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I didn't say communism was inherently bad. Admittedly I think it is. But I went out of my way not to make a value judgment so as to not cloud the point I was

I didn't say communism was inherently bad. Admittedly I think it is. But I went out of my way not to make a value judgment so as to not cloud the point I was trying to make which is that the stated philosophy is communism. My intent was just to state the facts as I saw them and let others judge. As for your other point there certainly is a wide swath between the two but if you want complete fairness than you have to go all the way to the Government side.

unalone 17y ago
That depends on your definition of complete fairness. I see "fair" as including the opportunity for success; fairness becomes a matter of never letting somebody sink into a pit they can't rise from. That can be achieved without much of a socialist bent at all: All you need are nets. Out of curiosity, why do you think communism is inherently bad? Do you take the angle of "Man is entitled to the fruits of his labor", or is there something else to it?
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  Because it's never, ever worked. There are a lot of ideas that seem smart from an academic perspective but which, when implemented, fail. In the case of Communism it only works if a whole society can manage to bury their natural human desire to achieve more than their neighbor and history has proven time and time again that burying that instinct is not possible and when you try you simply get lethargy.
  - unalone 17y ago
    Okay. I was thinking Communism more in the idea of "let's not let the market be entirely free," not Communism in the sense of "everybody is forced to be equal." I'd argue that a completely free market would be just as terrible.
    - TomOfTTB 17y ago
      Clearly there's a spectrum. I mean, the market we have now isn't completely free and I'm not one that has a problem with regulations. My only issue is the piece basically saying "I became 20 in a bad economy but others became 20 in a good economy so the Government should step in and fund me to the point that my experience is equal" Some people are luckier than others and that stinks but I don't think the Government can fix that. But I have no problem with Government safety nets that stop people from falling completely down the rabbit hole either.
      - unalone 17y ago
        I didn't really think Squashed was suggesting he ought to get funding, I think he was stating that the system as it stands now, where hard work leads to nothing, is flawed. You can see the implied solution as "I need money," but from his older writings, I'd be more inclined to think it's "There's a problem with a system wherein happiness is so based on the economy, and where we're told we need a good job to be happy, so that our happiness is based on a fluctuating system." The problem isn't the lack of a job, in other words, so much as it's the emphasis on having certain jobs. ALSO: Can we please stop downvoting based on who we agree and disagree with? I'm enjoying this conversation quite a lot and I hate seeing Tom and myself dipping into 0 and -1 while productive debate's going on.
        gojomo 17y ago
        I agree downvote-as-disagreement is bad. However, at the moment, your only comment downvoted below 1 in this thread makes the claim "I was thinking Communism more in the idea of 'let's not let the market be entirely free'". That's such an aggressive redefinition of Communism it borders on falsehood, so I understand the downvotes. There are many, many critiques of the free market and proposals for moderating market activity for the greater good. Very few of these deserve to be lumped under the heading 'Communism'. The Communist critique of markets and capital/ownership is larger, and their program, in both theory and practice, different. 'Communism' means something, and that something is much more than the innocuous "let's not let the market be entirely free". (For example, you could wholeheartededly agree "let's not let the market be entirely free" and still be shot as a counterrevolutionary by a dedicated Communist.)
  - turkishrevenge 17y ago
    Remember, the ideas of any age are that of its ruling class. To say that the goal of capital accumulation is the "natural" state of humanity, is to ignore each set of social relations imposed on the populace by the ruling class of each social epoch. In the Feudal period, it was the divinity of the monarch and the "natural" state of the peasantry being tied to the land, surrendering a tithe to the king and the clergy. Before that, it was "natural" to conquer and subjugate the enemy within a slave society like Rome. Also, everything that was tried before was either smashed by state intervention backed by capitalist interest, e.g. the Pinochet coup in Chile in 1973, or Franco during the Spanish civil, or was a Stalinist dictatorship.
    - gloob 17y ago
