So, this Gant guy , he's causing trouble in the neighbourhood. Well, in a society where everyone is brought up with communist values that would be very unlikely to happen. But suppose it did, what does he contribute to society? Probably nothing, so he won't have anything to trade, so he won't have a better quality of life. The other people don't need to drive him out, because his troublemaking affects him negatively.

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I understand your point. And I agree. Unfortunately, you are making some big assumptions that have shown don't work. For example, Damon's father, Patrick Gant, was a good, hard-working man who contributed much in the way of.....lumber to the community. He became successful and, because we are assuming a communist society, while he did not make excessive material wealth, he commanded great respect from the community. Now, he loved Damon and, as fathers often do, worked to keep Damon out of trouble, so many of the people of their village or whatever turn a blind eye to Damon, who is left to run amok. Was anyone, except Damon, wrong? No, but regardless, Damon is free to do mischief and, until he does something really bad, has his run and doesn't contribute in any way.

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Woah, words. Lot's of 'em.

Anyways.

While this is a very logical and well-based train of though, and it is consistently used as a counterargument whenever I bring up this subject, I'm afraid I must point out one key logical fault which lies at the base of this entire argument. What you have assumed is that, by 'no money', I mean that we should go back to trade. However, in reality, money is merely a more efficient method of trading; people introduced an object of value for equal trade, which doesn't have any material use and thus can act as a medium. So when I say it wouldn't work with a monetary system, I also mean it wouldn't work with basic trade.

Then the next obvious question is, what alternative am I suggesting then? Simple. I am suggesting everything should be free. Larry the carpenter can't keep himself busy only carpenting his own home, so he goes around town and helps whenever asked. You give out your apples to anyone who needs them, so long as you have any to give (this, of course, includes giving to yourself). If you have an abundance of apples, and Nick asks you to have them for cider, you give them to him. Simple. The whole system means that there is no reason for any wealth or value; everything is free. And people aren't going to greedily grab everything they can (as they would in this society if something was free) because they know it will be free tomorrow and the day after that anyways.

The reason I believe strongly in this system is because the possibility of a practical application hinges on only one, single question: "Would people still work if everything is free?". And I believe the answer is yes, because of human nature. A number of reasons: 1: You'll get bored eventually if you just sit around. 2: Humans have, essentially, the urge to be part of a group. They don't want to be left out of the system. 3: A person doesn't like to feel useless, and in a system like this it would be pretty in-your-face if you're useless. 4: A person will want to practice and develop their talents, thus they will work in a sector best suited for them.

Considering we have people who can't find jobs even in this society, that means then too, there will of course, be people who might not work. But look at it this way; the society will be functioning anyways, so why need they? If it weren't, there would be a job opening somewhere where there's a problem. Of course, openings come up consistently, so a continual search when jobless might be necessary.

I guess it's hard to convince someone of this system or even word it properly, but I try.
And the whole thing does still hinge on a question, so we should research it a bit. But I prefer it over something that would require a lot more factors for use.

About the human nature/policing thing. It's a very logical point, and it's true that at this point, it can't be implemented. It would take an enourmously long period of gradual increase in 'freedom' to safely go into this ideal. But if not rushed, it might be possible.

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Ah yes, the Star Trek theory of economics … its called that because in some storylines (star trek is notorious for not keeping things canon) the united federation of planets has adopted a system pretty much spot on to what you’re describing. Money is obsolete and unneeded, people work for the betterment of themselves and their community rather than for hedonistic gains. The formal name for this is utopian socialism but I prefer the nerdier Star Trek moniker.

The biggest obstacles for this system are scarcity and freeloading, which you’ve already touched on a bit, but allow me to explain further. As humans we are capable of suffering, having desires and wants. It would be really nice to obtain pleasure for the minimum of pain and just take what I want in moderation, knowing it’ll be there tomorrow. But that only works if I know for sure that my stuff will be there tomorrow—were assuming that as a society we are capable of producing in excess of what is consumed, that’s just not feasible. Human desire is boundless but the objects of which are limited. We have to deal with the ugliness of scarcity and rarity.

