Interperated? Uptopian? Damn those big words conplexicate me!!danlo wrote:Yeah, that's your opinion--which might be best left in the Tank. The extended argument of Marx's original vision has been interperated to suppose (I'm sure people have heard this many times before) that one day a uptopian nexus will be achieved where machines do all the work and everyone can live a life of ease...so what you're infering is that I better get off my evil fat ass, stop playing on the computer all the time and get a JOB?!! Thanks alot!
Could Communism have worked?
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Simple answer: no. Human nature will always intervene to cause difficulties for any social system. We're naturally selfish and competitive creatures, so Communism never really had a chance.
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You say that like it's a bad thing...I prefer to say it thusly: Reagan would have defeated it no matter who was in charge of it!
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Depending how you look at it nothing is necessarily evil...I personally don't believe in evil (psychics and other newagers say by doing this I'm opening up a hidden back door in my spirit for it to enter my and thus take over entirely, and Catholics tell me I'm going to Hell anyway, so... ).
So this infers that the communism inherently robs the individual of a very large degree of "free will"?Lore wrote:We're naturally selfish and competitive creatures
fall far and well Pilots!
I'm with Loremaster on this one: Communism simply goes too much against basic human nature to have a chance of working efficiently. It's a lovely idea, everyone working together for the common good...but people aren't motivated by the common good by and large, they're motivated by their own good.
So no, I don't think it could have worked. People wouldn't have been committed to it without enforcement, and that's the road to dictatorial regimes and enforced ( and hence inefficient) labour...which is pretty much where it went.
So no, I don't think it could have worked. People wouldn't have been committed to it without enforcement, and that's the road to dictatorial regimes and enforced ( and hence inefficient) labour...which is pretty much where it went.
...but in the morning, I will be sober
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This theme has been knocked around in Sci Fi and Fantasy, primarily, Sci Fi (there's a great example in Zindell's The Wild), but it usually ends up where the society becomes lazy, individually isolated, and vunerable. So it other words it would turn us into blind sheep regardless?I wrote:The extended argument of Marx's original vision has been interpreted to suppose (I'm sure people have heard this many times before) that one day a utopian nexus will be achieved where machines do all the work and everyone can live a life of ease...
Last edited by danlo on Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
fall far and well Pilots!
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Good post.Gart wrote:I'm with Loremaster on this one: Communism simply goes too much against basic human nature to have a chance of working efficiently. It's a lovely idea, everyone working together for the common good...but people aren't motivated by the common good by and large, they're motivated by their own good.
So no, I don't think it could have worked. People wouldn't have been committed to it without enforcement, and that's the road to dictatorial regimes and enforced ( and hence inefficient) labour...which is pretty much where it went.
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Firstly, I believe in property in the products of labor for the individual, so I am opposed to socialism.
However, I am against private companies or individuals OWNING natural resources. Those who want to use natural resources can "get hold of them" just fine by paying the community the market price for them, just as they now pay the wealthy, idle private owner the market price for doing nothing. It's called Georgism and it's the most efficient and most moral system there is.
As for Socialism/marxism/communism...well imo it fails because it is economically less efficient than capitalism. It collectivizes privately created value, while capitalism privatizes publicly created value. As privately created value creates far more capital, capitalism is far less unjust in theory, and as history has shown, far more successful in practice.
Ultimately Marxists, communists and socialists are the capitalists' patsies, nothing but a handy distraction from their real enemy: equal individual rights to access and use of natural resources.
Sorry for not answering the qestion.
However, I am against private companies or individuals OWNING natural resources. Those who want to use natural resources can "get hold of them" just fine by paying the community the market price for them, just as they now pay the wealthy, idle private owner the market price for doing nothing. It's called Georgism and it's the most efficient and most moral system there is.
As for Socialism/marxism/communism...well imo it fails because it is economically less efficient than capitalism. It collectivizes privately created value, while capitalism privatizes publicly created value. As privately created value creates far more capital, capitalism is far less unjust in theory, and as history has shown, far more successful in practice.
Ultimately Marxists, communists and socialists are the capitalists' patsies, nothing but a handy distraction from their real enemy: equal individual rights to access and use of natural resources.
Sorry for not answering the qestion.
It'd take you a long time to blow up or shoot all the sheep in this country, but one diseased banana...could kill 'em all.
I didn't even know sheep ate bananas.
I didn't even know sheep ate bananas.
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I think Gart said it very well; if I were to remark upon the broad topic at hand, I'd just be reiterating his post.
