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It's perfectly legal for you and like-minded people to set up a commune, and create the society you want. Or join an existing one.
by WalterBright 5mo ago
It's perfectly legal for you and like-minded people to set up a commune, and create the society you want.
Or join an existing one.
- WalterBright 5mo agoBTW, the best I can figure is the average commune member quits after about 2 years, cured of the notion that communism is for them.
- api 5mo agoSame is true for most eco villages, back to the land farms, etc. It’s a mix of the lifestyle not being exactly what people thought plus them getting culty. In many cases it’s more the latter than the former.
- WalterBright 5mo agoWhat happens is people get tired of other people not working very diligently, but still getting an equal share.
- bumby 5mo agoThat’s a real aspect, but only one dimension. Nonetheless, it’s telling that it’s what you distill the entire problem down to. There are many other problems that make the problem hard: a) these communities often depend on consensus decision making. Problems that require collective action get nearly impossible when the society gets too big b) People underestimate how much they depend on greater society in a modern context c) It’s normal for future generations to have evolving values. The original idealistic notions tend to lose their luster to those who were born into it There are others more unique to communes, but I highlighted those because they also make it hard for the inverse libertarian ideal to work as well. Meaning it has to do as much with human nature as any ideology.
- bumby 5mo agoWould you extend that same sentiment to the extremes of the libertarian crowd too?
- WalterBright 5mo agoI can answer that if you can explain what you mean by extreme libertarianism.
- bumby 5mo agoI can go into detail, but for the sake of the argument let’s define it in the Norquist fashion: a government small enough that it can be drowned in the bathtub. A stricter definition might be anything beyond and to include minarchism.
- WalterBright 5mo agoYou'll need to be more specific.
- bumby 5mo ago“beyond and to include minarchism” is pretty specific. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state
- WalterBright 5mo agoOk, I see that. But you cannot set up such a community within the current US, as it runs afoul of the primacy of Federal law. A commune, however, can be.
- bumby 5mo agoI think the argument that minarchists take is that federal law should be modified to only cover military, courts, and police. A coherent libertarian could only interface with those, although it would be difficult and probably start to look very much like the commune types. The Jeffersonian yeoman farmer ideal seems like the clearest example. The larger point is that both extremes seem incompatible with modernity.