To further illustrate this point lets get back into our thought experiment. Say the society you envisioned is set up: people offer their labor, goods and services for free, knowing that they can take what they want as well with assurance that it’ll be there in the future. I am a comic book connoisseur and the one thing I desire the most is a mint condition copy of ‘Action Comics no.1’ (the first debut of Superman). However, such things are really rare and in fact there is only one left in existence. A problem arises when Miles, who also happens to be a comic collector, lays the same claim. (For simplicities sake were going to assume at the comic has no original owner, and was simply ‘found’) How exactly are we going to solve this dispute? Miles are I are both upstanding citizens, we both take only what is needed and contribute with our respective skills and labor, so you can’t say one of us is more entitled than the other. What about something arbitrary we can use to gage the amount of desire we have for the comic … wait, that sounds a lot like money. Ok, how about I offer some of my goods/services to Miles to compensate him for the “loss” of his desire … wait, that sounds a lot like trade, which leads to money. Miles rejects my offer of a session of roshambo to determine the outcome, duly noting that I’m wearing a pair of steel-tipped boots and the fact that violence just leads to more problems. We both agree that a random method would still be unfair to the losing party.

Hold on, you step in and say, “Why are you two squabbling over some damn comic in the first place? It’s irrelevant in the grand scope of things and you two should just forget it.” Miles replies, “Who are you to impose your system of belief and ethics on us, why are you justified in determining what we can and cannot desire?” Someone else proposes that we just copy the comic, so we both each have one. But that defeats the purpose; the reason why ‘Action Comics no.1’ is so coveted is the sentimental value of having a piece of comic history. In the midst of your argument I simply take the comic and leave. Miles later claims that I have caused him undue suffering and demands reparations … In the wake of this mess, the government exclaims that for the betterment of society, the concept of ownership of properly is hereby abolished, disputes over rare items will no longer be tolerated—that sounds awfully repressive, first comics, and then personal freedoms, I smell the seeds of dissent being sown. Just consider the awful amount of conflict placed in a practically useless luxury item. Now imagine the scope of things with essential goods such as food, fuel and energy; even in the real world we are unable to provide the entire world population with these basic things. It’s easy for those of us who live in the middle to upper class of society to notice the apparent overabundance of goods and exclaim: why can’t we just share it all? Visit some impoverished 3rd world countries where the majority of the world’s population reside and speak of your ideas and you’re likely to just get a bunch of blank stares and maybe a rock thrown in your direction. So back to our hypothetical world: we need to ensure equal distribution, a system of regulation and self-control, to ensure that people do not take more than is required as to prevent others form suffering … wait, isn’t that the reason why we have currency in the first place? Our systems are not perfect but really, what is?

Star Trek solves the problem by having devices called replicators that are capable of producing all of the goods and needs a civilization could possibly want: technology has conquered the issue of scarcity. And they have intergalactic travel and colonization to alleviate overpopulation and crowding. In the real world we don’t have those luxuries, we have to deal with limited resources contending with limitless desire. But the answer is right there! We should just invent warp cores and replicators already and solve everything, those scientists, what are they wasting their time on?



You have to be very, very careful when attributing things to “human nature” and using them as a premise for your arguments. The assertions I use, the dynamics of human suffering, desire, etc. have for the most part, been thoroughly discussed and debated by people far more qualified in the subject matter than me. I call it human nature because of their prevalence throughout time and places, but even then there is a large degree of variance and disagreement, which I guess, is the main topic of this thread. I’m not saying that your assertions are wrong (I haven’t had the time or will to research them myself) but just … be careful…

This brings us to the issue of freeloading and exploitation, to state things bluntly, there is a lot of research on this matter; some based on psychological group dynamics, others on evolutionally biology and others that are philosophically based (Marx had a lot to say about exploitation). Anyways, given the opportunity to freeload without direct, immediate consequences, a significant portion of the population will do so even if they’re aware that their actions may be harmful for the group in the long run. As the movie Scarface put it, never underestimate the other guys greed. In order to establish equilibrium we need to motivate the slackers, either with threats and coercion or promises of reward. The former can be effective but tends to bring unwanted consequences—you don’t want unhappy workers. As for the latter, what is the most effective way to reward someone? I’m betting it starts with an M and ends with a Y. Hold on, what about people who work just for the sake of bettering themselves and others? Unfortunately altruism is the exception, not the rule. Which is ironic, considering how revered individuals such as Mother Theresa and others are in our society, very few of us are willing to walk down the same road.

Time to address another post …

You need to be really weary of these kinds of arguments. A claim where the intended conclusion is found within the premises is called circular logic. Like the name implies, it doesn’t really go anywhere.
You’re basically stating that:
- People in communist societies don’t step out of line
- Therefore Gant is unlikely to step out of line

I live in a democratic, capitalist society, does that mean I will always conform to its values and not stir up trouble? I’d hope not. If you want to expand on your argument, try bringing up examples and evidence, you can try to find historical precedence or philosophical arguments (as a communist yourself I’m sure you’ve read some Marx and Engles). Hey, maybe it is a possibility that communist societies are far more stable and conforming than others, and the rate of dissension is lower than other types. I haven’t done the research myself so I can’t draw a conclusion.

