I will join the group in saying that the tragedy of the commons is a capitalist problem, not a social problem ( and has nothing to do with private property, since it is a common resource that is being consumed). Its a simple game theoretic model where firms (or farmers in the most basic medieval reference) each try to maximize production without taking into account that for every unit they produce, the quality of all units go down. Anyways, a socialist government could hypothetically fix that by arbitrarily setting production values.

And Putin, while I agree with some of your critiques of capitalism - and indeed there are many excesses - some of the goals of socialism are not good. You cite full employment as a goal. Full employment should never be reached in an economy. There should always be some level of structurally unemployed people as well as frictional unemployment. Eliminating these would prevent innovation and leave people unhappy. Structural unemployment occurs when a technology becomes obsolete and the industry collapses (ie. farriers do a lot less business now than 200 years ago). These workers must learn new skills and eventually join a new sector of the economy, but this takes time. To keep them employed would either put them in an industry in which their skill set and interest are not maximized or keep alive an old industry that is obsolete. Frictional unemployment is just people quitting one job based on personal preference and finding a new job that they like.

That said, no, an "army of the unemployed" is not what capitalism wants. It may be what corporations want, but all economic theory tries to find ways of reducing inflation and reducing unemployment. There is an equilibrium for unemployment (I think its 3%?) that governments try to obtain. But this doesn't mean that 3% of people should be permanently unemployed. In my argument above, you should (hopefully) see that the goal is a high "turnover" rate, so to speak, of people entering unemployment and then finding new work

Goldfinger, 3% unemployment with an average time for unemployed people of less than 6 months is functionally full employment, and ~100% of people would have jobs each year.

Obviously this is a detail of any system. Whether Capitalist or Socialist, but it is possible, no easy, to interpret what Putin said as acknowledging this point, or leaving it unsaid.

Still, thanks for pointing it out. I agree in principle.

That last thing only counts as socialism if you're an hysterical, American, right winger worried that Obama is a socialist Muslim terrorist who wants to destroy America, or Tettleton's Chew. Wait no those are the same thing.

Also, i saw a GREAT educational resource the other yesterday. It solves two problems with one stone.

There is a lack of bi-lingual people out there to translate (high prices) and there is a high cost associated with learning a new language. http://duolingo.com/ offer to teach while you translate (learning by doing... so you don't have to pay to learn a new language and you get useful work out of people at the same time...)

I think this kinda of thinking can both solve really big problems while reducing the cost of re-educating the population.

There is turnover in socialist economies, but mass unemployment did not exist. Furthermore, there is no solution provided to issues of structural employment under capitalism. No job training, no nothing. People are out of work and with nowhere to go. Placing the structurally unemployed in new jobs relies entirely on the luck of being young enough to be retrained and reserve resources of the said unemployed.

A permanent reserve army of labor is exactly what capitalism wants, and only Keynesian theory aims to reduce unemployment. Monetarist and other theories believe in maximum labor market flexibility, which means no job security whatsoever. Monetarist theory does not believe policies should be implemented to reduce unemployment, as that will lead to distortions in the market and 'inefficiencies'.

The unemployed keep a downward pressure on wages for capital. If a strike action is called for, a reserve army makes it so capital has a means to break it. The constant excuse for why wages cannot be raised is that capital would somehow employ more people if they are not. Hard to ask for a raise if managers can simply fire you and replace with someone else as soon you become "too expensive".

"The tragedy of the commons is the result of private property, not socialism. "
The tragedy of the commons is not the result of private property, but public property.
Who's dumping what where???

"Hardin's article has been thoroughly debunked. "
Really?

Adam, if you can exploit common property by using it to create some private property (or asset) then the tragedy of the commons becomes a problem.

If however there is no concept of using private property for personal profit, there is no motive to over-exploit common property.

I think this point has been clearly made by several people in this thread if you'd care to respond.

There are numerous historical studies showing how land was managed under communal management, which doesn't reflect Hardin's theory at all.

http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113/buck_NoTragedy.pdf

http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/4532/HARDIN.pdf?sequence=1

"From each according to ability, to each according to work performed was the guiding principle of the Soviet Union. "
And the Soviet Union did what? Moved to communism to dictatorship.

"Take the example of the commonly held 'air' which every individual uses.
Now some companies take advantage of the air, mixing it with chemicals which they would otherwise not be able to dispose of (and thus not make a profit) Without an Environmental Protection Agency, these practices can become more common and once every company is pouting the air everyone (company and individual) loses out."

