NationStates Jolt Archive

This thread has been started to force New Granada to defend what I consider to be a totally indefensible position; namely, the one expressed in this (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13461554&postcount=108) post. As a friendly request to others, could you please refrain from posting until NG has had a chance to return fire?

Anyway, to business:

It is a disservice to the countless tens of millions murdered and robbed by communism and its agents to dignify the ideology of theft, human extermination and terror by debating it as though it were a valid or civilised idea.

The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.

Communism is the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies, it is the belief and advocacy of never-ending crime.

Anyway, there are so many things wrong with this that I hardly know where to begin. So let us begin at the beginning.


Property as theft, and the consequences of this view

I take issue with your characterisation of communism as involving theft. I for one feel that property is theft---the appropriation of resources with no intent to return. This is a position that is not uncommon among leftist political thinkers---Proudhon said much the same thing, for instance. Or as De Sade put it, "[property is] a crime committed by the rich against the poor". The inherent truth of this can be seen by briefly imagining what would occur if the concept of property were to be abolished. Suddenly, the prince is the equal of the pauper, the wealthiest banker or capitalist worth no more than those he oppressed and swindled.

Of course, you strongly oppose this position, believing instead in the 'right' of the capitalist to oppress the worker. Hah! Tell me, what right has one man to profit from the labour of another? What arrogance makes the sweatshop owner think it is acceptable to make vast profits from what is practically slave labour? What conceivable version of justice could consider it anything less than theft? Not our current sham, but a system that provides truly just decisions. By my yardstick, communism is not theft, but capitalism is. Of course, you may disagree, but let us at least be civil about it.

Remember to distinguish between communism and totalitarianism...

Of course, my problems with what you said do not stop there. I also take issue with you taking the death camps and purges of Stalinist totalitarianism and holding them against all communism, as if the two were somehow the same.

We are, of course, in agreement that totalitarian government is bad. Indeed, I go further and condemn all government, but that is a discussion for another time. More important is that communism does not require a totalitarian state. Indeed when fully implemented it is completely incompatible with authoritarianism.

To see this, one may looks at how non-communist many of the totalitarian states were. The USSR, for instance, was nowhere near equality. Instead, it was tremendously unequal, with the workers being exploited and ruthlessly oppressed by the rulers. Similar arguments apply to North Korea, while China has now reached the point where it is best described as authoritarian capitalist, due to the inexorable grip of the free market.

Naturally, this does not by itself prove anything. We must also be able to find examples of working communist or near communist societies that were distinctly non authoritarian. Fortunately, history is littered with examples of these, on both small and large scales. We have the Diggers in England, for instance, or the Anarchists in Spain. In both of these cases, a free society based on very communist principles flourished until destroyed by external forces, generally fighting tooth and nail on the way down. These serve as practical demonstrations that non-authoritarian communist systems can be both successful and effective.

Of course, on a more philosophical note, one can easily see why communism cannot be authoritarian. It is a simple fact that one cannot reconcile classless equality with a dictatorship---the two are fundamentally incompatible, as the rulers in a dictatorship naturally form a higher class than the general population. Therefore, any attempt to form a communist dictatorship falls flat at the first hurdle. While socialism is possible under a dictatorship, communism by its very nature can admit no rulers.

This is not exactly a fringe view. Your arguments against the system in Russia were widely shared. Several notable communists were some of the most vehement opponents of the Bolshevik regime in Russia. For instance, we have Emma Goldman, a staunch critic of the Russian regime, and an important figure in the history of anarchism, proving once again that communism is quite incompatible with authoritarianism. Other leftist thinkers who were outspoken in their criticism of the USSR include: Michael Harrington, Max Schactman, Antonio Gramsci, Alexander Berkman, Murray Bookchin, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Rosa Luxembourg, to name but some. In short, many leftists are near united in their criticism of Soviet Russia, and consider such totalitarian states a bad thing.

... between atrocities committed in the name of [x] and [x] itself

However, all this does not disguise the fact that there have been atrocities committed in the name of communism. Mind you, it is important to distinguish between acts carried out in the name of an idea and the idea itself. For instance, let us take a look at Christianity.

Over time, horrific acts have been carried out in the name of Christianity. There have been dozens of wars, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials, to name just a few. But still, these cannot be held against Christianity itself, given that the recorded teachings of Jesus are invariably positive. For a more recent example, one can look at Scientology. While the actions of the Church of Scientology are being actively protested, the belief system itself is seen as harmless, if a little crazy.

The same logic can be applied to those atrocities committed in the name of communism. The message of equality that it brings has occasionally been co-opted for justifying evil acts, but it remains a generally positive idea.