To wrap things up, I would like to remind everyone that my examples and stories are an awfully simplified and reduced form of actual economic, ethical and psychological theory. They’re probably full of holes, nit picking at inconsistencies isn’t the way to argue against them, try to see the stories for the message I’m trying to convey and tackle that. If you feel like doing some additional reading I can refer you to the source material.

The Idea of everyone sharing is all very nice and well, and would work in a perfect world, but people aren't like that. Take a look at the PW kink Meme for instance. There are some people who try to fill out all unfilled requests they see, but there are lots more who freeload and post request after request after request. Although most people give and take on a regular basis, it's so much easyer to fil in a couple of requests, then request like crazy. In short, it's easier to take than to give. That's the way of people.

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Gee, just share the damn book. You both have interest in the comic, so you could make good friends. Along with all the rest of the fans, create a community, a fandom, with a central home for the book where everyone can visit it. The museum model: we use it today to let every art fan view, say, the mona lisa instead of letting one collector have it. The same problems arise when dealing with money, since with ownership there will always be the ones who don't own it.


It's true that we have to be careful asserting this.And the answer is still, in fact, unsure. But I notice how you think immediately of the 'conditioning' model, the 'reward or punishment' system. I believe there are other ways to motivate a person, and I know this because personally conditioning has little effect on me; I am quite forced to find alternative motivation to achieve things. There's always the most basic motivation, intrinsic motivation. The rewarding feeling of having achieved something or helped someone. It's difficult finding a progressive method of motivation (I personally don't find reward so progressive) but I'm looking for it...

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The point of the comic book example was to highlight the issue of limited resources. Yeah it’s just a trivial item and public ownership in the form of a museum is one of the solutions. But the same idea doesn’t work for the other half of the issue I presented. I was trying to convey the amount of silliness that can arise from such petty nonsense, but when the same conflict of interests clashes with things we need to survive and grow with (land, food, energy etc) the situation gets magnified exponentially. People will stage revolutions, topple governments and go to war over them. Essential consumable goods, since they’re “used”, are physically impossible to share in the same way the comic book can.

In a reduced form, that’s what all of our ideological “isms” attempt to spell out: the best way to distribute and manage our limited resources to match our limitless potential for consumption. Extreme capitalism states that people ought to fend for themselves with no officiating regulation: might makes right, the strong will use the weak etc. Extreme communism of course takes the opposite stand; the officiating body will take complete control to attempt to ensure equal distribution. All of these systems acknowledge the scarcity of resources and use the concept of wealth to manage it. Of course, there are a lot more to these theories but you get the picture.

Trust me, nobody really wants to dick each other over, utopian dreams have been present in writing and stories since we started recording them. The ancient Greeks are probably the most cited examples. The thing with politics is that it’s sort of like history, in that it tends to repeat (a truly original idea that actually works is really hard to find, that’s why we award people with Nobel prizes for em). Plato, Aristotle and the rest of the Greek dudes pretty much had the same discussion we’re having now. Plato for instance, even spelled out a proto-version of communism in one of his books. While advances in technology and science has improved our situation since those times, we still don’t have replicators or warp cores so we’re still burdened with the same problems of scarcity.

For one, food is not scarce. Infact, governments today even simply destory an excess in food just to keep the market price up. If not for price, they could send it to scarce regions.

Also, energy scarcity is one thing we need to find a solution for anyways. Personally, I believe finding a way to do nuclear fusion is the most imporant step to a better future.

And yes, land is getting pretty scarce as the population grows. Politics or no, it's going to be a problem either way. Sadly, there's no immediate humane solution aside from populating mars & the moon. (I say humane, because we all know of Hitler's "lebensraum" ideas...)

So I aknowledge that a first step to take would be to solve scarcities through technology. Although, the political ideas themselves might have to grow a bit first to have it happen in the first place; as it is now, oil makes big money even though we all know it's getting us nowhere.

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That's just flat out unbelievable. Sounds like a conspiracy theory at best.

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No really, it's true. At least in Belgium. And honestly Belgium is not nearly as full of food as America IMO.
My sources are to be trusted.

