Are there no conditions under which a communistic society could thrive?
All citizens must willingly participate.
It must adhere to conventional forms of lawmaking and not be done in an ad hoc manner.
.[/quote]
Well, one problem is WHY would a Bush, A Rockefeller or another person of the Super-rich want such a society? After all, they’ve got it made materially in this one. My point is that, sure, under capitalism you have people who are exploited like shit, but then you have people that profit from the labor of those exploited. In other words, different classes have different class interests.
If you are a worker, you want more money, more benefits, etc. If you are an employer, you want to pay as little as possible. This is the driving impetus behind globalization. Capitalists can export labor to the Third World where they can pay peanuts, and dont have to worry about stuff like environmental laws, working conditions, etc.
So, there are only two solutions. Either, you take political power and change the distribution of wealth that way or you go off and try to build a society on your own, without fighting for State power. This latter is what the Zapatistas in Mexico have attempted to do. They have not tried to overthrow the Mexican governmetn but rather have tried to create an autonomous political region of their own.
[quote]kroby wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I will redefine inanimate to mean those objects incapable of acting out of free will. This encompasses humans in a vegetative state, for example.
You mean like a solar flare? It’s incapable of acting out of it’s own free will. Ah, but it’s actually traveling; hardly inanimate.
Stick with your inanimate ideas. That works for your argument.
As for that, your ideas are acted out by humans. Therein lies the chink in the grand plan. The seed for destruction, as it were.
[/quote]
Motion hardly makes anything animate. Everything is in motion. There is no state of rest.
[quote]kroby wrote:
What, like electrons rotating around protons and neutrons? I wanted to go lower… subatomic. Quarks. Don’t begin to lecture me about chemistry, you’re way over your head.
[/quote]
Then I don’t need to tell you electrons don’t “rotate”.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
kroby wrote:
What, like electrons rotating around protons and neutrons? I wanted to go lower… subatomic. Quarks. Don’t begin to lecture me about chemistry, you’re way over your head.
Then I don’t need to tell you electrons don’t “rotate”.[/quote]
Watch the movie “Devil’s Playground”. It centers around Rumspringa–where teenagers get to “live it up”. Its kind of tragic but it does highlight the lives of some of the individuals that “get away”. Perhaps this wasn’t a perfect example–I was just using it to illustrate that the economic principles of communism can be applied outside of a massive enforcing government.
[/quote]
So even communism at the Amish level requires massive brainwashing and the education of people that are brought up to be unable to live in a different society and are practically forced to stay with the Amish?
I understand how communism is viewed by most people, what I am trying to do is “reeducate” people what the communist ideal is and restore it back to it’s original intent–which isn’t control of a welfare State but rather a means of escaping an ownership and competition society.
.[/quote]
I do not know where you have your ideas from, but “original communism” very much revolves around an objective price theory which leads to the idea that profit is immoral and that a better society could be built by eliminating it.
There is and was nothing warm and fuzzy about it, those were falsfiable hyphoteses and they were wrong, end of story.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
kroby wrote:
What, like electrons rotating around protons and neutrons? I wanted to go lower… subatomic. Quarks. Don’t begin to lecture me about chemistry, you’re way over your head.
Then I don’t need to tell you electrons don’t “rotate”.
[/quote]
Poor choice of words. Excited, passing through various valence shells that surround a nucleus.
I am wrong about inanimate. It was my fault for assuming the opposite of animate (to give motion to) was, obviously, to not give motion to, as in stasis (motionlessness). Thank you for educting me. At least I won’t make that mistake again.
[quote]lixy wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
It must be small.
It must be democratic.
All citizens must willingly participate.
It must adhere to conventional forms of lawmaking and not be done in an ad hoc manner.
It must have de facto decision making ability in its own affairs–e.g., be separate from the federal government.
Communism doesn’t work in idea nor does it work in practice. It has one fundemental flaw. It redistributes the achievement of the individual to the group. Sociologically, that dog won’t hunt; it violates the humans nature of self fulfilmant, through effort.
What if you achived you did everything to achieve you PhD, but then everybody in your family, tribe, community, etc. got the PhD too, though they did not lift a finger to get it themselves. Do they deserve it because they picked up you trash? Or mowed your lawn? Or worked on your car so you could get to school? Or worked on the roads where you drive your car to get to school.
The PhD is yours alone, you deserve it, not everybody else to.
That’s why, Liftvs, communism doesn’t work. The benifit of communist governements is temporary, they gave food and shelter to those who had none. What happend when your belly is full and your head dry are you satisfied, or do you strive for more?
You strive for more, but the system will keep you right where your at’ whether you strive and work hard or whether you sit on your ass with your hand out.
Hell, if you are willing to share your PhD with me, that’d sure look good on my resume.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
lixy wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
It must be small.
It must be democratic.
All citizens must willingly participate.
It must adhere to conventional forms of lawmaking and not be done in an ad hoc manner.
It must have de facto decision making ability in its own affairs–e.g., be separate from the federal government.
I understand how communism is viewed by most people, what I am trying to do is “reeducate” people what the communist ideal is and restore it back to it’s original intent–which isn’t control of a welfare State but rather a means of escaping an ownership and competition society.
.
