[americandream]

We keep getting this or the other free marketeer's views on this site. I'ld like to occasionally post a Marxist view so I'm starting off with something generic...a brief look at class consciousness. You're welcome to comment on or even slag off the article. Debating is good and constructive in times of crisis.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e20933.htm

[forbin]

thanks for the alternate veiw, about time !

IMO the Adam smith group and markism are all from the same century and have both been proven to be lacking ( look this is not a troll - my opinion ok ? ) in the real world.

in the future the historians will talk about the fanatical veiws of both these theories and their repecive flaws.......

either that or we'll be throwing rocks at each other

Forbin

[americandream]

thanks for the alternate veiw, about time !

IMO the Adam smith group and markism are all from the same century and have both been proven to be lacking ( look this is not a troll - my opinion ok ? ) in the real world.

in the future the historians will talk about the fanatical veiws of both these theories and their repecive flaws.......

either that or we'll be throwing rocks at each other

Forbin

In a nutshell, Marxism simply advocates a collective society living according to its needs.

[allenwrench]

We keep getting this or the other free marketeer's views on this site. I'ld like to occasionally post a Marxist view so I'm starting off with something generic...a brief look at class consciousness. You're welcome to comment on or even slag off the article. Debating is good and constructive in times of crisis.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e20933.htm

If one is selfless, communism's works fine. It is only when selfishness is injected that communism fails miserably.

If we were ants or bees communism would work great. When the ideal of communism comes to be applied in real life, the perfect theory becomes corrupted with the ego of the imperfect leaders.

The world has had lots of time to practice at perfecting communism and we can say communism seems to be a failure. That does not mean forms of communism or socialist governments will die off. For some it may mean the lesser of two evils.

In our future, Americans may find themselves to lean more to a community based life, As the crude dries up the gov may find it hard to help all those in need. Localized groups and communes of sorts may be all we have to turn to. II will say for communism to be fair minded and even handed, all workers would periodically exchange jobs (best they could) from top to bottom. That way favoritism would not be such a problem.

But who wants to go from the ivory tower to shoveling shit, so lets get real - we are dealing with human egos here. And even if we wish to 'try' and do good, one cannot replace highly skilled workers with the shit shoveler. So no matter how we slice it, there will always be exceptions to the rule.

Same with us in our democracy of sorts. human leaders make mistakes and just like the communists, we citizens have little or no recourse to fix those mistakes That is why revolutions come about for change. But we must be careful about what we are revolting against, as what we replace it with may be worse than what we have destroyed.

In the end, I choose a democracy of sorts and when the democracy fails them replace it with bits and pieces of socialized areas, but all the while trying to keep the democratic foundation and as much personal freedoms in force best we can.

[americandream]

We keep getting this or the other free marketeer's views on this site. I'ld like to occasionally post a Marxist view so I'm starting off with something generic...a brief look at class consciousness. You're welcome to comment on or even slag off the article. Debating is good and constructive in times of crisis.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e20933.htm

If we were ants or bees communism would work great. The reason the ideal of communism fails is because imperfect humans have to apply the perfect ideals.

When the ideal of communism comes to be applied in real life, the perfect theory becomes corrupted with the ego of the imperfect leaders. We have to remember what is logical is not always practical when it comes to humans. If one is selfless communism's works fine. It is only when selfishness is injected that communism fails miserably.

The world has had lots of time to practice at perfecting communism and we can say communism seems to be a failure. That does not mean forms of communism or socialist governments will die off. For some it may mean the lesser of two evils.

In our future, Americans may find themselves to lean more to a community based life, As the crude dries up the gov may find it hard to help all those in need. Localized groups and communes of sorts may be all we have to turn to. II will say for communism to be fair minded and even handed, all workers would periodically exchange jobs (best they could) from top to bottom. That way favoritism would not be such a problem.

But who wants to go from the ivory tower to shoveling crap, so lets get real - we are dealing with human egos here. And even if we wish to 'try' and do good, one cannot replace highly skilled workers with the crap shoveler. So no matter how we slice it, there will always be exceptions to the rule.

Same with us in our democracy of sorts. human leaders make mistakes and just like the communists, we citizens have little or no recourse to fix those mistakes That is why revolutions come about for change. But we must be careful about what we are revolting against, as what we replace it with may be worse than what we have destroyed.

In the end, I choose a democracy of sorts and when the democracy fails them replace it with bits and pieces of socialized areas, but all the while trying to keep the democratic foundation and as much personal freedoms in force best we can.