A counterattack, or, the evils of capitalism

Anyway, I have spent quite enough time on the defensive. So let us now consider the weaknesses of capitalism, which I presume you advocate. First and foremost, capitalism is an ideology of exploitation. It encourages man to oppress and steal from his fellow man, to do what he can for the pursuit of wealth. When the core idea of your system is to get everything you can, is it any wonder that vast parts of the world are crippled by poverty, that insurance companies specialise in not paying out claims, and that companies will only issue a recall if the lawyers judge that to be the cheapest option. Human life can be sacrificed in the pursuit of profit.

Furthermore, let us not forget the many atrocities committed for profit. From ruthless dictators such as Pinochet, to monopolistic mining corporations refusing to pay a living wage, the list is long. Importantly, note that these actions have not merely been committed in the name of some abstract ideal, but for concrete rewards in the capitalist system. In other words, the system you advocate is actively out to damage people for money, is actively out to take advantage of your fellow man. Remind me again, what was so superior about it?

In conclusion, then, communism is not evil

So, let me summarise my argument. In brief, I contend that communism is not accurately represented by pointing out the atrocities of states such as the USSR. This is especially true when one considers the large numbers of eminent leftist thinkers who heavily opposed the USSR, and the various other applications of communist theory over time. Furthermore, I argue that capitalism is if anything worse, especially in the exploitation of humanity that it encourages.



As for the characterisation of communists and the numerous character attacks that comprise the end of your post, well, I'm not even going to descend to that level. Suffice to say that I consider it indicative of how strong a position is, when those who champion it spend two thirds of their time throwing insults at their opponents.

My thanks to Trotskylvania for helping with some of the arguments presented here. Also useful has been Peter Marshall's incomparable history of anarchist thought, Demanding the Impossible.

This might seem like a TL;DR, since it doesn't actually address anything in your post, but wasn't NG's point that it is inconsiderate to the victims of people of "communist" (quotation deliberate) aggression to ask them to acknowledge the value of Communism (non-quotation, capital C deliberate)? Your post is not addressing this question, but rather something different - whether or not Communism is responsible for "communist" atrocities, the original question of whether or not Communism is an ideology that can be reasonably proposed to people in the light of the bad name it retains remains unaddressed.

It is a disservice to the countless tens of millions murdered and robbed by communism and its agents to dignify the ideology of theft, human extermination and terror by debating it as though it were a valid or civilized idea.

The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.

Communism is the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies, it is the belief and advocacy of never-ending crime.

---

In case you couldn't work out what it meant the first time through.

Firstly: Good on you for putting your views out there. I know plenty of people here get quite antsy when it comes to actually making strong positive statements, because it exposes them to criticism. Occasionally that includes myself.

The inherent truth of this can be seen by briefly imagining what would occur if the concept of property were to be abolished. Suddenly, the prince is the equal of the pauper, the wealthiest banker or capitalist worth no more than those he oppressed and swindled.
That doesn't tell us anything about whether or not a crime has been committed. If I were to abolish something else, say gravity to make an extreme point, then people wouldn't fall to their deaths. That doesn't mean that gravity is a crime.

By the same token, the notion of property (whether taken to be inherent as a natural right, or agreed upon as part of some sort of social contract) forms a connection between person and good by virtue of cause and effect. I create something, therefore I own it. There are plenty of non-capitalists who fundamentally agree with that view, leaving us simply to disagree on what exactly "create something" means and what form the connection should take henceforth.

So I haven't shown that property isn't theft (though the notion is a tad silly because the idea of theft presupposes property to begin with, which means that you think everything is everyone's property, which leads me to ask "why?" and point out a whole lot of issues to poke holes in your rule), but I don't think right now you're making a very strong case.

What arrogance makes the sweatshop owner think it is acceptable to make vast profits from what is practically slave labour? What conceivable version of justice could consider it anything less than theft?
Well, should I be eligible for reward just because I exert myself? If I bash the ground with a stick until I die of exhaustion, have I created any value that I should own or get a share of?

By the same token, a factory worker who makes shoes might be able to make a hundred pairs of shoes a day sitting at a conveyor belt. You say it's unfair that he only gets $100 for it, when the shoes might well have been worth $1000.

But take the input of the capitalist away, and what happens? If the worker is left alone by himself trying to make shoes, he'd be lucky if he can manage to make ten pairs a day. Everything extra is made because he's not working by his own brain- or muscle power, but with machines and with other workers.

So who is really creating the value here? The worker's not the one, he can be replaced - and that competition (the same the capitalist faces when he tries to sell the shoes to a consumer who has the choice between lots of stores and brands) is what drives people to become better at what they do.

We are, of course, in agreement that totalitarian government is bad. Indeed, I go further and condemn all government, but that is a discussion for another time. More important is that communism does not require a totalitarian state. Indeed when fully implemented it is completely incompatible with authoritarianism.
Totalitarianism and authoritarianism are not the same thing, unless you accept that there is such a thing as "society's authority" that people have to submit to. In fact, I've been thinking that libertarian socialism, because every action you take affects others and is therefore taken to require at least some form of democratic consultation, is a sort of "anti-authoritarian totalitarianism".

