Another Example of How Socialism Does Not Work

I live in an apartment complex. And I was looking at my water bill today The way the water bill in this complex works is that instead of billing each individual apartment for the amount of water that they actually use, all of the apartments in a particular building are averaged together and billed the same amount for the total usage of water by that building as a whole. So if you leave the faucet on 24/7, you'll be charged the same amount as someone who only showers once a day. It's essentially socialized water.

Now I am very conservative with my water usage. I use only what I need, and I don't like to be wasteful. Yet my water bill went up recently because other people in my building were using more water.

This is why people don't like socialism. Because they get punished for other people's actions.

 

Your apartment complex is ancient and out of whack with this. However, if your lease states that this is the way its going to be then that is it. No if's and's or but's.

On the other hand, here in Florida apartment complexes have individualized each apt's water billing with meters being installed right in place at the shut off for that particular apt. This will only work if there are these shut offs for each unit, usually near the water heater. You see, Florida has had plumbing codes that require each unit to have a separate shut off and this has been on the books for years. Apts. that are in states without these codes are screwed as far as isolating each unit.

The exception to this is one condo (owned units) complex I work at often has one 100 gallon commercial water heater per building, about 10 units per. There are no individual shut offs with this arrangement and how this passed code back in the mid seventies when they were built is beyond me. I guess the old pay-off-ski perhaps.

Your socialist example rings true but the place you reside at was set up to have the water payed for by the building owner or association. However this may have been voted on at one time or another in order to cut costs to the apts. owner(s). There is not much you can do but I was just tossing my two cents out there from a licensed plumber (since 1971) perspective.

I feel your pain. Another example would be a place that allows dogs. That is good for dog owners but what about the resident that does not have time for a dog, being alone all day etc. Those without dogs have to deal with barking, dog crap land mines (we all know the idiots that try to pull a fast one by not scooping their poop) and/or whatever reason. Until the lease runs out, nothing can be done except to keep scraping dog crap from your shoes or pay for another tenants water hog usage.

 

It's not socialism you're dealing with but capitalism. Your landlord saves money by not putting in individual water meters for each apartment. He doesn't care about your problem, he just wants your rent payment. That's the way capitalism works.

 

You missed the point. The entire thing operates as a collective. Where the responsible get punished and the irresponsible get rewarded. It's a microcosm of what happens on a mass scale in a socialist country.

 

I would have to agree that its a capitalistic example, not a socialistic one.

You and the other tenants are not the concern here, the water bill for the landlord is. If it were a socialist system your landlord would install individual water regulators to ensure that each tenant had access to the same amount of water but as it stands, the actual water usage is irrelevant. The landlord does not care if you use the least or the most amount of water, he only cares about his expense....not who pays for it.

 

You missed the point too.

 

As another poster commented, this is actually Capitalism in action. It suits the landlord who can make you pay up.

 

When I had cable internet, neighborhoods were assigned a certain amount of bandwidth. If one neighbor was a bandwidth hog, the rest of us would suffer with slow downloads -- and our bill would be the same.

Life isn't fair. Sometimes sharing resources works; sometimes it doesn't.

If a community pools resources to dig a good well and everyone has access to it, isn't that better than having no well at all?

 

I understand your point. They're being nitpicky. I suppose a better term for their understanding would be failure of collectivism.

 

No it isn't your free after your lease is up to move, you chose to live there and follow the landlords rules and policies. If it was Soviet Era Russia they won't give choices but you could put in for new housing and might get it based on Party policies and the regulations not that was bad it was not a free. Usually if you wanted to get more housing and were a Communist Party member in good standing, in the military or had special skills (senior trades people, a medical doctor etc.) you had a better chance. I know I talked to people about this and Embassy People usually dealt with Party Families. They did have it better but I did have lively debates with University students and some in the Party that is not what Marx said. But in the end it came down to a simple truth: The strong majority of citizens were content, provided for and the system largely worked once the society matured passed a period they agreed was very excessive but the United States had slavery, the eradication of the native peoples population largely and so was not without its own shame. (The pot shouldn't call the kettle black.)

 

So using the conservative method, maybe you should better your situation so you don't live in an apartment.