I do want to address this though:
1) It's easy for a large proportion of the population to share a belief if the act of believing is passive, but communism is something that requires willpower and dedication, since it (as eloquently described above) runs contrary to human nature, in general. In order for communism to function ideally, a consuming, absolute faith in the correctness of the system is required. In essence, communism would need to be a religion; but not just for some, or even the majority, but for everyone. This brings me to point two...
2) It requires only a few people to destroy such a system. Communism, as a way of life, would have to be enforced either by the personal belief of each individual or by the state. If enforced by the state, you end up with Stalinist Russia again. If left to the potency of each person's faith in the communist ideal, all that is required is a handful of people who don't believe but are willing to 'play the system'. If the only thing preventing self-interest taking over is commitment, those who aren't committed can easily bring the whole edifice crashing down. Again, there's no way to prevent this except by state enforcement. For those, such as Gart, who have read Gormenghast, I could use Steerpike as an example. Though Gormenghast is far from communist, it does demonstrate my point about faith: the sole reason the various earls are bound like prisoners in their own lives is because of respect for tradition; one person without this respect for tradition (Steerpike) is all it takes to bring the whole thing to the brink of collapse.
I do want to address this though:
There are two problems that occur to me right now:Prodigal Knight Revan wrote:Not as impossible as you would think. It is no coincidence that many people in the same culture tend to have the same beliefs.Murrin wrote:But how do you get a big enough group to believe in the same thing that strongly, and sustain such belief over time?
1) It's easy for a large proportion of the population to share a belief if the act of believing is passive, but communism is something that requires willpower and dedication, since it (as eloquently described above) runs contrary to human nature, in general. In order for communism to function ideally, a consuming, absolute faith in the correctness of the system is required. In essence, communism would need to be a religion; but not just for some, or even the majority, but for everyone. This brings me to point two...
2) It requires only a few people to destroy such a system. Communism, as a way of life, would have to be enforced either by the personal belief of each individual or by the state. If enforced by the state, you end up with Stalinist Russia again. If left to the potency of each person's faith in the communist ideal, all that is required is a handful of people who don't believe but are willing to 'play the system'. If the only thing preventing self-interest taking over is commitment, those who aren't committed can easily bring the whole edifice crashing down. Again, there's no way to prevent this except by state enforcement. For those, such as Gart, who have read Gormenghast, I could use Steerpike as an example. Though Gormenghast is far from communist, it does demonstrate my point about faith: the sole reason the various earls are bound like prisoners in their own lives is because of respect for tradition; one person without this respect for tradition (Steerpike) is all it takes to bring the whole thing to the brink of collapse.
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Ahh, don't take my attempts at humour as 'America rewrites history'. Frankly, every nation rewrites it, anyway.Loremaster wrote:Communism defeated itself; Reagan was just president at the time, and American pride today rewrites history.
I don't believe Communism is evil.
Dandelion don't tell no lies
Dandelion will make you wise
Tell me if she laughs or cries
Blow away dandelion
I'm afraid there's no denying
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Dandelion will make you wise
Tell me if she laughs or cries
Blow away dandelion
I'm afraid there's no denying
I'm just a dandelion
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High priest of THOOOTP
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I thought the tea was to kill the taste of awful British food.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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Oi! There's nothing wrong with tripe.
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If I was the moderator here I'd rewrite this post.dANdeLION wrote:Ahh, don't take my attempts at humour as 'America rewrites history'. Frankly, every nation rewrites it, anyway.Loremaster wrote:Communism defeated itself; Reagan was just president at the time, and American pride today rewrites history.
I don't believe Communism is evil.
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Well, wasn't that the original question? Isn't communism so inherently flawed that it always becomes twisted in to something that runs counter to many things humans value? Or can it turn out differently?Loremaster wrote:It doesn't preclude individuality - Stalinism did that. Communism precludes imbalances of wealth.
I just don't see how it's such a great and just system if it's pre-requsite to actually working is that humans are completely different and care about completely different things. I'm not talking about lusting after more wealth necessarily. Don't we value the right to private contract between two individuals for instance? What about the right to private ownership of the fruits of labour? I think they can both be justified but under a communist system aren't these things disregarded?
It'd take you a long time to blow up or shoot all the sheep in this country, but one diseased banana...could kill 'em all.
I didn't even know sheep ate bananas.
I didn't even know sheep ate bananas.
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But none of those things negate individualism. Anyway, please point out actual cases where it did remove individualism, because as far as I can see that never happened.
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