To see this, one may looks at how non-communist many of the totalitarian states were. The USSR, for instance, was nowhere near equality. Instead, it was tremendously unequal, with the workers being exploited and ruthlessly oppressed by the rulers. Similar arguments apply to North Korea, while China has now reached the point where it is best described as authoritarian capitalist, due to the inexorable grip of the free market.
And yet, all of them were or are at least in some part based on perhaps the most important communist set of theory, namely marxism. So at least as far as being a marxist of some sort is concerned, you simply cannot disassociate completely with the crimes committed by these states precisely because most of them had their justifications within the interpretation of marxist theory which Marx and Engels themselves unfortunately left open for others to figure out.

And because Marx was, if nothing else, a very scientific person who didn't like to leave big holes (ironically?), there are usually problems with picking and choosing bits of marxism and ignoring or denouncing others. If you accept the notion of people being that heavily impacted by their economic circumstances, you accept the notion of class, hence you have to ask yourself about class warfare. And once you're there, you are already at the point of having to ask what sort of violence would be justifiable to end class-based oppression.

These serve as practical demonstrations that non-authoritarian communist systems can be both successful and effective.
In a small scale and over limited time periods.

Therefore, any attempt to form a communist dictatorship falls flat at the first hurdle. While socialism is possible under a dictatorship, communism by its very nature can admit no rulers.
Of course, people by their very nature tend to find leaders, idols and inspirational individuals...

Anyways, I think that any attempt to go straight to communism must indeed abolish most or all of marxism in the process or you end up with Pol Pot (who tried to do it without putting away "Das Kapital" first).

And then the discussion becomes a different one.

The same logic can be applied to those atrocities committed in the name of communism. The message of equality that it brings has occasionally been co-opted for justifying evil acts, but it remains a generally positive idea.
Again though, the connection between marxist theory and communist crimes is rather closer than many want to accept. Electrification, Collectivisation, the Great Leap, the Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot...they all had their basis in trying to figure out how to get to the stage where productive capacity is so great that scarcity becomes a non-issue and the state is no longer needed as a distribution mechanism, or in trying to fight the class war necessary to secure the state and prepare society for its eventual disappearance.

It encourages man to oppress and steal from his fellow man, to do what he can for the pursuit of wealth.
It does no such thing. If you can find me one piece of capitalist theory or literature that doesn't consider stealing a bad thing, I'd like to see it.

Furthermore, let us not forget the many atrocities committed for profit. From ruthless dictators such as Pinochet, to monopolistic mining corporations refusing to pay a living wage, the list is long.
I really don't like when people try to make absolutely vital parts of their arguments just disappear between the lines, especially if they're as hard to show as this.

Pinochet held a gun to people's head. An employer agrees to pay a certain wage based on what the labour market allows him or her to.

One is the initation of force against another person. The other is the result of a negotiation between two parties both out to do the best for themselves.

The alternative to agreeing with Pinochet is being dead. The alternative to not taking the wage is to find another means of living, perhaps better, perhaps worse.

One is a sin of commission, at best the other is a sin of ommission. If you want to say the two are equivalent, make your case. Don't gloss it over.

This might seem like a TL;DR, since it doesn't actually address anything in your post, but wasn't NG's point that it is inconsiderate to the victims of people of "communist" (quotation deliberate) aggression to ask them to acknowledge the value of Communism (non-quotation, capital C deliberate)? Your post is not addressing this question, but rather something different - whether or not Communism is responsible for "communist" atrocities, the original question of whether or not Communism is an ideology that can be reasonably proposed to people in the light of the bad name it retains remains unaddressed.

A reasonable point. I would say that the best way of helping remove that bad name is by demonstrating why it shouldn't be applied, which is what I've tried to do. The other method that is possible would be to simply use a different name, which is also a good way to go about things.

It is a disservice to the countless tens of millions murdered and robbed by communism and its agents to dignify the ideology of theft, human extermination and terror by debating it as though it were a valid or civilized idea.

The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.

Communism is the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies, it is the belief and advocacy of never-ending crime.

---

In case you couldn't work out what it meant the first time through.

Well, unless you're using it to mean that you're unwilling to actually engage in debate, I think the interpretation I worked from was a reasonable enough one. Namely, I don't feel your accusations are accurate, and I have laid out why I feel it is not an ideology of 'theft, human extermination and terror'. Care to actually address the arguments I've made this time?

Neu Leonstein: Response on the way. Thanks for actually providing a response for discussing.

Well, unless you're using it to mean that you're unwilling to actually engage in debate...