      All the evidence we have suggests that human history and prehistory is primarily concerned with two things: firstly, people making stuff, and secondly, people taking other people's stuff and optionally killing them. This is widely true for societies ranging from stone-age tribal groups, all the way up to the present day. Of course many beliefs are created and imparted by society at large, but not all are. The belief that our planet is roughly a sphere is more accurate than the belief that it is flat, and the belief that the Earth orbits the sun is more accurate than the reverse. I'm fairly sure we've hit on something with the whole "People would rather be rich than poor," idea.
      - unalone 17y ago
        They'd rather be "rich than poor" because we have a society that says rich is awesome, poor is terrible. I'd agree with you if you'd said "comfortable rather than stressed", but there's a difference between the two. Everybody can be comfortable at once. Not everybody can be rich.
        gloob 17y ago
        Everybody can be comfortable at once. Not everybody can be rich. That's a poor criterion for deciding whether or not something is an intrinsic human desire. Whether or not something can be universally achieved is orthogonal to the question. I don't doubt that we have a society that says rich is awesome, poor is terrible, but here's the thing: when we say that "society says foo", what we mean is that a large percentage of individuals are saying foo. Lots of individuals say "rich is awesome, poor is terrible" because they actually believe that they prefer the one to the other, not because some external "society" (I place it in scare quotes because any society does not have an existence independent from individuals) forces or tricks or brainwashes them into it.
  - MaysonL 17y ago
    Communism works fairly well - in small doses: i.e. for groups small enough for everybody to know everybody else. This allows for discipline of goldbrickers and avoidance of takeover by charismatics. See, for example, the Hutterites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite
    - unalone 17y ago
      Reminds me of Gladwell's little bit on Dunbar's Constant in The Tipping Point. He brought up GoreTex as a company that, by splitting its company into miniature groups of under 150, thrived despite nobody having job titles. I'd like to see a nation try to work itself using Dunbar's Constant. A government based on the idea that people can all relate to one another in small groups would be radical.
      - MaysonL 17y ago
        I've often thought that a government based on proxies, given only to personal acquaintances, with a hierarchical structure where 12 proxies at one level would elect you to the next level, might work better than our present representation. (Then again, maybe the old Athenian idea of choosing legislatures as well as juries by lot might work better too).
- gojomo 17y ago
  Where 'Communism' has been most earnestly tried... - there has been death and deprivation, which has only let up as societies turn back to more traditional organizing modes - because of the clash between the high hopes and sad reality, those expressing preferences to live another way are often imprisoned, while under non-Communist regimes 'Communists' are free to write books, be professors, start communes and cooperative living/production units, etc.
  - krschultz 17y ago
    There is a difference between the economic systems of capitalism/communism and the democratic state of freedom/tyranny
    - gojomo 17y ago
      Sure, there are many axes of the possibility space, at least theoretically. But you don't find many, if any, societies in the Communism + freedom quadrant. The other three quadrants have many examples. And those tyrannies that have become more free over time have usually needed a dose of capitalism as the first step (ending collective enterprises, especially farms, and trading with capitalist markets, for example).
      - krschultz 17y ago
        True, but I can't think of a country that tried Communism in good faith. And in this country when people tried the system in a microcosm like a commune, it works. So maybe it doesn't scale or maybe it requires different roots than the founding of most communist countries.
        gojomo 17y ago
        Everywhere Communism has been tried, the perpetrators really believed in it, really wanted it to do better -- for its predictions to come true, and for capitalism to be swept away by something better. Even if there was cyncism among those who grabbed power, they then elevated Communism's texts and ideals in all official communication, celebration, and education. So generations were given every chance to try "Communism in good faith". But it still didn't work. It turned out more corrupt, more polluting, more poor, and even in many respects less egalitarian than capitalism. To claim all those proud earnest efforts weren't "in good faith" is at best a form of the "no true scotsman" fallacy.