A good point, i agree. But regulation is very insensitive and cannot work because of the infinite micro-managing involved. The EPA forces laws such as gas cans with special caps for their reasons to fulfill a purpose, but my 89-yr-old uncle (a farmer) cannot open the container, so my dad or I has to drive over to help him with the cap. The point is that an agency like the EPA cannot think of everything, not even close, while the individual can think of a vastly larger set of senarios. They didn't think that their regulation would cause two other people to frantically drive back and forth (pollution) because of their law. (My dad ended up buying an old canister without the clip.)

"Capitalism creates dependency, not socialism."
Not true! Capitalism creates a dependence, but that dependence can be broken, while in socialism (people owned and operated everything) means that you are constantly relying on others to do a portion of the work. You don't work more, because there is minute incentive. If any person in the machine stops working, then resentment is felt throughout. While in capitalism, the person is fired and does not get work or pay as consequence. You do work more, because there is incentive via more money meaning more comfort and more security.
As human beings we naturally depend on others, but as human beings we can not reach a state of perfect cooperation.

"The essence of capitalism is parasitism. The parasitism of the bourgeoisie, who live off the labor of the working class. The parasitism of the coupon clipping elite, who live off nothing but dividends and interest while taxing people who actually work for a living. The parasitism of the trust fund babies who inherit wealth which the bourgeoisie doesn't want taxed while lecturing the working poor about handouts. "
Obviously, you don't quite believe in value nor earning. You view the rich as selfish snobs, those who as children were raised with luxuries you view as parasites, while they feed off their own parent's earnings.
If I work on an assembly line (which I probably won't because we don't manufacture much here in America) then my job is probably not worth a "living wage", and so I should not be paid it. But my current job (cemetery work: cutting down trees, trimming bushes, finding markers, trimming trees) pays only $6.25 . I'm fine with that, because I'm young and I know I'm not as efficient as the older worker (he volunteers, but when he does he gets paid more). When I grow older, I will get paid more because I will produce more. Contrary to much of what you just said, Henry Ford raised wages from $$$ a day for his workers to $$$$$ a day, in addition to hiring social misfits, the disabled, the mentally disabled, as well as minorities that would not usually be hired other places such as African Americans because he realized that they could do the same job as any regular man thanks to the simple assembly line procedure. Not to mention that he brought America a car for the cheapest price in history, enabling hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans to have a car in their possetion (not to mention solving the major city problems of horse...waste... and the terrible health factor of decaying horses on the side of the street. Cars enabled fire trucks to reach fires faster and ambulances to reach patients in under half an hour, saving countless lives. But I suppose you would say that they polluted the air all along the way. Which side cares here?

I find even in my incredibly biased class History/ "Social Studies" book that personal decision and personal responsibility and the freedom to choose and capitalism actually offer an incredible (if not more than socialism) standard of living as well as social advancements.

"too expensive"
Thanks for putting quotes around this so I didn't have to. Anyway...
You act like it's not a possibility! A child comes to your door and offers to cut your grass (or shovel the snow, if you're approaching winter with me here in America). He offers to do it for $20 dollars, and you decide it's too much. Another kid comes up and offers to do the same job for $10, and you decide it's too much. The labor has become, as quoted, "too expensive" because it is not worth what you determine you doing it would be worth. Another comes and offers to do it twice as fast as the others and offers to do it for $5, and you find it reasonable and pay it. The others are the ones that go and rip off the old lady for their extraordinary price, and they will probably never be able to do that job again unless they lower their price. The one that works for the $5 gets a steady job around the neighborhood, and depending on how hard he works, thrives.
The problem with this analogue is that there are only a relative hand full of kids that would actually work like that.
BTW there is some deeper symbolism.

Despite what you may think, I'm only a conventional me. I don't completely agree with anyone because there is always some thing wrong with what is.
I agree with aspects of libertarianism.
I agree with aspects of capitalism.
I agree with aspects of socialism.
I even agree with some (few) aspects of communism.
What they are, you don't know. Don't act like you do.
I'm nothing conventional.

(although i do completely agree that 1+1=2)
(but there's probably something wrong with that too)

I didn't realize I had written that much...

Ha, the computer gave me a message that I was posting too fast.