A careful reading of the first sentence would certainly indicate that. One might go so far as to call it the thesis, or "main idea" of the passage.


Third time's the charm, perhaps:

It is a disservice to the countless tens of millions murdered and robbed by communism and its agents to dignify the ideology of theft, human extermination and terror by debating it as though it were a valid or civilized idea.

The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.

Communism is the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies, it is the belief and advocacy of never-ending crime.

--

Reading comprehension is one of the most absolutely important skills a person can have if he hopes to work in a field other than manual labor.

A basic overview of the points to consider when reading something:

What is the main idea of the passage, what does it mean?
What is the author's purpose for writing the passage?
What are the implications the passage makes?
What is the author's position? What responses to hypothetical questions can you predict?
What assumptions does the author rely on?

Nine out of ten posts in an NSG 'debate' would be avoided as redundant and trivial if every poster succeeded in identifying all of those points in each post he read before purporting to respond to it.

Firstly: Good on you for putting your views out there. I know plenty of people here get quite antsy when it comes to actually making strong positive statements, because it exposes them to criticism. Occasionally that includes myself.


Firstly: Thank you for providing a detailed civil response. I may disagree, but at least there's now some position for actual discussion.

That doesn't tell us anything about whether or not a crime has been committed. If I were to abolish something else, say gravity to make an extreme point, then people wouldn't fall to their deaths. That doesn't mean that gravity is a crime.

True. I argue that for private property, the crime is taking items to be exclusively yours. To quote De Sade again, "the right is in origin itself a theft, so that the law punishes theft because it [theft] attacks theft". What is made belongs to everyone and is a common possession, any single person who tries to claim it as exclusively theirs steals it from the rest of the group.

By the same token, the notion of property (whether taken to be inherent as a natural right, or agreed upon as part of some sort of social contract) forms a connection between person and good by virtue of cause and effect. I create something, therefore I own it. There are plenty of non-capitalists who fundamentally agree with that view, leaving us simply to disagree on what exactly "create something" means and what form the connection should take henceforth.

So I haven't shown that property isn't theft (though the notion is a tad silly because the idea of theft presupposes property to begin with, which means that you think everything is everyone's property, which leads me to ask "why?" and point out a whole lot of issues to poke holes in your rule), but I don't think right now you're making a very strong case.

No, I'll admit I'm not making the strongest case. That's mostly why I posted it up, so that other people could argue against it and I could see where the weak points are.

Now, the main place we seem to disagree is that having created something means it is fundamentally 'yours'. I feel that a more constructive approach is to say "let's all use what we have created together, for the common good". If I do something useful, instead of hoarding it to myself, I let others work from that and come up with even better and more beautiful things.

This is, however, not a universal view. I was mostly mentioning it as one way in which the 'ideology of theft' label could be argued as inappropriate.

Well, should I be eligible for reward just because I exert myself? If I bash the ground with a stick until I die of exhaustion, have I created any value that I should own or get a share of?

Not reward as much as life. Every human is entitled to a reasonable standard of living, enough that they can spend their time engaged in productive and interesting behaviour. Once the needs of all are provided for, each can spend their time doing what they do best. This is a bit of a utopian dream, but we need to have something to aim for, and I feel it is the best option available.

So who is really creating the value here? The worker's not the one, he can be replaced - and that competition (the same the capitalist faces when he tries to sell the shoes to a consumer who has the choice between lots of stores and brands) is what drives people to become better at what they do.

I'm not sure. Of course, remember that the competition drives people in two ways. One is to be better, but the other is to become cheaper. If the capitalist can get away without paying a living wage, they will (see further comments lower down).

Totalitarianism and authoritarianism are not the same thing, unless you accept that there is such a thing as "society's authority" that people have to submit to. In fact, I've been thinking that libertarian socialism, because every action you take affects others and is therefore taken to require at least some form of democratic consultation, is a sort of "anti-authoritarian totalitarianism".

Correct, they aren't quite the same thing. I take issue with you claiming 'anti-authoritarian totalitarianism' though. If we use the generally accepted definition of totalitarianism as being where the state has near complete control, then when the state is removed, it cannot be totalitarian. The important difference is that not every action requires democratic consultation. Do what you damn well like, basically.

And yet, all of them were or are at least in some part based on perhaps the most important communist set of theory, namely marxism. So at least as far as being a marxist of some sort is concerned, you simply cannot disassociate completely with the crimes committed by these states precisely because most of them had their justifications within the interpretation of marxist theory which Marx and Engels themselves unfortunately left open for others to figure out.

And because Marx was, if nothing else, a very scientific person who didn't like to leave big holes (ironically?), there are usually problems with picking and choosing bits of marxism and ignoring or denouncing others. If you accept the notion of people being that heavily impacted by their economic circumstances, you accept the notion of class, hence you have to ask yourself about class warfare. And once you're there, you are already at the point of having to ask what sort of violence would be justifiable to end class-based oppression.

