Can Communism Ever Work?

Discussion in 'Communism' started by TrippinBTM, Dec 2, 2005.

  1. TrippinBTM

    TrippinBTM Ramblin' Man

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    Well, can it?
     
  2. scratcho

    scratcho Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Works for ants!Ants don't have humans lust for power though.Shame isn't it?Thousands of humans worldwide dying every day --people living in abject poverty,starving,tortured-freezing,ect,when others are billionaires.You can forget communism--humans would have to develop a greater sense of altruism.Not happening.Evolution-wise, I suppose the rich are smarter than the rest of us,at least under the present governing ,and monetary systems.Altho',Gates seems to have a little of the spirit that humankind sorely needs more of.Most of them seem to hate anything that smacks of sharing.
     
  3. Pointbreak

    Pointbreak Banned

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    Capitalism does work. Communism can never work.

    I'm glad I could clear this up.
     
  4. somethingwitty

    somethingwitty Member

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  5. Alden

    Alden Member

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    Oh hell no! COMMIES WILL BURN MAN!
     
  6. all_rhodesian_reject

    all_rhodesian_reject Sonskyn Elvis

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  7. JanaXGIRL

    JanaXGIRL Senior Member

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    Never ever.
     
  8. Eugene

    Eugene Senior Member

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    Ant's have a queen, so they'd be monarchists, not communists.
    Anywhos, communism can work in some situations. Usually it's a tribal society like the native americans, or it is an Utopian society like the kibbutznik or the commune-ists of the early 1900s.
    But on a large scale economy, it doesn't work. Marx was a smart man, but everyone can be wrong.
     
  9. hippypaul

    hippypaul Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    There was this exercise that we did in the army. You got two squads of people (11) and lined them up facing each other. Then one squad picked up a telephone pole and tossed it to the other. All went well for a while. The pole was pitched back and forth without problem. Soon however people begin to slack off – let the others take more of the weight. At some point, a critical number was passed and the pole knocked down one squad.
    Therein lays the problem with communism. If there is not a motive for people to produce, they do not. You have to have some sort of incentive that rewards folks for being productive and holding up there end of the social contract.
    Does capitalism do this? Sort of. However, it brings many problems with it to. Unequal distribution of wealth that leads to social unrest. The necessity to provide bread and circuses to try to keep the social unrest under control. The accumulation of inherited wealth. The development of monopolies that stifle creativity and new productivity.
    With all that said – some sort of regulated capitalism seems to be the best of a bad lot. I am however open to any and all suggestions. Just remember the telephone pole.
     
  10. Common Sense

    Common Sense Member

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    The trouble is that no one has any clear and distinct idea of what it would mean for a system of government to "work." And obviously the question cannot be answered until we have such an idea. If you asked ten different people, you'd probably end up with ten different answers. Perhaps when a government works, it's like when a tool works. A hammer works when it is sucessful at hammering. But I do not understand how an abstract entity can behave like a hammer. You may as well say that "2 + 2 = 4" works. Maybe, we could say that 2 + 2 = 4 works because it is always true. But governments can neither be true nor false. I understand that they could be argued to be just or unjust, good or bad, but never true or false. What people have in mind when they say a government works is probably along the same lines as the hammer. A hammer works because it does what it's supposed to do. But it's quite a stretch to say that a government in general has any sort of intrinsic purpose. However, particular governments do. That purpose is whatever they set out to do. So, a government "works" if it does what it sets out to do. In that sense, almost any government works, except the ones that outright lie to their people. And even then, no government lies all the time, in every respect. So, the question of whether Communism works or not is really not important, niether is the question of whether capitalism works. Capitalism cannot be said to "not work" on the grounds that it is not egalitarian because capitalism never claimed to be egalitarian. The more pressing question is whether or not the economic and historical models presented by Communists actually conform to the actual state of things.
     
  11. Communism

    Communism Member

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    Well, personally, I wouldn't really be very motivated to pick up a telephone pole and toss it, over and over again.

    Would I work in a communist society? Yes.
    Would I pick up a telephone pole, toss it, and repeating the exercise for a period of time? No.

    :)

    Well, since a communist society is without a government, how can it be a system of government..?
     
  12. hippypaul

    hippypaul Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    You state that you would be willing to work in a communist society. Why? And for how long? And even if everyone around you was slacking. And what if the work to be done seemed to be as pointless to you as telephone pole tossing? The entire point of the telephone pole exercise is to have people working together on a task that seems worthless.