 

yep, he should 'just move somewhere else' - classic con logic

 

A couple of thoughts.

Nobody is being punished. Nobody has deemed that you've done something bad and decided to charge you more as a result. The system of payment is making no conscious decision here.

Do you know your bill went up because of increased usage or could have it been an increase in the unit charge?

If it was increased usage, do you know why? Maybe some of your neighbours have perfectly good reasons for using more water - a new baby, elderly parent moving in with them etc.

Ultimately, socialism is based on the principle of it being a unified society, working together and sharing resources for the greater good. Given that most people these days don't even know their neighbours, let alone consider them friends and allies, it's unlikely that you have that kind of society within your building. Only partially implementing any political system is going to have flaws.

 

I'm not well read on socialistic principles, but I understood that in socialism the more you give to society, the more you should receive from it. That's obviously not the case here.
If your point is the lack of solidarity, that's obviously a problem in your apartment complex. Are the other tenants socialists?

 

You missed the point as well. The landlord socialized the water bill. Yeah it saves him the cost of meters but that doesn't change the fact that the guilty get punished along with the innocent. That's always the problem with socialism, the people who do the work get beat up to give breaks to people who don't want to do any thing at all.

 

Socialism?

How is it socialism when the community you live in has such weak building and zoning codes that they would even allow an apartment complex to be built with only ONE water meter?

Sound more like crony capitalism to me.

 

Indeed. Behind socialism is collectivism.

The trick is to turn everything upside down in society to set that society or hierarchy in action (socialism is the opposite of efficient, because that is the trick, the more people's minds are busy, the more thoughts, so a society in state of chaos, this is the current world)

Because the more movement (energy is put) in hierarchy the more chaos in minds and motion in people, so the sooner a revolution can occur and organization can start.

Don't try to resist it, because it will lead to the opposite of freedom, because as individual you are heading towards top of hierarchy

Top of hierarchy work like a very strong magnet or force field of a black hole, the closer you get to the top of hierachy the more difficult it is to escape that force field.

Socialism was masterminded, and it still works (for over a century), until you don't try to resist it any longer. Which is very hard, because people want justice and honesty.
It will only work against people's freedom (because socialism is revolutionary, that ideology will once again lead a society towards a revolution, even a big societies as the USA, China or Russia)
You can only prevent a revolution by stopping putting energy in it.

 

No thats simply the case with any sharing of resources, which occurs in both capiltalism, mixed markets and where all services are publicly controlled.

Your own USA has many services that are shared among you, that some use more than others while all pay for.

Assigining this water situation to socialism is too simplistic, the problem of common goods existed long before socialism was even thought of.

 

The first Christian Communities were collectivist and communist aka socialist unless I read it wrong but its pretty unlikely sharing possessions, food and resources seeing everyone was provided for.

Its downright Marxist in proportion just like your example if it was good enough for them what makes Capitalism so good.

 

The problem with both socialism and capitalism is that selfish people ruin the system. You have access to wealth that you didn't directly earn.

• In a socialist society, you can decide to not work and still have a decent standard of living by taking from the government.
• In a capitalist society, you can get rich by preying on naive people.

Besides, capitalism and socialism must go hand-in-hand: Capitalism creates rich people and poor people. Extreme (unregulated) capitalism creates very rich people and very poor people. To help these extremely impoverished people, social programs are needed. (Capitalism creates socialism).

 

Sounds like a silly system to me. Whoever built the apartments were cutting corners to save money.

 

Interesting attempt at a dodge but it fails. Common Goods are all goods under socialism. Under Capitalism every body pays for their share however large that share might be is at there discretion. Under socialism everyone pays the same without regard to how much they use so every one tends to maximize their use.

 

New developments in my country often use this system, ie: of the evened out utility bill - usually written in the lease - and basically is suits the property companies as they can extract more from the lease-holders - it's classical capitalism

AND there's usually an overuse clause - ie: when you do get charged more for using more than average

 

Without meters how do you tell who is using more? And if you have meters why do you have everyone pay the same regardless of use?

 

it's a way of getting money off people who rent their properties out, ie: properties which remain empty for parts of the year between rentals, or those who use them as second homes etc....in this way the management company gets a fixed return each year, and you can guarantee they won't sell themselves short