Good point. I'd like to be clear that I'm not a marxist. I arrived at communist ideas mostly through anarchism---it seems to me that one naturally follows from the other. I consider ideas of class warfare to be silly and outdated. The issue is state power, not economic class, to the same degree. I feel that removing the state will help level out the issues with economic differences.

In a small scale and over limited time periods.

Well, 3 million people isn't exactly small scale. As for the time periods. In general, such efforts are crushed before they can pose any serious threat to the prevailing order. The problem is simply that it is very hard to rapidly form a strong enough group to be able to take on multiple governments.

Of course, people by their very nature tend to find leaders, idols and inspirational individuals...

Anyways, I think that any attempt to go straight to communism must indeed abolish most or all of marxism in the process or you end up with Pol Pot (who tried to do it without putting away "Das Kapital" first).

And then the discussion becomes a different one.

See comment above, about (myself at least) not being marxist. Of course, Andaras will now consider me a brainwashed idiot, but that's just how things are.

Again though, the connection between marxist theory and communist crimes is rather closer than many want to accept. Electrification, Collectivisation, the Great Leap, the Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot...they all had their basis in trying to figure out how to get to the stage where productive capacity is so great that scarcity becomes a non-issue and the state is no longer needed as a distribution mechanism, or in trying to fight the class war necessary to secure the state and prepare society for its eventual disappearance.

Again, this is somewhat less relevant when one recognises that communist societies not based on the dictates of marxism have generally proved much less abusive. Again, I point at the Anarchists in Spain.

It does no such thing. If you can find me one piece of capitalist theory or literature that doesn't consider stealing a bad thing, I'd like to see it.

Well, if you consider property theft, and capitalism encourages the acquisition of property... However, that's a fairly weak point, I'll admit. I'll concede stealing, but I stand by oppression.

One is a sin of commission, at best the other is a sin of ommission. If you want to say the two are equivalent, make your case. Don't gloss it over.

Okay. I was using them both as examples of various evils. And yes, they aren't equivalent. Importantly, however, both stem from the same source.

To just expand on what I was saying about monopolistic companies. The strategy often employed by US mining corporations of requiring all their workers live in one location and purchase goods from the company store. The important trick they used was to charge more than they pay. This meant you ended up in debt, and working more to work that off, so more in debt, and so on. Of course, this lead to workers being unable to organise against the companies, unable to quit and look for better jobs, and basically being no better than slaves.

Naturally, this is extremely profitable to the corporation involved. Therefore, the capitalist goal of maximum profits lead to this being the favoured option, until unions gained enough power to be able to put an end to it. Unfortunately, in modern America the balance of power is swinging back to the corporation, and abusive behaviour in a similar vein is growing more common again---witness the actions of Wal-Mart, for example.

A careful reading of the first sentence would certainly indicate that. One might go so far as to call it the thesis, or "main idea" of the passage.


Third time's the charm, perhaps:

It is a disservice to the countless tens of millions murdered and robbed by communism and its agents to dignify the ideology of theft, human extermination and terror by debating it as though it were a valid or civilized idea.

The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.

Communism is the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies, it is the belief and advocacy of never-ending crime.

--

Reading comprehension is one of the most absolutely important skills a person can have if he hopes to work in a field other than manual labor.

A basic overview of the points to consider when reading something:

What is the main idea of the passage, what does it mean?
What is the author's purpose for writing the passage?
What are the implications the passage makes?
What is the author's position? What responses to hypothetical questions can you predict?
What assumptions does the author rely on?

Nine out of ten posts in an NSG 'debate' would be avoided as redundant and trivial if every poster succeeded in identifying all of those points in each post he read before purporting to respond to it.

You know, I had high hopes here. I thought that maybe you would be mature enough to recognise that what you were saying was going to be disagreed with, and hence be willing to discuss and defend your position. However, it's obvious that in fact I was wrong on that. All you are willing to do is claim that "your ideas are evil, you should be mocked, and I'm not going to actually engage in any sort of discussion, just keep repeating this" (paraphrased). Maybe you'll realise that posting on a debate forum kind of means that people will ask you to explain your position, particularly if it is controversial or extreme, and not think much of you if you don't. On the other hand, from what I've seen so far, this seems unlikely.

Ah well. At least Neu Leonstein is proving to be willing to discuss the topic, as opposed to mindlessly repeating the same old thing.

Good day.

You know, I had high hopes here. I thought that maybe you would be mature enough to recognise that what you were saying was going to be disagreed with, and hence be willing to discuss and defend your position. However, it's obvious that in fact I was wrong on that. All you are willing to do is claim that "your ideas are evil, you should be mocked, and I'm not going to actually engage in any sort of discussion, just keep repeating this" (paraphrased). Maybe you'll realise that posting on a debate forum kind of means that people will ask you to explain your position, particularly if it is controversial or extreme, and not think much of you if you don't. On the other hand, from what I've seen so far, this seems unlikely.

