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by matthewmarkus 3256 days ago
Your comment contains a germ of why communism is a failed concept: "Hard work." Hard work does not imply valuable work. You've conflated the two, as have all the thinkers you cite.

If you want proof that "hard work" isn't necessarily "valuable work," simply start digging holes in your backyard. It is hard work. At the end of the day, though, you'll have constructed nothing of value (unless you appreciate the value of holes).

But, as you see, value is a subjective concept. Communism believes it to be objective. But what's valued in communism is simply the biases of its architects. Resources, then, aren't allocated through an objective pricing system weighing conflicting values, but through waits, favors, loyalties, and fiat. Eventually, the system becomes so corrupted it fails.

We've objectively seen the failure of the communist system across cultures over the last 100 years. By now, there should be no doubt about its inherent ills.

2 comments

> "Hard work." Hard work does not imply valuable work. You've conflated the two, as have all the thinkers you cite.

Now you've misunderstood me, I'm not saying that because they've done a lot of hard work that what they say is immediately relevant. I'm saying what they've said is relevant, and they've put in a lot of hard work to get their points across. You can't just handwave because in your ignorance you believe you're right and everyone else is wrong, you have to actually confront what they've said

> Hard work does not imply valuable work.

There are plenty of examples of work not being valuable in capitalism too.

I'd put most obscure financial instruments up as one example.

At one point those contracts were subjectively valuable to the parties involved. The assumptions under which they were made turned out to be false, and now they're valueless. The point is that the labor expended to put them into existence does not make them inherently valuable.
Obscure financial instruments can be valuable if they free up capital to be put towards productive means.