Does the game of capatalism only have one winner?

[brainstorm]

I guess the Live-it-ups would need to guarantee their power (ability to maintain their machine) - the class warfare aspect might enable the trend - is this what you mean? Basically, a majority of people on the receiving end will guarantee the re-distribution machine never breaks down?

They would try, but problems would keep arising for various reasons. For one, they would have trouble maintaining capitalism as a basic mechanism for economic exchange, because they would simultaneously be undermining the rationality of saving through conservation. Second, they would run into various forms of scarcity that would cause bubble-formation and bursting that would leave numerous people excluded from the means of consumption and thus disenchanted with "the machine." Eventually, (I would hope), reason would prevail over desire to live lavishly and the spirit of conservation would become more widespread, relieving the pressure on the economy to perpetually increase and expand high-consumption materialism as far as possible. But as this happened, there would probably be shrinking numbers of die-hard Live-it-ups that would argue for re-expansion of a lavish consumption economy, thinking that they could this time beat scarcity and create unlimited material abundance of everything for everyone. Of course, they WILL beat scarcity when they shift their tastes/lifestyles to non-material or low-material goods and services over more resource-costly ones.

 

[WhoWee]

Hmmm - what happens if the Live-it-ups expect the machine to save for them?

 

[brainstorm]

Hmmm - what happens if the Live-it-ups expect the machine to save for them?

Why would they do that?

 

[WhoWee]

Why would they do that?

Why would they design their machine to tax Scrooge to guarantee money for their future - why wouldn't they? I understand your point - they would not call for "saving" per se.

 

[brainstorm]

Why would they design their machine to tax Scrooge to guarantee money for their future - why wouldn't they? I understand your point - they would not call for "saving" per se.

Now I see what you mean. Yes, they would probably do that. Saving really would have the same function as poverty, i.e. to reduce consumption and resource-usage by some people in order to maximize it for others. The Scrooges would be foregoing consumption voluntarily, in the hope of saving money to get ahead while the poor would be doing so because they were excluded from the means of consumption. Ultimately, there would probably be a stratified meritocracy where levels of consumption would be tiered to maximize the means of consumption for the most privileged classes of Live-it-ups.

The problem is that some of the Scrooges might get tempted to change teams when they see that they are just being used, and that would result in more competition for consumption and thus more scarcity, which would generate a larger class of poor people, who basically do the same saving as the Scrooges anyway, only they don't get sufficient income to actually build up any savings to show for their saving (i.e. foregone spending).

 

[WhoWee]

Now I see what you mean. Yes, they would probably do that. Saving really would have the same function as poverty, i.e. to reduce consumption and resource-usage by some people in order to maximize it for others. The Scrooges would be foregoing consumption voluntarily, in the hope of saving money to get ahead while the poor would be doing so because they were excluded from the means of consumption. Ultimately, there would probably be a stratified meritocracy where levels of consumption would be tiered to maximize the means of consumption for the most privileged classes of Live-it-ups.

The problem is that some of the Scrooges might get tempted to change teams when they see that they are just being used, and that would result in more competition for consumption and thus more scarcity, which would generate a larger class of poor people, who basically do the same saving as the Scrooges anyway, only they don't get sufficient income to actually build up any savings to show for their saving (i.e. foregone spending).

my bold
That might depend upon the scope of the class warfare activity.

 

[Polymathiah]

As immortals, the people would probably not be concerned with making money because they would have no need to ensure their own survival. I would argue that an immortal would have no need for social interaction of any kind. Assuming he did, though, trade would probably occur for a while in goods for leisure activities until the time that technology advanced to the point that scarcity ceased to exist. Without scarcity, there is no need to trade.

 

[WhoWee]

As immortals, the people would probably not be concerned with making money because they would have no need to ensure their own survival. I would argue that an immortal would have no need for social interaction of any kind. Assuming he did, though, trade would probably occur for a while in goods for leisure activities until the time that technology advanced to the point that scarcity ceased to exist. Without scarcity, there is no need to trade.

At some point boredom may create a need for entertainment?