I do not know where you have your ideas from, but “original communism” very much revolves around an objective price theory which leads to the idea that profit is immoral and that a better society could be built by eliminating it.
There is and was nothing warm and fuzzy about it, those were falsfiable hyphoteses and they were wrong, end of story.
[/quote]
I am talking about Communism2.0.
“Profits” aren’t necessarily evil but they are based on arbitrary valuation of resources and labor. Its a double edged sword in that profits are necessary to motivate people but the greed that results from learning to make a profit is bad. People lie, cheat and steal just to make a buck and many people are disenfranchised by these owners of industry–with the help of government regulation.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
lixy wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
It must be small.
It must be democratic.
All citizens must willingly participate.
It must adhere to conventional forms of lawmaking and not be done in an ad hoc manner.
It must have de facto decision making ability in its own affairs–e.g., be separate from the federal government.
Sign me up!
Join a kibbutz. [/quote]
LOL! THAT’S got to be one of the best one-liners I’ve ever read here. Damn, Henny Youngman (my comedic hero) has nothing on that one!
[quote]pat36 wrote:
That’s why, Liftvs, communism doesn’t work. The benifit of communist governements is temporary, they gave food and shelter to those who had none. What happend when your belly is full and your head dry are you satisfied, or do you strive for more?
[/quote]
I agree. A communist government cannot work. A communist economy can work with the above conditions I laid out. People willingly participate in these “contracts” more than you think.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Communism means to live for the benefit of the ‘community’.[/quote]
Precisely–and it is possible. For example, car-pooling is a communistic enterprise. Everyone that participates profits. I give up a seat in my car to a passenger and in return that passenger returns the favor.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
pat36 wrote:
That’s why, Liftvs, communism doesn’t work. The benifit of communist governements is temporary, they gave food and shelter to those who had none. What happend when your belly is full and your head dry are you satisfied, or do you strive for more?
I agree. A communist government cannot work. A communist economy can work with the above conditions I laid out. People willingly participate in these “contracts” more than you think.[/quote]
Communist practices (contracts) work on a small scale, but it cannot work large scale. Communist economy? As in countrywide? Global?
Are you suggesting that small communes reach for one another creating a cooperative? A collective? Now you’ve brought in the need for one community to get the most out of what it has, perhaps at the detriment of another.
Maybe because they live in the far north, where it gets cold, and they can’t grow crops year round. Competition does not work to better the communist economy. Yet competition is always the end result. That’s why a communist economy can’t work. Or did I miss something?
I think you guys are too harsh toward communism. As kroby stated, it’s a natural tought in small communities, it’s the family model. It works in small communities. Alas, it doesn’t work in bigger scale, as history has proven. The solidarity is lacking.
The question that interests me is, does communism as a governmental system differentiate from full blown monarchy? I mean, the strategies for survival in the system are quite alike, aren’t they?
[quote]pat36 wrote:
What if you achived you did everything to achieve you PhD, but then everybody in your family, tribe, community, etc. got the PhD too, though they did not lift a finger to get it themselves. Do they deserve it because they picked up you trash? Or mowed your lawn? Or worked on your car so you could get to school? Or worked on the roads where you drive your car to get to school.
The PhD is yours alone, you deserve it, not everybody else to. [/quote]
A Ph.D is a token of recognition by the academic community. It’s immaterial. You cannot compare that to cars, diamonds or clothes. It just ain’t the same.
Yet competition is always the end result. That’s why a communist economy can’t work. Or did I miss something?[/quote]
No, you didn’t miss anything.
Communism 2.0 is the same thing as Communism First Edition - a couple of abstract thoughts about how it would work and how awesome it would be.
Then, it balloons, because the communists then realize that this awesome system is one everyone would like to have - of course they would, with its fairness, sharing, and egalitarianism - but the people in power that won’t let natural communism prevail.
[quote]kroby wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
pat36 wrote:
That’s why, Liftvs, communism doesn’t work. The benifit of communist governements is temporary, they gave food and shelter to those who had none. What happend when your belly is full and your head dry are you satisfied, or do you strive for more?
I agree. A communist government cannot work. A communist economy can work with the above conditions I laid out. People willingly participate in these “contracts” more than you think.
Communist practices (contracts) work on a small scale, but it cannot work large scale. Communist economy? As in countrywide? Global?
Are you suggesting that small communes reach for one another creating a cooperative? A collective? Now you’ve brought in the need for one community to get the most out of what it has, perhaps at the detriment of another.
Maybe because they live in the far north, where it gets cold, and they can’t grow crops year round. Competition does not work to better the communist economy. Yet competition is always the end result. That’s why a communist economy can’t work. Or did I miss something?
[/quote]
Who ever said competitive trade is not allowed? Communes are free to trade with whomever they wish for whatever they need or want.
The point is that that there is no competition within the commune; on the contrary, they collectively compete with other outside communes or enterprises for goods and services and everyone is benefited by it; not just one person or group of persons in the commune. Competition works–just not with one’s own family–and that is what a commune is.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Then, it balloons, because the communists then realize that this awesome system is one everyone would like to have - of course they would, with its fairness, sharing, and egalitarianism - but the people in power that won’t let natural communism prevail.
[/quote]
Not necessarily. It can be non-interventionist; just like the US with regard to democracy.