unalone 17y ago

That depends on your definition of complete fairness. I see "fair" as including the opportunity for success; fairness becomes a matter of never letting somebody sink into a pit they can't rise from. That can be achieved without much of a socialist bent at all: All you need are nets. Out of curiosity, why do you think communism is inherently bad? Do you take the angle of "Man is entitled to the fruits of his labor", or is there something else to it?

TomOfTTB 17y ago
Because it's never, ever worked. There are a lot of ideas that seem smart from an academic perspective but which, when implemented, fail. In the case of Communism it only works if a whole society can manage to bury their natural human desire to achieve more than their neighbor and history has proven time and time again that burying that instinct is not possible and when you try you simply get lethargy.
- unalone 17y ago
  Okay. I was thinking Communism more in the idea of "let's not let the market be entirely free," not Communism in the sense of "everybody is forced to be equal." I'd argue that a completely free market would be just as terrible.
  - TomOfTTB 17y ago
    Clearly there's a spectrum. I mean, the market we have now isn't completely free and I'm not one that has a problem with regulations. My only issue is the piece basically saying "I became 20 in a bad economy but others became 20 in a good economy so the Government should step in and fund me to the point that my experience is equal" Some people are luckier than others and that stinks but I don't think the Government can fix that. But I have no problem with Government safety nets that stop people from falling completely down the rabbit hole either.
    - unalone 17y ago
      I didn't really think Squashed was suggesting he ought to get funding, I think he was stating that the system as it stands now, where hard work leads to nothing, is flawed. You can see the implied solution as "I need money," but from his older writings, I'd be more inclined to think it's "There's a problem with a system wherein happiness is so based on the economy, and where we're told we need a good job to be happy, so that our happiness is based on a fluctuating system." The problem isn't the lack of a job, in other words, so much as it's the emphasis on having certain jobs. ALSO: Can we please stop downvoting based on who we agree and disagree with? I'm enjoying this conversation quite a lot and I hate seeing Tom and myself dipping into 0 and -1 while productive debate's going on.
      - gojomo 17y ago
        I agree downvote-as-disagreement is bad. However, at the moment, your only comment downvoted below 1 in this thread makes the claim "I was thinking Communism more in the idea of 'let's not let the market be entirely free'". That's such an aggressive redefinition of Communism it borders on falsehood, so I understand the downvotes. There are many, many critiques of the free market and proposals for moderating market activity for the greater good. Very few of these deserve to be lumped under the heading 'Communism'. The Communist critique of markets and capital/ownership is larger, and their program, in both theory and practice, different. 'Communism' means something, and that something is much more than the innocuous "let's not let the market be entirely free". (For example, you could wholeheartededly agree "let's not let the market be entirely free" and still be shot as a counterrevolutionary by a dedicated Communist.)
- turkishrevenge 17y ago
  Remember, the ideas of any age are that of its ruling class. To say that the goal of capital accumulation is the "natural" state of humanity, is to ignore each set of social relations imposed on the populace by the ruling class of each social epoch. In the Feudal period, it was the divinity of the monarch and the "natural" state of the peasantry being tied to the land, surrendering a tithe to the king and the clergy. Before that, it was "natural" to conquer and subjugate the enemy within a slave society like Rome. Also, everything that was tried before was either smashed by state intervention backed by capitalist interest, e.g. the Pinochet coup in Chile in 1973, or Franco during the Spanish civil, or was a Stalinist dictatorship.
  - gloob 17y ago
    All the evidence we have suggests that human history and prehistory is primarily concerned with two things: firstly, people making stuff, and secondly, people taking other people's stuff and optionally killing them. This is widely true for societies ranging from stone-age tribal groups, all the way up to the present day. Of course many beliefs are created and imparted by society at large, but not all are. The belief that our planet is roughly a sphere is more accurate than the belief that it is flat, and the belief that the Earth orbits the sun is more accurate than the reverse. I'm fairly sure we've hit on something with the whole "People would rather be rich than poor," idea.
    - unalone 17y ago
      They'd rather be "rich than poor" because we have a society that says rich is awesome, poor is terrible. I'd agree with you if you'd said "comfortable rather than stressed", but there's a difference between the two. Everybody can be comfortable at once. Not everybody can be rich.
      - gloob 17y ago
        Everybody can be comfortable at once. Not everybody can be rich. That's a poor criterion for deciding whether or not something is an intrinsic human desire. Whether or not something can be universally achieved is orthogonal to the question. I don't doubt that we have a society that says rich is awesome, poor is terrible, but here's the thing: when we say that "society says foo", what we mean is that a large percentage of individuals are saying foo. Lots of individuals say "rich is awesome, poor is terrible" because they actually believe that they prefer the one to the other, not because some external "society" (I place it in scare quotes because any society does not have an existence independent from individuals) forces or tricks or brainwashes them into it.
- MaysonL 17y ago
  Communism works fairly well - in small doses: i.e. for groups small enough for everybody to know everybody else. This allows for discipline of goldbrickers and avoidance of takeover by charismatics. See, for example, the Hutterites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite
  - unalone 17y ago
    Reminds me of Gladwell's little bit on Dunbar's Constant in The Tipping Point. He brought up GoreTex as a company that, by splitting its company into miniature groups of under 150, thrived despite nobody having job titles. I'd like to see a nation try to work itself using Dunbar's Constant. A government based on the idea that people can all relate to one another in small groups would be radical.
    - MaysonL 17y ago
      I've often thought that a government based on proxies, given only to personal acquaintances, with a hierarchical structure where 12 proxies at one level would elect you to the next level, might work better than our present representation. (Then again, maybe the old Athenian idea of choosing legislatures as well as juries by lot might work better too).
gojomo 17y ago
Where 'Communism' has been most earnestly tried... - there has been death and deprivation, which has only let up as societies turn back to more traditional organizing modes - because of the clash between the high hopes and sad reality, those expressing preferences to live another way are often imprisoned, while under non-Communist regimes 'Communists' are free to write books, be professors, start communes and cooperative living/production units, etc.
- krschultz 17y ago
  There is a difference between the economic systems of capitalism/communism and the democratic state of freedom/tyranny
  - gojomo 17y ago
    Sure, there are many axes of the possibility space, at least theoretically. But you don't find many, if any, societies in the Communism + freedom quadrant. The other three quadrants have many examples. And those tyrannies that have become more free over time have usually needed a dose of capitalism as the first step (ending collective enterprises, especially farms, and trading with capitalist markets, for example).
    - krschultz 17y ago
      True, but I can't think of a country that tried Communism in good faith. And in this country when people tried the system in a microcosm like a commune, it works. So maybe it doesn't scale or maybe it requires different roots than the founding of most communist countries.
      - gojomo 17y ago
        Everywhere Communism has been tried, the perpetrators really believed in it, really wanted it to do better -- for its predictions to come true, and for capitalism to be swept away by something better. Even if there was cyncism among those who grabbed power, they then elevated Communism's texts and ideals in all official communication, celebration, and education. So generations were given every chance to try "Communism in good faith". But it still didn't work. It turned out more corrupt, more polluting, more poor, and even in many respects less egalitarian than capitalism. To claim all those proud earnest efforts weren't "in good faith" is at best a form of the "no true scotsman" fallacy.