And, Putin, there is plenty of current evidence for the Tragedy of the Commons as well.
One example is a public park, as seen on Stossel, (yes, funny mustache) there is a huge difference between the park as public property and the park as private property. There was a representative from the other side (as there usually is on Fox, which I don't watch much) and every claim that she made about everything from the homeless inhabiting the park to public gatherings to where the money really goes was shot down. As it turns out, there was a movement of homeless people from other parts of the city TO the park, and they were fed as well. The park board takes no responsibility to halt public gatherings such as protests or riots, and actually transferred that responsibility to the city government. The park board president was also present at the debate, and as the woman accused private parks of taking all of the money (while i believe they are entitled to some of it) every single cent is pumped back into the park (excluding janitorial work and vendors, but the money made from charging the vendors to own their little spot of the park is even funneled back. Some African nations are actually privatizing endangered elephants, and the population [of elephants] is skyrocketing. The same is occurring with American bison, and their population is also skyrocketing because of the market for bison meat. Periodically, the company lets free bison, if you thought they weren't free.

"If however there is no concept of using private property for personal profit"
How unrealistic can we be?

'The EPA forces laws such as gas cans with special caps for their reasons to fulfill a purpose...'

I didn't say the system was perfect, i said without regulation the tragedy of the commons exists within a Capitalistic system.

That regulation isn't perfect is a consequence of top-down thinking, the kind of management structure which is often seen in capitalist systems - if you are an employee of a large company the mangers don't necessarily have time to listen to your ideas. Whereas if you are part of a democratically run company (ie one which does not have managers) then there is more time to listen because everyone is able to do it...

This is a feature of company structure to which socialism lends itself. Not that it is impossible within a capitalist system. Because most ideas can be meshed together.

However, i'm getting far far off point. The point was, that the tragedy of the commons is a problem for capitalistic systems, and regulation is the best solution we have - which is what most people would call a socialistic principle.

'And the Soviet Union did what? Moved to communism to dictatorship.'

and no. What you should understand about Russia is that it started out with a totalitarian system and replaced it with another as the USSR and then with another as the Russian Federation again.

It takes a lot more time to change the culture of a nation than a single revolution. The example of Russia is just that countries tend to have their own cultural momentum and it is hard to slow or change that.

Why then has Bush's privatization of national parks been such a disaster for our national parks? Privatization reduced the budgetary resources for park preservation by more than 20% (with the demand for profits further reducing investment in the parks), outsourced park management to lower paid, less qualified, less knowledgeable workers who did not know how to manage the resources as well, and then the privatized parks allowed commercial interests to come in and destroy whatever the hell they wanted to destroy.

"And the Soviet Union did what? Moved to communism to dictatorship."

Try to stay on topic. The issue was dependency. You inserting nonsensical claims like "moving from communism to dictatorship" is not helpful. The point is people in socialist systems have to work to get paid, and everyone works. There is no dependency here. Soviet Union did not distribute unemployment benefits for most of its history. Yet every capitalist country requires a welfare apparatus in order to stay in power.

Communism was not achieved. Communism is poorly understood by free market critics. Building communism is a multiple stage process. The first stage of which involves the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was not a "movement from communism to dictatorship", but rather an attempt at the opposite. The issue is that reaching the last stage of socialism (communism) requires the total elimination of classes & a very high level of productive capacity, not to mention many generations of habit-forming.

This is all laid out in Marx & Lenin for anybody who bothers to read what they are criticizing.

"You act like it's not a possibility!"

You completely missed the point of my argument and went on some trite libertarian tangent that had nothing to do with it. The point was that capitalism aims to maintain a permanent condition of mass unemployment, quite apart from the minimal frictional and structural issues which may arise. A reserve army of the unemployed is a necessary feature of capitalism, because without it capital cannot keep downward pressure on wages by terminating "expensive" labor and replacing it with the hungry and destitute unemployed who will work for anything and under any conditions.

"I'm nothing conventional."

I don't really care, and am not impressed with muddled and mealy-mouthed points of view that try to square circles and incorporate mutually contradictory ideas in the hopes that doing so will allow you avoid accountability.

"Obviously, you don't quite believe in value nor earning."

Quite the contrary, I don't believe people should profit off the backs of the labor of others. People should be paid for the value of what they produce. People who do not produce - capitalists- should get nothing. Income derived from interest & dividends, or inherited wealth, is not "earned".