Ah well. At least Neu Leonstein is proving to be willing to discuss the topic, as opposed to mindlessly repeating the same old thing.

Good day.

Debate forum, now that's a good one! and in bold too! a laugh-riot!

I still can't fathom why you would think I would be willing to 'debate' this with you or anyone else considering the post you purport to be responding to.

Which part of it is unclear?

Can you answer all the fundamental questions of reading comprehension with regards to that passage? If you do it correctly I will send you Seven Chinese yuan renminbi or eight Hong Kong dollars via paypal.

Not a wager... a reward!

Debate forum, now that's a good one! and in bold too! a laugh-riot!

I still can't fathom why you would think I would be willing to 'debate' this with you or anyone else considering the post you purport to be responding to.

Which part of it is unclear?

Can you answer all the fundamental questions of reading comprehension with regards to that passage? If you do it correctly I will send you Seven Chinese yuan renminbi or eight Hong Kong dollars via paypal.

Not a wager... a reward!

Why can't you explain your comments further? Or even give a source for your information?
From what i've seen you have repeated your posts. What UniverseVerse wants is for you to explain why communism is evil, the actual theory and all the gory bits. Or was it just put in the wrong hands?
Is the theory based on false assumptions, if so please explain.
And what would be a better theory?
Does Capitalism work better?

Why can't you explain your comments further? Or even give a source for your information?
From what i've seen you have repeated your posts. What UniverseVerse wants is for you to explain why communism is evil, the actual theory and all the gory bits. Or was it just put in the wrong hands?
Is the theory based on false assumptions, if so please explain.
And what would be a better theory?
Does Capitalism work better?

Which part of the passage is unclear?

I'm willing to offer you the same reward as I've offered universe verse if you can correctly answer the different points of reading comprehension based on the passage he quoted.

Why can't you explain your comments further? Or even give a source for your information?
From what i've seen you have repeated your posts. What UniverseVerse wants is for you to explain why communism is evil, the actual theory and all the gory bits. Or was it just put in the wrong hands?
Is the theory based on false assumptions, if so please explain.
And what would be a better theory?
Does Capitalism work better?

He's unwilling to do so. My reckoning is that he doesn't actually have any sort of explanation, just some knee jerk "Ebil Commies" reaction. I don't really expect him to provide any sort of helpful comment now, just more digs about reading comprehension.

Meh. So much for me looking for discussion with someone who disagreed.

[QUOTE]It is a disservice to the countless tens of millions murdered and robbed by communism and its agents to dignify the ideology of theft, human extermination and terror by debating it as though it were a valid or civilized idea.
Of course murder of millions is not justified. which countries other than Soviet Russia suffered from this?
People still die in countries that don't follow Communism.

The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.
So it's okay to laugh at other people for trying to come up with an idea to reduce as Marx described it "the oppression of the proletariat"?
Effectively saying people should be ignored for placing ideas from this theory, without giving just cause for why.
While Capitalism is better?
Numerous sweat shops in 3rd world countries where people work in horrific conditions make clothes for us Western World people (e.g. US, Western Europe).
Or the way workers have to work for income, while certain areas of society don't have to work in such conditions?
Capitalism, brought about the industrial revolution where it needs large amounts of resources to keep it going, effectively a fancy word for slavery for profit.

Communism is the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies, it is the belief and advocacy of never-ending crime.
No it's not, crime is an effect of poorly implaced Communism, not part of it at all.


Which part of the passage is unclear?

I'm willing to offer you the same reward as I've offered universe verse if you can correctly answer the different points of reading comprehension based on the passage he quoted.

You make general statements without offering reasonable reasons to back those up, with no examples of such happenings.
You might as well say the moon orbits the earth in a threatening way, it's just a statement slightly altered to look menacing, while Communism in fact may be a nasty idea you give no good reasons as to why, or reasons why Communism might be a good idea.
Or what brought Communism about, and was it really what Karl Marx wanted?
Also no source.

Or following your previous guidelines,

What is the main idea of the passage, what does it mean?
The passage states an opinion of Communism.
What is the author's purpose for writing the passage?
To convince another poster of their opinion.
What are the implications the passage makes?
That Communism is bad
What is the author's position?
That Communism is bad.
What responses to hypothetical questions can you predict?
If you mean responses to the questions i have made, it would be a justification of your opinion with valid sources, structure, and examples of where Communism went wrong/right. and a Definition of Communism
What assumptions does the author rely on?
That humans want to be nice to each other.
That better forms of government exist.
That Communism and crime are linked.
That there was an alternative form of government to Communism.
That people have Freewill, to accept the consequences of their actions.
That the millions of people murdered, were killed in the name of purely Communism and no other personal interests or interfering factors.