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Your sources need more verification and less making up, really.

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Bugger. Oh, that is the last time I base my theories on what they teach me in school.

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Wat?
If that were going on in any wide scale form UNICEF, OXFAM, the ACLU (actually a lot of groups with weird names) would be shitting their pants by now.

I know that some of our agricultural markets and distribution systems can be horribly inefficient and wasteful but I really don’t recall any modern first-world government deliberately destroying large food stocks for the sole interest of keeping prices fixed. Sure you have things like farm subsidies and the unintentional backlash of biodiesel but those don’t really count as deliberate and malicious price fixin. The United States and other Western powers actually donate a large bulk of foodstuffs to unlikely places, North Korea being one of them.

International food aid is a tricky business, barring any doomsday scenarios bought on by global warming, as a whole we have the agricultural technology and capacity to ease the suffering of a lot of starving people. The problem is getting the aid to the places where they are needed. Cost is just one barrier. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority of the world’s most impoverished people are, countries are torn by warfare, instability and racked with poor infrastructure. Even in the US, one of the supposed more well off nations, without those problems we still have people starving. Some modern political pundits claim that a lot of these barriers are artificial, and by not investing all that we can into alleviating world hunger we are all awful, horrible, amoral, hedonistic pigs (thx, Peter Singer).

The closest approximation of your claim that I can think of without having to go though the library stacks is instances of awful management, hubris and a lack of insight, such as the USSR continuing to export large quantities of grain while a good portion of their own people were undergoing famine conditions. Don’t mean to be rude but are you sure your sources aren’t wearing tinfoil hats? Mind sharing them?

Too late.

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Yeah, just like giga hand said...

Anyway, my view on communism...
Theoretically, it should work.
I'm not sure why it hasn't worked yet. I assume many people have negative connatations associated with communism (soviet union I believe).
So, since the idea has been put forth, no one has given it a decent go, I think.
Also, as you have rightly stated, humans want to have power over others.
Methinks this all boils down to survival. Humans want to be able to pass down there genes. In the current society, there are people above other people. This means the people at the bottom of the hiechary do not have a better chance at passing down genes than the people at the top.

Now, consider communism, everyone is at an equal standing and status etc. But the case is still the same. The survival instinct of humans's make it so that one person, or many people, want to "get to the top", as it were. But there are people who support communism or are incapable of climbing the ladder. This means they are left at the bottom. This immediately means, that the fundamentals of communism has been completely smashed up.

This probably has made no sense at all. I don't really know about "human nature" and other stuff liek that so this post has probably has many mistakes.

Consider this; if people wanted to be at the top, why are there people supporting communism?

And yes, true, humans may have a built-in competitive spritit, but that can be healthy. Isn't this why we have sports? A healthy and non-harmful way of competing and possibly feeling 'at the top'? And all that jazz.

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> I don't really buy that explanation... communism is a highly hierarchical form of society, but more importantly, it is one in which "climbing the ladder" is entirely possible, certainly more so than in the aristocratic societies which, incidentally, lasted milleniums.

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No communism isn't hierarchical at all geez.

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You do know what Communism is don't you? Its whole premise is removal of a Hierachial society. Besides, the plural of Millenium is Millenia.

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We're obviously not talking about the same thing (it's my fault, really). There are crucial distinctions between pre-1848 socialist utopias (Fourier, Owen), Marx's theories, and the reality of communist regimes in the 20th century. Here, I'm only interested in the "degenerated" forms of communism that existed in the Soviet Union and still exist (to a lesser extent) in China today, because they're the only ones we know about in practice. Take a look at this organization chart, for instance: http://angloconference.com/images/trave ... _chart.jpg. How is this not a hierarchy?
Also, having studied latin for years, I know that the plural of millenium is technically millenia. But the plural of forum is fora, and most people use "forums" anyway, so I simply thought it was the same with millenium. I apologize for that terrible mistake, especially considering that it is so closely related to the point I was trying to make.

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Firstly, I'm sorry for being so pedantic, it's a bad habit of mine. You can say milleniums if you want.

Secondly, when I started the thread, I was thinking of the system of communism that Marx created and was continued by Lenin, not the Cock-up that Stalin made of that particular philosophy. Yes, in China and in Stalinist Russia, there was Hiearchy (and still is in in China) but that was down to corruption in the Government, not corruption in the philosophy. And besides, there wasn't the kind of class system that you find in many non-communist countries, where the working Classes still find it difficult to get a decent education, and generally be successful with their lives.

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