I think the wherewithal for achieving a transparent and collectively organised society may well be worth examining if only to determine the extent to which this concept is applicable as an alternative to the current system of failed socialised free enterprise. You know, the means by which we may avoid past failures

[nobodypanic]

We keep getting this or the other free marketeer's views on this site. I'ld like to occasionally post a Marxist view so I'm starting off with something generic...a brief look at class consciousness. You're welcome to comment on or even slag off the article. Debating is good and constructive in times of crisis.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e20933.htm

If we were ants or bees communism would work great. The reason the ideal of communism fails is because imperfect humans have to apply the perfect ideals.

When the ideal of communism comes to be applied in real life, the perfect theory becomes corrupted with the ego of the imperfect leaders. We have to remember what is logical is not always practical when it comes to humans. If one is selfless communism's works fine. It is only when selfishness is injected that communism fails miserably.

The world has had lots of time to practice at perfecting communism and we can say communism seems to be a failure. That does not mean forms of communism or socialist governments will die off. For some it may mean the lesser of two evils.

In our future, Americans may find themselves to lean more to a community based life, As the crude dries up the gov may find it hard to help all those in need. Localized groups and communes of sorts may be all we have to turn to. II will say for communism to be fair minded and even handed, all workers would periodically exchange jobs (best they could) from top to bottom. That way favoritism would not be such a problem.

But who wants to go from the ivory tower to shoveling crap, so lets get real - we are dealing with human egos here. And even if we wish to 'try' and do good, one cannot replace highly skilled workers with the crap shoveler. So no matter how we slice it, there will always be exceptions to the rule.

Same with us in our democracy of sorts. human leaders make mistakes and just like the communists, we citizens have little or no recourse to fix those mistakes That is why revolutions come about for change. But we must be careful about what we are revolting against, as what we replace it with may be worse than what we have destroyed.

In the end, I choose a democracy of sorts and when the democracy fails them replace it with bits and pieces of socialized areas, but all the while trying to keep the democratic foundation and as much personal freedoms in force best we can.

just a few thoughts:

in your critique of communism you could just as easily have substituted the word capitalism for every time you used the word communism. capitalism likewise makes a great deal of idealized assumptions, not to mention it's failing as we speak!

favoritism is a huge problem now.

capitalism does not equal democracy.

[Byron100]

Thank you for starting this thread, americandream. I really can't grasp why people think capitalism is the only game in town, when it's clear that it's just as flawed as communism.

That being said, I want to put forth the idea that it is human nature itself that's flawed, namely our penchant for being selfish and egotistical. In order to bring about a truly sustainable paradigm, *we have to change human nature.*

This starts with the children...every single child needs to be taught that it's wrong to be selfish, that having an ego is shameful, and that seeking to become rich is morally wrong and unethical. Materialism needs to be addressed as a disease, and no cost should be spared in eradicating this disease from the population. We need to rid ourselves of this "celebrity" culture (i.e., tax Hollywood into oblivion, and destroying the TV broadcast industry by a ban on all TV commercials). This will break down the culture of influence that has pervaded society with "I want", and would pave the way for a sense of community to come back into play. People also need to be taught that it's far better to cooperate than to compete, and that is no honor in winning the so-called "game of life."

I could keep going, but you get the idea. Change what's wrong with human nature first, and then the door will open for fixing what's wrong with society.

[coyote]

In my opinion, communism and financial capitalism are both utopian ideals - that is, they both require humans to behave like angels for them to work in the long term. As allenwrench points out, we are not angels - and requiring us to try to be angels leads only to sorrow and to our defeat by devils. Utopian systems don't work.

We need to find a system, not that expresses ideals, but one that works. One that recognizes how human beings behave naturally, calls it good, and is structured accordingly. I don't yet know what that system is - but it definitely is not communism, which expresses nothing but ideals and ignores the way humans behave entirely.

[nobodypanic]

In my opinion, communism and financial capitalism are both utopian ideals - that is, they both require humans to behave like angels for them to work in the long term. As allenwrench points out, we are not angels - and requiring us to try to be angels leads only to sorrow and to our defeat by devils. Utopian systems don't work.

We need to find a system, not that expresses ideals, but one that works. One that recognizes how human beings behave naturally, calls it good, and is structured accordingly. I don't yet know what that system is - but it definitely is not communism, which expresses nothing but ideals and ignores the way humans behave entirely.

how do humans behave?

[tmulk]

There are many types of social theory that in theory are great, they can be utopia if worked according to theory. However, that being said, it's an impossibility to do so because of the greed of man. How many times have we seen this in the world?

Marxism has great points. Communism has great points. Fascism, even has great points. Capitalism has great points.

Man gets in the way in every instance.

[Ludi]

In a nutshell, Marxism simply advocates a collective society living according to its needs.

Which is how many or most non-civilized societies lived.