"If I work on an assembly line (which I probably won't because we don't manufacture much here in America) then my job is probably not worth a "living wage""

All manufacturing jobs typically pay a living wage. That's why rightwingers bash them all the time, accuse auto workers for example of being overpaid.

"'m fine with that, because I'm young and I know I'm not as efficient as the older worker"

And because you don't pay rent or have to worry about providing your own health insurance.

"When I grow older, I will get paid more because I will produce more"

You're not producing anything. You're providing a service. These kinds of jobs are not piece-work, so you're not going to get paid based on production. Your employer will not pay you above a certain threshold, as it is not skilled labor and you can be easily replaced. He might give you a slight raise to avoid the inconvenience of having to hire somebody else if he thinks you show on time and do a decent job, but that's not really much of an inconvenience if the skill level is low.

"Which side cares here?"

I don't even know what you're talking about here or how it is related to anything. I suppose you're claiming that Capitalists like Ford "create good paying jobs" by virtue of the fact that they privately owned capital and used it to hire workers to make his products for him. Yes, ok. When industrial capital was preeminent, wages were much higher. But finance capital now dominates, and where are all these good paying manufacturing jobs now? They're few and far between. You admitted that we don't make much anymore. That's a consequence of free trade, labor market "flexibility", free movement of capital. So what exactly are we to praise about capitalism again? Yes at one point some capitalist provided good paying jobs, but that no longer applies, so these great benefits are particularly sustainable are they? At some point or another, capital will find a way to crush workers wages, benefits, and if that's not satisfactory, deprive them of jobs altogether. The former social contract, in which people were guaranteed job security and modest pay increases in exchange for labor peace and productivity, no longer exists. Now people are fired on a whim and benefits which have accumulated over time have been sharply decreased if not eliminated. Meanwhile, executive compensation has soared and management has become bloated.

"I don't believe people should profit off the backs of the labor of others. People should be paid for the value of what they produce. People who do not produce - capitalists- should get nothing." Ha. The only reason an executive is an executive, the only reason a CEO is a CEO is because he or she is capable of doing so, not just because that person got there by luck or by exploitation. Although I will likely be called an asshole for this, try to put a janitor in an executive position and see how he does at it; clearly, if he were more capable, he would likely not be a janitor. Rich people (excluding those inheriting wealth, although those people had an ancestor who was likely born poor or middle class at some point) are rich because they are smart and unusually capable. And those who are "unrightfully rich" almost always become so because of government intervention. Criticizing the most productive in society displays a juvenile worldview in which envy is ultimately the primary motivator.

@jpgre: are you saying that a janitor is inherently less capable, or that given the fact that (s)he is a janitor they will not have had the same learning experiences as a CEO?

"try to put a janitor in an executive position and see how he does at it"

This kind of thought experiment is not necessarily useful. It doesn't mean the CEO are either needed nor that the job needs to be paid as much as it is.

It would be entirely possible to have a CEO who is paid the same wage as the rest of the workers, and thus provide the CEO incentive to increase the wage earned by each worker... Would such a system not benefit everyone??

"Criticizing the most productive in society displays a juvenile worldview... "

most productive by what standard?

Yes yes, the old 'communists are just envious' argument. Workers have shown time and time again (Paris 1871, Russia 1917, Spain 1936 are a few examples) that they don't need bosses and CEOs to run their work. They have shown that they can democratically control their work and produce what is best for them.

And even if CEOs and bosses are the smartest people in society, they still don't produce anything. Just because a person has the intelligence to put themself in a position were they don't need to do any work yet recieve a large salary deson't mean they are right to do so.

" Capitalism creates a dependence, but that dependence can be broken, while in socialism (people owned and operated everything) means that you are constantly relying on others to do a portion of the work. "

You clearly missed my point. Where do your shoes come from? Your food? Your computer? Could you create any of these things by yourself? Sure. Do you have the necessary skill base to do so? To live independently from society. I'm not saying its impossible. However if you are buying goods you are clearly dependent on the labour of others for things in your day to day life, just as much as person in a socialist economy is.

This isn't a bad thing. Man shouldn't try and be entirely self-sufficient.

But just like in socialism, lets say a workers strike results in a shortage of a good you need. You're going to feel a sense of resentment. People who don't work don't magically have their needs met for them in a socialist society, as Putin said they need to work to be able to partake in the bounty of their fellows.

