this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
288 points (98.3% liked)
US News
364 readers
1 users here now
News from within the empire - From a leftist perspective
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If something has genuine entertainment value, why wouldn't people create it because they want to be entertained, or to entertain others? Without needing to worry about money to survive, lots of people would pursue arts, literaly just producing "entertainment" for others.
I don't understand how you get the idea that without profit motive nobody would be creative, or life would turn gray and bland. Restaurants would be just as popular or more popular: people would take more risks and try new things because they aren't afraid of failing and potentially ruining their lives. Similarly with movies: most junk produced now is just the same playbook because it is guaranteed massive profit; there's little creativity involved.
There would maybe be a tiny fraction of the entertainment we have now, how would people get enough capital to START the businesses? If min wage is $30, they would have to be instantly profitable or they would run or of money paying employees and shutdown. Movies could never be funded, even a $1 mill movie would take someone saving up for 33k hours of work.
The only thing that could really exist in a full communist society is one person businesses and not even that really. Historically full communism hasn't resulted in a cultural boom like you expect, the USSR was a shit hole and people just worked and bought food - there wasn't anything else to do.
We just need a mix, good working conditions, with good quality of life. I'd rather enjoy myself for slightly less money than do nothing with slightly more.
Huh, somebody tell Mosfilm that they didn't exist. They'll be surprised. Speaking from one's ass is generally considered rude. Next you're gonna tell us they didn't go to space or develop cool linear programming algorithms or other advanced research. Never change, Redditor.
Looks like a tiny fraction to me, on a tiny scale. Most expensive soviet film was War and Peace (1967) which cost 8 mill rubbles or $75 million in today's currency. And that's with top earners in the USSR earning around 500-1000 rubbles a month, most around 100-300/month. Most movies could not be made in a society where there is zero extra money and wages are so high, investors wouldn't invest and there wouldn't be any startup capital.
I'd still rather a mix of capitalism and socialism with good production value.
Your claim was that there was no entertainment. I showed you a page that shows around 10-20 national films per year in the 20th century. That's a lot of film. Now you're deflecting to say that the films are bad because their budget is low. First you're gonna have to show that expensive movies are automatically good given how shit every Marvel movie since Iron Man 1 has been, specially compared with the lower budget stuff like Jessica Jones. Then you're gonna have to show movies from the time of War and Piece in the USA that are actually so "superior" on quality and and budget.
You seem to still be insisting on "investors" as though they are necessary. Once a movie has sold well it can finance the following movies by itself without being tied down to some disconnected rich AMPTP CEO who won't pay his writers and actors. "Most movies" actually have very small budgets, for obvious reasons and you'll hardly find movies that cost hundreds of millions in film festivals. The vast majority of art is actually cheaply produced even in capitalism, just look at deviantart, steam, itch, youtube.
Why do you want to be your society to still be ruled by investors? You do know that if they can have 10% of the economy they'll try to get 20%, right? How many 2008s and 2020s do you need to learn?
I also drink my water with oil. Soap blends it very well.
You cannot mix Capitalism and Socialism, they are fundamentally incompatible