Hmm, somehow they were able to do this even while being human with all that selfishness.

[Ludi]

We need to find a system, not that expresses ideals, but one that works. One that recognizes how human beings behave naturally, calls it good, and is structured accordingly. I don't yet know what that system is - but it definitely is not communism, which expresses nothing but ideals and ignores the way humans behave entirely.

You don't think "give support- get support"(what Daniel Quinn calls the tribal model) works?

[Ludi]

Change what's wrong with human nature first, and then the door will open for fixing what's wrong with society.

So you propose that we change human nature before we solve our problems? People have been trying to change human nature for thousands of years, it hasn't worked.

[Ludi]

(i.e., tax Hollywood into oblivion,

Thanks a bundle. Let's get rid of your job too, while we're at it?

[nobodypanic]

In a nutshell, Marxism simply advocates a collective society living according to its needs.

Which is how many or most non-civilized societies lived.

Hmm, somehow they were able to do this even while being human with all that selfishness.

well, maybe this rampant contemporary greed is just a pathology born out of a social system that is fundamentally twisted and flawed.

[mos6507]

Change what's wrong with human nature first, and then the door will open for fixing what's wrong with society.

Which isn't going to happen. This is the reason concepts like original sin came about. The human genome is buggy code and no -ism is the cure.

[Ludi]

well, maybe this rampant contemporary greed is just a pathology born out of a social system that is fundamentally twisted and flawed.

I think that's very possible since our system rewards "cheaters" - it's called "playing the game" or "competing" or "being a winner."


People are expected to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "paddle your own canoe" etc.

[AlexdeLarge]

To get to your nivana of a socialist paradise, you have to live through the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Funny thing is, you never get past this stage of socialist evolution.

So you exchange one set of elite for another..........and everyone is worse off.

I'd rather have anarchy than live under the boot of a communist.

[coyote]

how do humans behave?

Good question, nobodypanic. I’m no anthropologist, so I’m not sure I can give you a good answer, but I’ll try:

Humans ultimately behave in what they perceive to be their own self-interest - but in our case, self-interest is a complex, multi-tiered web of allegiances. Humans have an ability and predisposition to define “self” as something greater than their own physical bodies. There is physical self, family, tribe, and sometimes, nation (large tribe).

Absent some other overriding indoctrinational force, humans understand that their self-interest coincides with the well-being of their family or tribe. That doesn’t require indoctrination - just show the kid who his/her family and tribe are, and the extension of self happens. Like a duckling imprinting on its mother, or migrating birds organizing themselves into wedges. The tribe is our natural unit of social organization, the one we evolved with over millions of years, and the one you will find everywhere that stratification of civilization has not yet occurred. And a human will defend his or her family or tribe fiercely, as if he were defending his own body - and will even die in its defense, seeing the tribe as the more complete definition of self. It doesn’t require particular prodding to get a human to behave this way. It’s the way we’re built.

So sacrifice for family or tribe is actually self-interest for a human. But communism requires individuals to self-sacrifice, not for family or tribe, but for the sake of an ideal - the State - or (being kind) the “common good.” An ideal is no substitute for family or tribe - it is too large a leap to expect humans to naturally make. I think any historical case you could find of apparent allegiance to an ideal will also, on inspection, involve allegiance to a group as well. Ideals are good things, even human things, but they can never successfully organize human society on their own.

When I say communism requires self-sacrifice, I’m talking about the widened definition of “self” discussed above: physical self, family, tribe and even nation. The destruction of all these allegiances is what communism demands (case in point is Marx’s declaration that nations and even families are a bourgeois invention, and must disappear along with capitalism). Marxism could not survive any widespread allegiance to any entity other than the State - including allegiance to one’s own self. Communism is the ideal that attempts to destroy all self-interest. Asking humans to go against their nature in this respect is akin to making flocks of birds fly in a different pattern than what they were built for. Both would require force, and will lead to sorrow. Communism is anti-human.

[Byron100]

Change what's wrong with human nature first, and then the door will open for fixing what's wrong with society.

Which isn't going to happen. This is the reason concepts like original sin came about. The human genome is buggy code and no -ism is the cure.

How can you be so sure that this won't happen? If our genome is buggy, and we're facing the Great Calamity as a result of it (die-off by way of overshoot), why isn't it possible that evolution "correct" those bugs and transform people into peaceful, docile beings that cooperate rather than compete with each other? If that's what it takes in order for the human race to survive, then isn't there at least a chance that evolutionary forces would induce us to live in a sustainable manner? It's either that or we dive headlong into extinction - take your pick.

Or we can do this the easy way and create a virus (in total secret, of course) that would perform the "correction" in the human genome. And who says that such a thing isn't possible?