Finally on profit motive. Yes it exists. Its stupid though. You can be motivated by the desire for money to get up and go to a job you hate, so you can afford to survive. Or in a socialist system, you can attain a job that you enjoy/meshes with your ability. So that your reason for getting up is that you enjoy your work. The capitalist form of motivation to me sounds like someone wasting there life, in hopes of getting somewhere better.

One last point, if you have a chance, glance through Thomas More's Utopia. That's at the very least I think a decent example of something akin to socialism. Everyone there contributes to the work of necessity for two year farm shifts etc., but other then that they are assigned jobs they generally like, and only need to work six hour days.

@jpgredsox: To a certain extent that is true, but you're presupposing that people rise through capabilities. Not everyone does so. There might be more intelligent and better qualified people who get overlooked because of certain inherent disadvantages and because of the importance that networking plays in business. I know someone who did an internship in the EPA that he never would have gotten if his parents didn't know someone there. Also, the lack of women in the highest echelons of corporate America is another example of this. Men are often unwilling to mentor younger women in environments like that and mentoring is an important part of rising to that position. I'm certainly not trying to completely devalue your point - I think that to a certain extent it is valid. But its also excessively simplistic and does not take into account a variety of factors that are crucial for any empirical examination. I'm sure that I haven't mentioned a fraction of those factors, but they do exist.

"Criticizing the most productive in society"

I suppose "rich" is a proxy for "productive" even if they do little but sit around while accumulating income from interest & dividends. Evidently in your world, you don't actually have to produce or do a damn thing in order to be "productive". It's amazing the strident defenses one hears in defense of the compensation of corporate bureaucrats who for whatever reason are believed to be worth 300 times that of their employees.

Anyway, when your ilk stop criticizing the working class and blaming everything on trade unions, the retired, and the urban poor? Never? Thought so. Class warfare is only "juvenile" when your heroes the rich are targeted. The class warfare and vitriol with which the right has attacked everybody else somehow gets left out in this picture.

"the only reason a CEO is a CEO is because he or she is capable of doing so, not just because that person got there by luck or by exploitation."

Indeed, that's why our economy is working so well right now, because CEOs are so "capable". AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Carlyle Group, British Petroleum, Washington Mutual, WorldCom, Enron, Global Crossing, etc all apparently managed by "unusually capable" executives, right? Oh nevermind, I'm sure you'll blame all of this incompetence on the government somehow.

And I guess this coterie of reality celebrities who have done little more than say outrageous shit and act like buffoons are more examples of rich people who are rewarded base on their "productivity". What is it that the Kardashians "produce" again?

@jp You are missing the core of Putins argument. Which is that the mangers and CEOs don't actually produce anything. As they don't produce anything of real value the should not be payed more then their workers who are producing things.

The core point which he stated very completely right before I posted. Durr..clearly I need to make friends with the refresh button.

damian, Value is subjective. Trade creates value. Therefore CEO's are capable of creating value, they just don't necessarily do so.

If CEOs don't produce anything, why employee them? Surely profits would be greater with one fewer unnecessary employee. Wouldn't companies who realized that CEOs were not needed thus gain a competitive advantage over companies who had not realized this fact. After all their overheads would be lower. They could charge lower prices. What is missing here?

Yeah, CEOs don't produce anything. Good job throwing out some failed companies and suddenly generalizing to say that all CEOs are worthless. Also, nice job equating rich people exclusively with finance ("accumulating income from interest & dividends...") Last I checked, Steve Jobs was rich and he and his company gave the country macs, ipods, iphones, ipads, etc. So is Jeff Bezos, who created Amazon.com, a resource used by countless people around the world. So is Bill Gates, who created Microsoft, a leading factor in the computer revolution. So are Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the creators of Google. The examples are endless. And the only reason that people (in the private sector) have jobs is because of the CEOs and entrepreneurs who make those businesses possible in the first place. Sure, you might think some rich people become rich for stupid reasons---the pet rock, somebody surely became rich off of that. But per Putin's example, the Kardashians would not be rich if people did not want to watch them. In that sense, they do produce entertainment for a substantial amount of people.

I believe the CORE of the capitalistic arguement was that centralizing decision making in a government makes the system less efficient, and the responce was - then why do you centralize decision making in your corporations with the CEO??

The fact is neither of these positions is entirely correct nor entirely

Different scales require different solutions, there is no universal truth in this. That does not mean the current situation is ideal by any means...