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The way it works is called communism: you put a small cabal of people in charge of deciding what you can and can't do. Everyone gets whatever amount of land the
by ferbivore 10y ago
The way it works is called communism: you put a small cabal of people in charge of deciding what you can and can't do. Everyone gets whatever amount of land the ruling cabal says they get, rather than being able to get an amount proportional to their wealth.
Unfortunately, we all know what happens when you put groups of self-interested humans in charge of a society, and I don't think any group of completely altruistic ones is going to take over the world any time soon.
Also, the only successful communist country currently in existence is actually a hardcore capitalist dystopia.
I'm not sure there is any other "common ownership of land" scheme that isn't just communism with window dressing or superintelligent AI thrown in. If there is, please do enlighten me.
- snerbles 10y agoThe counter-argument would be that "real" communism involves everyone deciding for the collective good. In practice it winds up as you describe, with strongmen at the top.
- wpietri 10y agoCommunity works pretty well at the small scale. I know plenty of people who jointly own and use land and it works out as fine as any other social thing. E.g., cohousing, shared vacation property, areas owned by extended families, condo buildings with common areas. It has always failed scaling it up, but maybe that's just a sign we shouldn't try to scale it up.
- zardo 10y agoIt seems obvious that it would fail. Community cohesion works by each person having a high level of connection with each other person. I'd say on the order of (n*n) connections. Of course, this has implications for large democracies, as well as large communes.