I'd throw a bucketful of things out here and reply to you, but since this forum is mainly communistic I'd get bashed and bashed and a thousand soviet parades.
The forum being mainly communistic wouldn't mean they automatically bash you, I don't see when we've ever done that or flooded you with soviet parades (except for that one time where I posted one on IRC because you sort of asked for it).
In a communist country everybody would get the same benefit whether they worked their hardest or slacked off.Which means many people would slack off because they realize they don't have to work very hard to get anything,
I don't know how many here are actually communist and not just socialist, but I don't myself think that communism will exist before all (or almost all) human work has been replaced by robots and computers. Communism is achieved through the intermediate stage of socialism. Here people who work would all be rewarded equally and the government would ensure that there is work for everyone, as opposed to the market, where there is constantly a smaller or bigger excess portion of the population with no work in order to keep a pressure on the wages. However, working is also a duty, and those who don't work will be forced to work, at least according to my socialism. You said we could "trust you that people would still slack off" even if we have people who inspect the work people do. I simply don't think so, I think it is possible to make a system where people inspect different production facilities independently, gather information like statistics. If a factory simply isn't providing the parts it was meant to or predicted to deliver to the other sectors, they will obviously find out and investigate what's wrong with the factory.
whereas a country with a free market policy would motivate workers to work because they could get better rewards and live a better life.
Sounds good in theory... Reality is, the rich elite will remain in control of the production system and try to keep their wages up and the wages of the vast majority down. You only need to look at the income equality in USA to see how this works. Also, there are many other things which can motivate people. Personally I am much more motivated by the idea that I help society and everybody else than by the fact that I get more money from working. Other people are motivated to work by their interests. I don't want to become a scientist because I want to be rich, then everyone would probably want to own Microsoft... I want to be a scientist because I like science, it's interesting and amazing.
In fact, the incomes in capitalism makes very little sense from a motivational or rewarding standpoint... Do the people who run the corporations and earn, say, just a million dollars every year, does anyone actually think that those people work 20 times harder than a school teacher who earns 50,000 dollars a year? Well, I don't.
Which means most people in a free market economy would tend to work harder than communistic ones, and get more work done and have a much larger economy.
Hmm, reality doesn't entirely agree with that... If you look at the Soviet Union, their economy had very high growth rates for a long period of time.
http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/economics/statistics/growth-rates.htmIn fact, higher growth rates than USA. Despite the devastation of World War 2 being much harsher in Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe and the Marshall help Western Europe got from USA (which lost pretty much no infrastructure or civillians in the war), the GDP of USSR had grown from 20% of USA's GDP when Lenin established it, to 30% of USA's GDP when it collapsed.
Why? Because capitalism also has its downsides compared to socialism...
First of all, capitalism is chaotic and doesn't really look into the future. People just do whatever profits them now, profit does not automatically equal what is in the interest of people or what is good in the future. Take for example the fossil fuels, which have been most efficient for many years, only very recently wind turbines have become more efficient than fossil fuels for electric production in USA... The corporations had little incentive to invest in those for a long time. Instead, in a planned economy, the government can take this look into the future and see that fossil fuels will deplete and cause environmental troubles, so it can focus on developing the clean energy sources instead of going into this blind alley.
Some other cases when profits doesn't equate to the interests of people, take advertisements. This is pure capitalist propaganda and only serves to convince people to buy more items they don't need. I would be in favor of an information database where people could look up products which have been judged objectively, if anything.
http://www.wpp.com/wpp/press/press/default.htm?guid={23ebd8df-51a5-4a1d-b139-576d711e77ac}It is estimated that globally, we spend 467 billion USD on advertising... How is this really improving the life of anybody or solving any problems? It is a complete waste, and so is the production of candy, alcohol, guns and tobacco. Those who work to produce this are only harming society, because of profits.
In a communist economy, no matter how hard you work, you never get more than the guy who worked very little.
So I assume I already responded to this?
If people were not greedy, then communism would be the way to go, but not all of us want to work for the good of the nation, and so this is where a free market also gets better points as you can work for yourself and benefit the economy. Maybe in the future a system similar to communism may be the way, but for the present and near future, a free market economy is the way to go.
(This is repeting what you said earlier, I think)
While I admit a free market economy has its problems, it promotes advances, discoveries, efficiency, innovation, and a hard working population.
Those are some very broad and nice words, efficiency - definitely not if human wellbeing is what you want your economy centered around. Hard-working - yes, you can hardly promote working hard more than you can by letting people starve to death if they don't, but socialism can do this too, not just capitalism, and in many cases, capitalism fails to do this because it doesn't provide the jobs. In most cases, however, people don't slack off even if they have the option, though, this is simply a myth...
http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Penge/2012/05/23/094051.htm151,000 people in Denmark earn less than 340 USD more than they could get from the public, in some cases even less than they could get from the public. But only 14,000 out of those are unemployed.
Yes some people are poor, but hey if they won't work then let them live there, or if they can't find a job then they should keep looking and find a way to climb out of the hole.
What is the real problem is the lack of jobs. Some libertarians like to yell "go get a job" at all the poor, unemployed people, but that's pretty hard if there isn't any...
In short, I don't think a free market economy (or communism) is the best economic system possible, I think it is the best as of now and the near future.
And in short, I don't.
And this isn't an attempt to bash you, I'm only interested in discussing.