Originally Posted by New Granada
It is a disservice to the countless tens of millions murdered and robbed by communism and its agents to dignify the ideology of theft, human extermination and terror by debating it as though it were a valid or civilised idea.
NG claims that communism is the "ideology of theft, human extermination and terror". Well, clearly NG never bothered to read the basic texts of communism (like The Manifesto or Das Kapital), because I don't think that anyone who's at least a bit intellectually honest can find "justification of human extermination" within those texts.
Of course, there IS justification of human extermination in some other texts, like Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and his subsequent speeches. Curiously, though, NG doesn't bother calling Nazism - the ideology who first theorised, then enacted one of the largest massacres in history - "the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies" (sic).


The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.

I would be ashamed of being treated as equal in what NG calls the "marketplace of ideas" (yuck), since this "marketplace" includes a very large selection of different types of debaters.
I have got better knowledge of dialectic and more respect for my auditory than those who merely spit off sentences like it were gospel, without properly supporting them with logically consistent arguments, and use to yell "he's evil, stop listening to him!" whenever they encounter an idea radically differing from their own.

Communism is the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies, it is the belief and advocacy of never-ending crime.

:rolleyes:... translation: "lalalala evil evil don't listen lalalala".

Really, I doubt that NG's post was worth such lenghty replies. Those who refuse to debate a priori aren't likely to be followed by people who choose logics and dialectic as primary tools to shape their ethics and their political views.

1)Of course murder of millions is not justified. which countries other than Soviet Russia suffered from this?

2)The passage states an opinion of Communism.

3)To convince another poster of their opinion.

4)That Communism is bad

5)That Communism is bad.

6)If you mean responses to the questions i have made, it would be a justification of your opinion with valid sources, structure, and examples of where Communism went wrong/right. and a Definition of Communism


1) North Korea, China, Cambodia, to name but three.

2) Incorrect, that is a too-general description of the nature of the passage but does not address what was asked, which is, the *idea* of the passage.

3) Wrong, it is to indicate an unwillingness to debate communism, not to convince anyone of anything.

4) Acceptable

5) Acceptable

6) The most commonly asked question so far is "will you debate communism?"
A cursory understanding of the main idea or purpose of the passage would indicate that a prediction of "no" is likely to be correct.

No seven kuai for you.

NG claims that communism is the "ideology of theft, human extermination and terror". Well, clearly NG never bothered to read the basic texts of communism (like The Manifesto or Das Kapital), because I don't think that anyone who's at least a bit intellectually honest can find "justification of human extermination" within those texts.
Of course, there IS justification of human extermination in some other texts, like Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and his subsequent speeches. Curiously, though, NG doesn't bother calling Nazism - the ideology who first theorised, then enacted one of the largest massacres in history - "the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies" (sic).


I would be ashamed of being treated as equal in what NG calls the "marketplace of ideas" (yuck), since this "marketplace" includes a very large selection of different types of debaters.
I have got better knowledge of dialectic and more respect for my auditory than those who merely spit off sentences like it were gospel, without properly supporting them with logically consistent arguments, and use to yell "he's evil, stop listening to him!" whenever they encounter an idea radically differing from their own.



:rolleyes:... translation: "lalalala evil evil don't listen lalalala".

Really, I doubt that NG's post was worth such lenghty replies. Those who refuse to debate a priori aren't likely to be followed by people who choose logics and dialectic as primary tools to shape their ethics and their political views.


All of that is endlessly fascinating, I'm sure!

Or what brought Communism about, and was it really what Karl Marx wanted?
Also no source.

By the way, I've just finished reading "Perestrojka" by M.S.Gorbacev. Gorby claims - and I bet he knew what he was talking about - that Marx, Engels and all other theorists of communism didn't explain in detail how a communist (or even a socialist) society was made. They merely outlined a sketch of some key issues - like production relationships.
Why? Because they knew that they were sketching an idealised system, and that the material reality of the historical process is way more complex and chaotic, so any communist politician would have had to adjust his policies to the material conditions of his own time and place, step by step.

NG claims the purpose of his OP was...

...to indicate an unwillingness to debate communism, not to convince anyone of anything.


NG also previously wrote:

The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.


If the purpose was effectively "to indicate an unwillingness to debate communism, not to convince anyone of anything", maybe another form would have been used for sake of better understanding, like this: "I will never debate communism. I think, instead, that the only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting, and I will act accordingly to this idea of mine."

Being written as it was, it sounded (not just to my ears, I guess) like an attempt at persuading other people, through non-grounded claims presented as absolute truths (hence not subject to debate), at not debating communism because of its -claimed- inherent maliciousness.

