Posted by sinusoidallysane
on February 6, 2009, 11:23 pm, in reply to "Utilitarianism question"
128.54.152.131
I would say that your assumption that utilitarian reasoning would lead to communism* would only hold true if no one worked for their money. If different people had different jobs, but were still paid the same amount of money, there would be little motivation for an individual person to put in the effort to learn and perform a more difficult (and, in a capitalistic system, potentially higher paying) job if everyone would make the same amount of money anyway. However, the society as a whole would most likely be better off if more people did seek out higher education and more difficult jobs. Psychologically, people are more like to work hard for themselves rather than if their effort is diluted through the entire society. So it seems likely that in a capitalistic system, the average income would be enough higher than the average income in a communist system so that it be a more important factor than diminishing returns.
*in this example, the correct term might be "socialism," not "communism," as we are talking about economic systems (not sure though)
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