     
  13. steffan

    steffan puffin

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    the human factor is always is the problem in any goverment, I think for the most part people will self govern if the scale is small enough, its when you get into these monstosties of millions of people that trouble arrises.
    on the questian though, both cap and com have there points, so some combination of both might be better, definently freedom of press should be allowed however
     
  14. Eugene

    Eugene Senior Member

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    Name one.
     
  15. Common Sense

    Common Sense Member

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    That's not the point. You can substitute "government" with "society" or almost anything you like. The problem isn't with the word "government," it's with "work."
     
  16. m6m

    m6m Member

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    Marx never understood communal life, and Marxist Communism is a utopian delusion of a repressed civilized mind.

    Marx failed to see that class-identity increases only to compensate for the increasingly inadequate sexual-identity of repressed civilized man.

    And that the problem of inadequacy is revealed not by the lower-class, but by upper-class ambitions.

    Marx failed to understand that the motivating force behind our material-dialectic is sexual.

    Like all civilized men, Marx flatters and deludes himself into thinking our material-dialectic is a reflexion of superior cognitive development.

    Marx failed to see that our material-dialectic as a symptom that expresses the repression of our psycho-sexual energy.

    Hippies understood that Marx, like all civilized men, was uptight and anal.

    Hippies often understood that material desire was a compensation for repressed sexual energy.

    My communal experience tells me that only the sexually healthy, un-burdened by material desire, are able to truly commune.

    Marx, and nearly every other repressed degenerate junkie, addicted to the cozy effeminate comforts of material civilization, can only dream of communal life.

    We all had to learn the hard way- that repressed people do not like to commune together.

    You want a classless society?

    Then allow women and children to breast-feed openly, spontaneously, and naturally.
    Stop telling women that their bare-breasts are too shameful to be seen in puplic.
    Stop demanding civilization's notoriously harsh toilet-training.
    Stop reproducing grasping, anal-retentive, sexually mal-developed children.
    Lose patriarchal civilization!
    It's that 'easy'. lol
     
  17. Eugene

    Eugene Senior Member

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    You almost had me up until the toilet training.
     
  18. hippypaul

    hippypaul Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    I agree with all of the above. However, you are leaving out a lot of stuff. My communal experience tells me that someone always had to go to the hardware store. So that we were parasitic on an industrial society. Because even with a blacksmith shop you cannot make tool steel much less mine the ore.

    Maybe it was because of repression but for some reason my communal experience tells me that, some people are willing to work and others are not. Problems with the division of labor were at the root of almost every problem we had.



    “Then allow women and children to breast-feed openly, spontaneously, and naturally.” --- with you 100%

    “Stop telling women that their bare-breasts are too shameful to be seen in public.” ----- with you 100%

    “Stop demanding civilization's notoriously harsh toilet-training.” - with you 100%

    “Stop reproducing grasping, anal-retentive, sexually mal-developed children.” --- with you 100%

    “Lose patriarchal civilization!” - Now do the above four steps lead to this - I do not think so - kindly add the intermediate steps.



    Ok so I will give you all of the above we have a civilization without pre set sex roles or we can have a matriarchy. That would work for me. I have been a nurse for 35 years working for women does not bother me one bit and I am in an open shared task marriage.



    Now given everything you want - tell me how that leads to a classless society. On an intellectual level, I admit that there is no difference in value of the work of a neurosurgeon and a trash collector. However, I suspect that in order to get someone to put in the labor of 12 years of training you are going to have to give them more incentive than communal joy. In addition, some jobs cannot or should not be done by everybody. Heavy lifting - exposure of pregnant women to certain environments. How do you deal with that?

    I was a medic in the army after I got out I worked at a hospital in LA as a prep teck I spent my day shaving people. I did that type of work for a number of years. Bummed around the country working some and not working at times. Lived in several communal environments. Got old after a while - got tired of being poor. Worked my way through collage in order to do easer work and make more money. Became what I like to think was a good RN. Now in a classless society, why would I have done that?

    Do not get me wrong - I do not like our society - it is unjust, unfair, and has committed many crimes. I am willing to follow anyone who has a plan. The problem is that I have not heard a plan yet.

     
  19. Eugene

    Eugene Senior Member

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    In Canada you are allowed to bare your brests like the men. (I don't get how women nipples are obscene, men's are the pointless ones)
    Is that why Canada has higher governmnet control over the economy?
     
  20. Eugene

    Eugene Senior Member

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    Well, it's cold, you could poke the poor babe's eyes out.
     

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