his is still relative scarcity. Of course it's also a deviation from full efficiency inasmuch as it is caused by a decision to sell for a higher price, not because of a high demand.

It's not genuine scarcity if it can be produced in abundance. If it's a truly rare mineral, then it only has aesthetic "value" in a system without money and the profit motive.

Gold is used for astronaut helmets not because NASA wants to spend a lot of money, but because it truly is the best material for it.

Yet a replacement substance may be easily manufactured in a system without fiscal concerns.

Yes, but don't call that kapitalism. The price system is one of the most essential features of kapitalism, and the direct subversion of it under the Soviet and Chinese systems makes them a completely different system. If you don't want to call them Communism, don't, but they are not kapitalism either.

I can settle for "Stalinism," as the statist system was perfected under his rule. However, the common salient features of capitalism were still there: production with a price tag, class divisions, a wage system, the requirement of currency, top-to-bottom control in favor of a privileged few. A variation, yes, but hardly completely different IMO. If you wanted something, you had to pay for it, which is the main feature of capitalism.

Actually, not really. Consumption was ultimately limited by the production quotas themselves. If there only were a million units of something produced but two million workers wanted one, one million wasn't getting any, regardless of theoretical ability to pay.

Yes, but those who wanted one still had to pay for those which were made available. It was an inefficient system to be sure, but not one I ever supported, nor does it in any way resemble Marxian socialism, which has not yet been tried anywhere. I believe you understand this, but others continue to be in willful ignorance of this very important fact so they have false ammunition to use against me.

ven if magically you got rid of cost, many safety measures would be avoided just for simplicity purposes.

That would only be the case in a major way if the workers voted against it. I think a few notable injuries would soon convince them to vote otherwise.

Safety helmets, for example, make almost everything less comfortable.

Unless a more comfortable form of safety helmet could be provided, which it likely could. Or unless that particular dangerous task was fully automated to avoid worker injuries.

It is sometimes the same for suits required for an activity, which are often heavy or muggy. Same happens with directly environmental measures. Dumping waste into rivers or lakes is done not just because it is cheaper than alternatives but also because alternatives are inherently more difficult and less comfortable: to pour it into tanks, to load it unto trucks, to take to treatment plants or dump it in a more adequate facility is just harder.

As opposed to the less profitable measures of finding a non-polluting alternative energy source. However, in a socially owned system, there would be no impetus to avoid the hard way of doing things as long that way was truly best for the environment.

You may give all of that a price tag of "for free" but it's still harder than just dump it anywhere and that's not going to change. Workers aren't any less prone to do things the easiest way than capitalists.

They are, I think, when they have a choice that is not constrained by profits, and if the alternative was to poison the environment they and their family had to live in.

As I said elsewhere, show me a rich newborn. Don't say "trust fund babies". Suppose they get lost in the hospital and never found and they pop up magically in the jungle.

You're arguing a point that has many extreme "what if?" scenarios to make your point, and which is irrelevant to my point: just because we have to be born a certain way should not be used as a rationale for letting us live the rest of our lives like that when the means to help us rise out of that state are readily available.

The baby then has to fend for itself and hunt for itself. Trust fund babies are still born poor: they just get artificially taken out of poverty by rich parents right away. But they're born poor.

But trust fund babies still get the best of care and never have to worry about going hungry or their parents losing everything. So I think it can be argued they start off life pretty well.

No. This is why they are called "natural" disasters.

And frankly, this is a religious statement.

"The Gods of Socialism are punishing us for not following Their Commandments."

I think you know I meant that natural disasters would be far less disastrous if preventative measures and responses that didn't require a price tag to get sufficient resources together were extant. I do not have all the time in the world to compose these lengthy debates, so some statements will be made in haste and thus not have the best wording.

As opposed to unexploited and starving?

Either is bad, and I think you know what I meant.

It is not the ideal choice, but it is still giving them more choices, and giving them better options which didn't exist before. Yes, better. Better than what they had before.

But not nearly as good as what they could have if only we moved onto a better system: the full fruit of their labor and thus full security and freedom from want.

So better they die under five year plans?

I say better they live under a better system that doesn't require five year plans.

You certainly are either (probably both) underestimating the effect of a general lower cost of living in China: if things are cheaper, less money gets you further;

Only if what you do have is of adequate quality and availability.

and underestimating how much really rich are the middle classes of First World countries, with all the things they have routine access to:

And which they often must struggle to maintain access to, or decide between one expenditure and another any given month. A situation I'm in constantly, as are all of my neighbors and friends.

so if the Chinese middle class has access to less of some stuff, it doesn't mean they have a hardship filled life, as much as that First World middle classes have an unusually comfortable life.

Which overlooks the fact that everyone in the world could have a full life under a more advanced economic system modern technology makes possible, with no disparity between one class and another, and also no disparity between workers of one nation and another.

It's also some cultural variation: Chinese middle classes have dog meat vendors, and American middle classes don't; are Americans so poor they can't afford dog meat!?

That would make no more difference than what a vegan or a non-vegan chose to eat in a Marxian system.

I don't care that someone has 100 refrigerators as long as I have one.

The point is, a few can have 100 without straining their income, and a huge number of people can barely afford one that is frequently breaking down.

Actually, no.

The correlation between inequality and poverty is notoriously weak.

When there is such a huge disparity between the haves and have-nots, there certainly is such a correlation. And even when the disparity is less, it still means that what the lesser-haves possess is far less than they could have if the system was socially owned. Note how capitalist-supporters frequently tell workers they should be satisfied with less than what modern productivity would otherwise allow them to have, yet retches at the suggestion that the wealthy few should have less than the 80% of the collective wealth their small number enjoys and controls. I know you didn't intend to make Baldur look silly, but the point is, you still did.

(Although I concede it looks to be statistically significant). Inequality follows much better the great cultural regions than it does how rich the countries are or what their economic models are.

Yet culture often has much to do with what people believe they should have compared to others. This is why European First World nations are less tolerant of the disparity between the rich and poor than Americans are, because they lack the rich-worshiping ideology and contempt of the poor that Americans are notorious for having. And how rich nations tend to be has no bearing on how much of the population has access to that wealth, or how much of it compared to the owning few. Hence, one can expect the wealthy few to use their control over the media and academic textbooks to promote a cultural ideology that favors the lop-sided distribution. Look how well it works!

Btw, did you notice you're less frustrated with me today over this topic than you were yesterday?