[re_format]

If everyone works hard, everyone gets to keep more. Because more is produced. If only some work hard, then the whole group cannot produce as much.

Perhaps every worker has a different threshhold for what they will settle for in terms of what amount of the harvest they would like to retain.

All the HR people reading HN know exactly what I'm talking about.

[sliverstorm]

You're missing the classic game theory element. If everyone is working hard, everyone gets X. But if I decide to slack off, everyone gets X minus some tiny fraction, including me.

Game theory tells us this kind of system will fall apart practically instantly.

I forget the details, but I think Marx tried to dismiss that problem through an appeal to nationalism.

[derleth]

Marx also believed that no capitalist country would ever, say, abolish child labor, institute universal education, and create universal health care.

He further believed that a government can 'wither away'.

Marx has been proven wrong in ways that have nothing to do with how well Communism/Socialism works as a system.

[gphilip]

> Marx also believed that no capitalist country would ever, say, abolish child labor, institute universal education, and create universal health care.

Could you provide some reference to support that, please?

[derleth]

This is a surprisingly good summary:

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Marxism.html

Aside from that, you can read Marx in translation or in the original.

[grandpa]

Is it fair to say we have abolished child labor, instituted universal education and created universal health care when our economy relies on manufactured goods made by uneducated children with no health care?

[derleth]

Yes. Yes, it is.