wide range of capitalists, but he can rarely choose the government. But also, the capitalist and the worker have closer intersts than the worker and the government in a free market. The State's main goal might be welfare, but the governments main goal is power. The governmet will always choose to screw over any group if it benefits itself. At least, the capitalist only wants a larger share of your income, which you can fight by letting other capitalists compete. Who can compete with the government?
There is no question that a worker is in a weaker position than a capitalist, but he is also in a weaker position vs a government.
> The only difference as compared with the old, outspoken slavery is this, that the worker of today seems to be free because he is not sold once for all, but piecemeal by the day, the week, the year, and because no one owner sells him to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this way instead, being the slave of no particular person, but of the whole property-holding class.
Surely ,communist countries show a higher level of freedom of its citizens, economically, socially, etc.
more often than not in this regard, the cure is worse than the disease.
> Absence of coercion? What about being coerced to sell your labour-power for wage, at threat of starvation?
Who is applying that force of coercion? Your parents that gave you life?
This is a terrible argument, because it tries to pin the responsibility of feeding people to the people that have the means to do it. You are not responsible for feeding starving kids, though im very sure you can afford to feed many yourself. If you felt responsible for it, you would go to great lengths of personal sacrifice to minimize that tragedy.You dont, but you make an arguemnt implying that some people are responsible for it.
> What are these externalities? What's wrong with workers banding together and engaging in collective bargaining for their rights? I'm not arguing for a minimum wage, by the way, I'm arguing for the abolition of wages.
I think the possibility of unions forming is great, because it does work like something that checks the power of the employer. But unions also are monopolies. They monopolize labor, the way we always scorn capitalisms from attempting to be a monopoly. Monopolized labor works against the interests of the public, which includes workers and more importantly, consumers.
Im from argentina, where unions have a special constitutional level protection. In the past 25 years, every single year we've had strikes of public teachers, there has never been consensus with the government, even though public school teachers make top 30% income. Most industries that are strongly unionized show basically no growth in a long time, and the one that shows growth (auto-industry) requires extreme trade restrictions. Argentina can only buy cars from Brasil, which also have tariffs. So trade restrictions, meager growth, service interruptions, etc. Whether they are worth the value to the public is a long time debate in economics, but it definitely has externalities.