Communism... opinions?

How would that even work? On a macro scale you have to deal with transportation, different resource costs across the field, etc. I'm not sure how it would be possible without some sort of hierarchy.

Which is why communism fails when applied to scale. Nothing in this world can be made uniform economically.

Eh, I'm talking about anarcho-communism specifically, I don't think that other communist ideologies prohibit hierarchal structure per se. I could be wrong on something here.

Well, there's the variation where you "take everything from everybody" and redistribute it evenly, which requires someone to do the taking. There's also the variation where everybody voluntarily pools their goods and then voluntarily takes what they need.

The fundamental problems with both of those systems are that (a) they contain no safeguard against abuse, (b) they fail to provide any incentive for hard work beyond the minimum required to survive.

And they always, always, turn into a "Some people are more equal than others" situation.

edited 3rd Aug '10 11:38:10 AM by Fighteer

You'd be wrong. Commodities fetishism is indeed a strong incentive: you are promised more commodities if you work harder. There being no limits to how many commodities you may acquire but there being a hard limit on how much work you can put out.

However, you may have noticed that not everyone is motivated by such a thing: many are content with material poverty, and find solace in other things (religious people, artists, academics, and even scientists: the latter do seek expensive toys, but not for themselves). Many, past a threshold of comfort and security (which is lower the more the community can guarrantee their health and welfare), do not seek to get any richer or accumulate more posessions, while they keep working hard.

Why is that? Because people work for work's sake. As long as they are assured that, were anything to happen, the community would take care of them and their loved ones, they are free to go all out and dedicate themselves body and soul to their practice. Work can and must be a game, gratuitous and free.

The lust for commodities is mostly social: you want more than your neighbhour, and from a certain income onwards most of your income is spent purely on demonstrating the existence and size of such an income. Work is set up as an indirect way to get to the commodities and rise on the social scale, get status, and the respect, love and deference of your neighbor.

The lust for work is spurned by emulation: you compete with your peers, and each trying to one-up the other is what drives you to give it your best. If the competition is healthy enough, the competitors may even help each other occasionally, for their goal is to excel, and they need strong opponents to keep them sharp.

Material compensation for additional work is a nice bonus, but it isn't the be-all and end-all of social retribution. Status and power are. Communist societies can distribute that equally, for a meritocracy is to the benefit of all.

Because people work for work's sake.

I'm going to take a break and laugh at you now. I just want you to know that.

Okay, I'm done.

This is fairly easy to prove untrue. Get somebody and tell them they can stay at your place and get food for free. See if they decide to go get a job.

^^ Your system breaks down as soon as someone decides that it's easier to take from others than to do the work himself. It also breaks down when someone declares himself the "arbiter" of fairness among others, and therefore isn't required to work because he serves a more important function. It's a short step from there to autocracy.

In short, it only works under an idealized concept of human nature which simply does not exist.

edited 3rd Aug '10 1:22:04 PM by Fighteer

I'd say there's a nontrivial amount of people who work for work's sake. It includes people who are driven towards their various goals for nonfinancial reasons. The artists, the athletes, the scientists who feel almost compelled to pursue their work, and strive to get better every time they do it. This is, admittedly, a very small subsection of humanity, but it does exist.

^ while a lot of people enjoy and gets satisfaction from their work (lucky bastards), I'd say that there's way more "as long as I have to work, I might as well do something I enjoy" people than "I don't have to work to live, but I like working as a hobby" people.

In addition to the above, how does the system handle fair distribution of things that are inherently scarce? People like truffles; does that mean that everyone gets truffles, despite the impossibility of providing them? Does it mean that nobody can have them, because any inequality is an injustice? Does it mean that everybody can have them, but they have to take turns? Does it mean that they are reserved for the privileged few who can persuade the others to let them have them? Does it mean that some people will trade what they have for a chance at getting the truffles?

In short, you've just introduced all of the problems with a Communist system. Hierarchies must be designed to manage scarcity, but they create their own set of inequalities. If you don't, people will barter for things anyway, creating a capitalist system. Or you can simply define the problem away ("There are no truffles"), which means your state has now lost its touch on reality.

Working for pleasure... most people derive satisfaction from doing something, whether that's tinkering with a car, gardening, writing music, playing basketball, whatever. If it were possible for this to be parlayed into a system in which everybody only ever did what they wanted to do and still have all basic needs satisfied, you'd have your Utopia. Too bad human nature makes that impossible.

edited 3rd Aug '10 2:52:48 PM by Fighteer

Actually, the only thing wrong with "work for work's sake" isnt the amount of work that would get done, it's the type of work, which would end up corresponding to people's interests (i.e. challenging and interesting stuff) and not to the needs of the community. The end result would be too many brain surgeons and not enough trash collectors. The job market is a pain in many ways, but it does ensure that people get paid in part according to the demand for the services, not just the willingness to do the work.

edited 3rd Aug '10 2:49:54 PM by DeMarquis

Maybe they should sweeten the pot for the trash collectors and let them have anything they find in the garbage!

Including the sweet, sweet information.

Boring unpleasant shit needs doing. Simple as that, nobody would do those things if they weren't pushed into it.

