Communism

[Abramul]

Haven't religiously-motivated communal societies worked in the past? Monasteries, and the like?

 

Heh, if there's anything Hellbird would hate more than religion or communism...

[NinjaSalad]

I see your point about it being human nature for people to want to strive, better themselfs, by this do you mean; personal deveopment? or just increasing the amount of money they have? Is this drive to succeed just abtaining money? There are far better ways to succeed other then hording piles of money. I think in a communist country, you would have to give the people a different way to better themselfs, other then money.

[ThetaOrionis01]

Communism requires a level of maturity humankind has not yet attained.

[Malchik]

Abramul

 

There have been small groups that practise systems very similar to communism but they work only because they are small groups where individuality is not compromised by competition. Even then after the society had been going for a short time it's ideals were usually compromised. This was one of the reasons why new monastic orders were founded so regularly.

 

Ninjasalad/Theta

 

Our society currently tends to measure too much in terms of money and although I agree that in theory success could be rewarded in other ways it is hard to see what else would satisfy most humans at present. Theta suggests that humans need to mature further. Perhaps, but after maturity rot sets in and it will be hard to guess correctly when the ideal can be achieved.

 

The pursuit of money per se is fruitless and self defeating. You simply continue to be aware of what you can't have not of what you do. There are those who recognise this and live their lives by an ethic, whether religious, doctrinal or simply through personal choice, that reflects a more rounded and responsible view. These people on the whole are happier and enjoy life more.

 

I know several mean and women in the US who measure their success in the size of their house, car, yacht etc. They have to work so hard they have no time to make no proper use of these. Their spouses are unfaithful out of frustration and their kids screwed up. And yet they go on telling me how wonderful their life is. I suppose if they lack imagination they might truly believe it but to those who live differently they come across as sad!

 

If you believe in the ideals of communism let them inform your own life where it is practical. That will give you considerable pleasure.

[ThetaOrionis01]

I agree that society currently is extremely materialistic - insanely so, given what our rampant consumerism and constant focus on economic growth are doing to this planet. Such wasteful squandering of precious and limited resources is not sustainable in the long run, and sooner or later people will have to change their goals.

 

'From each according to ability, to each according to need' seems a rather more sustainable approach, but cannot work while greed is a strong motivating factor.

[draighox]

Usually, the more efficient people are, the more goods (material or not) they produce. These goods are then transformed into money. By taking all these goods and distributing them equally among all community members, you'll end up taking from the more efficient members a portion of their goods and giving it to the less efficient.

 

Eventually, the more efficient will lose determination to succeed (insensibly or not) because they'll see that they always get the same amount of goods, no matter what their efforts are. The less efficient will lose determination to become more efficient for the same reason.

 

The society will start to degrade, so the ammount of goods produced will decrease. Eventually, all members of society will become equally poor, just as Peregrine said.

[CrazyGilbert]

yeah, if communism is to work that well it is constantly heading downward and eventuallyit will fall apart. and the fact that once a person is in power all others (normal people) have no say in there countries decision making or of who gets the throne so...... I find that communism is neither good or bad, but not to be toyed with because obviously anytime a country in the past tries to do this they end up not working according to plan.

 

 

 

-CG

[thranduill]

To understand communism we must understand, first of all, that Marx was a vegetarian, so he did not eat meat.

If you look at the herbivores they can eat one near the other without any problem

and the carnivores need a large territory and will drive out all other carnivores

from their territory.

A deer will eat without problems near a zebra or a gnu.

In other words animals eating vegetables are not so competitive as animals eating meat.

The dream of Marx (a vegetarian) was a world without competition between men.

This is the dream at the roots of communism.

Unefortunately people who tried to realize communism were carnivore (much more aggressive and competitive as it is in capitalism who is a system where competition is the base of relations ).

It is like if you entrust a wolf to realise the paradise of the sheeps....

It will be a long,long way before we bring real justice in this world, and in my idea it cannot be done through any political or religious system, but trough the changement that everyone can make on itself.

[KzinistZerg]

To understand communism we must understand, first of all, that Marx was a vegetarian, so he did not eat meat.

If you look at the herbivores they can eat one near the other without any problem

and the carnivores need a large territory and will drive out all other carnivores

from their territory.

A deer will eat without problems near a zebra or a gnu.

In other words animals eating vegetables are not so competitive as animals eating meat.

The dream of Marx (a vegetarian) was a world without competition between men.

This is the dream at the roots of communism.

Unefortunately people who tried to realize communism were carnivore (much more aggressive and competitive as it is in capitalism who is a system where competition is the base of relations ).

It is like if you entrust a wolf to realise the paradise of the sheeps....

It will be a long,long way before we bring real justice in this world, and in my idea it cannot be done through any political or religious system, but trough the changement that everyone can make on itself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Alright, first of all, your analogy is flawed... I dare you to explain to a wolf that it must not eat deer because eating deer makes the rest of the deer unhappy.

 

And it's called natural selection. While the ‘physical’ (as in survival skills) natural selection has slowed due to the development of society, different types of natural selection take place. If you destroy that then people become dead ends evolutionarily. Eventually. The immediate effect is that the smart people and stupid people are all supported with nothing to weed the stupid out.

 

humans like to relate reward to effort and if reward is not so related where is the motivation for the effort

 

And in actuality, this has been observed in all primates, or at least the more social ones. It probably also happens in other animals. It’s not just human nature, it's the way things work.

[Chaosmaker]

Communist is flawed in so many ways yet it has very good intentions. Equal pay is a good intention but the flaw is that one person can work their but of while the other person hardly does anything and they will still get the same pay. It is open to corruption in so many ways that the most ruthless people have come to power from it from Stalin, Castro and Mao. Good intentions and if thought out a little better could work but in real life communism will not work. It is to corrupt.