^Here you go, that's the problem.

All you "people wouldn't work if they didn't have to" folks are talking like employed people (or people in school), and I'll bet that few, if any, of you actually have people freeloading off you. Doing nothing is boring. Even people who would like to just quit their job on the spot would realize the drawbacks after a couple of weeks.

There are true freeloaders in the world, but they're few and often plagued with underlying problems (drugs etc). Many people who don't contribute much fiscally are working, they just aren't making money: think starving artists. And many other people would still work, they just wouldn't work nearly as much.

The problems are that people won't do the quantity or type of work that is needed unless there is strict regulation, and that strict regulation is clearly a bad idea since that's a direct road to dictatorship.

I've read several different translations of Communist Manifesto, mostly because I thought that the bad writing and illogical reasoning were faults of a bad translation. As it turns out, it wasn't the translation that was the problem.

I mean honestly, if I had been living through Mc Carthyism I think I would have lobbied for the Communist Manifesto to be mandatory reading in highschool, just because it is such stupid drivel that actually reading it would have turned off almost all of the students to Marxism.

I won't go into too much detail because frankly I don't want to bother with it, but suffice it to say Carl Marx bases almost all of his argument on emotional weight instead of an appeal to reason, leaving the philosophy with several obvious flaws that any sane man would have noticed right away. For instance, it purports to eliminated social tyranny by replacing bourgeoisie "tyranny" (what Marx considered republics to be) with a dictatorship of the proletariat. In other words, Marx wanted to end what he considered one tyrannical form of government with...a same but different form of tyranny. George Orwell does a pretty nice job of showing exactly how I feel about this idea of Marx's in Animal Farm. I'm going to stop there because I don't want to go line by line pointing out all of the flaws with Communism.

Major Tom: Impractical and impossible given the nature of humans. Especially when applied to scale.

Quoted for very truth.

Communism is actually in practice in most of the United States, actually. Most families practice communism: Supply what you can give, take what you need, and work together for the common good.

However, people tend to suck at trusting each other, or alternatively, people suck at building other peoples' trust of them.

And even a the family level we have people embezzling from the piggy-bank and free-rider problems, so it makes complete sense that true communism fails pathetically at managing a group of larger than about ten people.

I don't know for you, but one the thing that drives me the most to be the honest, trustworthy, goody-two-shoes I am is the building of people's faith in humanity. Gotta go, will expand later.

Provided things keep advancing, we will, one day, live in a post-capitalist society where things are much better than they are now.

But it will not be Communist. It will be something else and until we move on from that utterly discredited ideology we aren't likely to find out what, anytime soon.

Communism is very much a product of its 19th century origins. Much about society, politics and economics has changed since then and frankly Communism hasn't anticipated or kept up with it very well at all.

Fortunately for those of an idealistic bent, disciplines of economic thought based on egalitarian principles have moved on a great deal since then. They just haven't had anything to do with Marxism because that was an experiment which failed. Utterly. To see people continue to claim this outdated nonsense is our future is as absurd as to claim that coal-fired steam engines represent our best possible solution to the oil crisis.

There are other egalitarian oriented fields of economics far more advanced, sophisticated and workable than Communism. If those who wished to change the world were willing to learn about them, they might have a chance to try something with a hope of working.

edited 4th Aug '10 6:38:49 AM by Korgmeister

Hmm...

Alright then, I raise this question.

Is there any kind of human ruled government that could lead to a Utopia? One that balances Discipline with Freedom, that remains unbiased, and can remove social and economic problems?

Because based on what I've seen, I honestly don't think Humans are meant to rule themselves. They simply *can't*.

Utopia is not possible. It is quite possibly the most dangerous idea that humans have ever come up with.

You can either reject it or you can become a monster, the choice is yours.

The only way I see out of the present unsolvable political dilemmas is to make it possible for humans to change what they are, fundamentally. It's one of the chief reasons I'm a transhumanist. I don't think it'll lead to utopia, but it improves our chances for survival and a better future considerably.

>_>

I just said I don't think humans can rule themselves; human rule is doomed to failure. What ya need is something that's greater then humans, and can be seen as 'beyond our morality', or something.

Like God, or Aliens, or Robots.

>I just said I don't think humans can rule themselves; human rule is doomed to failure. What ya need is something that's greater then humans, and can be seen as 'beyond our morality', or something.

Like God, or Aliens, or Robots.

>Like God, or Aliens, or Robots.

>Like God, or Aliens, or Robots.

>Like God, or Aliens, or Robots.

>Like God, or Aliens, or Robots.

>Like God, or Aliens, or Robots.

>Like God, or Aliens, or Robots.

This was my face when I realized you were being freaking serious about that.◊

edited 4th Aug '10 7:08:59 AM by Raidouthe21st

Or posthumans.

Baselines are still going to stick around, though. Let's not be delusional, most people are going to be less than enthusiastic about the idea of altering their biology.

>_>

<_<

...

WHAT?! Just because they're not *readily apparent* doesn't mean they don't exist.

edited 4th Aug '10 7:11:19 AM by E.H.Grayson