(and I'm being deliberately open to subsequent debating)

1) North Korea, China, Cambodia, to name but three.

2) Incorrect, that is a too-general description of the nature of the passage but does not address what was asked, which is, the *idea* of the passage.

3) Wrong, it is to indicate an unwillingness to debate communism, not to convince anyone of anything.

4) Acceptable

5) Acceptable

6) The most commonly asked question so far is "will you debate communism?"
A cursory understanding of the main idea or purpose of the passage would indicate that a prediction of "no" is likely to be correct.

No seven kuai for you.
No is not an answer here, give reasons or give up.

But for knowledge to be complete you must have good foundations, or reasons for believing this is so.
To refuse to debate your opinion shows you either don't like the poster or your belief is based on shaky foundations.

I'd like to think the idea of the passage is for you do defend it.
So i ask, why bother posting this if what you mean is you don't want to debate?

Another thing, you totally ignored the rest of my post. (effectively slapping me in the face).
Again all i want is reasonable explanations for why you think Communism is bad. If this is too much to ask, then you don't know your stuff.

To sum up, Justify your position!

<SNIP>

Seriously NG, what is so hard about just explaining your position?

Reading comprehension is one of the most absolutely important skills a person can have if he hopes to work in a field other than manual labor.

A basic overview of the points to consider when reading something:

What is the main idea of the passage, what does it mean?
What is the author's purpose for writing the passage?
What are the implications the passage makes?
What is the author's position? What responses to hypothetical questions can you predict?
What assumptions does the author rely on?

Nine out of ten posts in an NSG 'debate' would be avoided as redundant and trivial if every poster succeeded in identifying all of those points in each post he read before purporting to respond to it.

Yes New Granada. For an example of redundant and trivial posts, one need only look at what you post.

Main idea of your passage? New Granada is too good to "debate" with the uneducated masses of NSG.

Author's purpose? To rub in New Granada's own supposed superiority in a way he views as clever.

Implications? New Granada is so obviously superior to *everyone* on NSG that it's not even worth talking to him, although naturally we should all bask in the glory of your attention, whensoever he deigns to give it to us!

Author's position and assumptions - superiority! Superiority so superior it needs no evidence, only a claim by an appropriately superior being such as New Granada!

I can predict further responses from New Granada will include a heavy dose of arrogance, snarkiness, evasion and hostility.

I only hope to be a Worthy NSG Poster in His Holy view. Perhaps this sacrifice of His fruits will suffice.

Yes New Granada. For an example of redundant and trivial posts, one need only look at what you post.

Main idea of your passage? New Granada is too good to "debate" with the uneducated masses of NSG.

Author's purpose? To rub in New Granada's own supposed superiority in a way he views as clever.

Implications? New Granada is so obviously superior to *everyone* on NSG that it's not even worth talking to him, although naturally we should all bask in the glory of your attention, whensoever he deigns to give it to us!

Author's position and assumptions - superiority! Superiority so superior it needs no evidence, only a claim by an appropriately superior being such as New Granada!

I can predict further responses from New Granada will include a heavy dose of arrogance, snarkiness, evasion and hostility.

I only hope to be a Worthy NSG Poster in His Holy view. Perhaps this sacrifice of His fruits will suffice.

There are a lot of people who are much more educated than I am who neverthless subscribe to the despicable ideology of mass murder and theft which has maimed and ruined more lives than any other perversion of reason in mankind's history - communism.

I'm sure your ideas are very interesting and that you could one day become a college professor and write books explaining them though! Good luck and godspeed!

There are a lot of people who are much more educated than I am who neverthless subscribe to the despicable ideology of mass murder and theft which has maimed and ruined more lives than any other perversion of reason in mankind's history - communism.

I'm sure your ideas are very interesting and that you could one day become a college professor and write books explaining them though! Good luck and godspeed!

I can think of even worse things than that of the definition that you ascribe to Communism. Various diseases such as Malaria and Cholera have killed Millions, amongst many others.
Perhaps Nuclear weaponry could also be considered more evil, quite easily.
Or invention of Gunpowder.
Or various Fascist Dictators around the world.
I think you believe people here try to justify the deaths of millions, when in fact they only try to point out that Communism wasn't what killed them. It was part of the human ability to kill which did, amongst many other reasons.
You cannot simply say Communism is bad without giving a good reason that explains why.
Is what i'm saying making sense to you? Or should i have not bothered to say this?
I wish you Good intelligence, because Luck runs out eventually.

I can predict further responses from New Granada will include a heavy dose of arrogance, snarkiness, evasion and hostility.

well, it is a better strategy than losing embarrassingly all the time. he's just thinking tactically.

well, it is a better strategy than losing embarrassingly all the time. he's just thinking tactically.

What? It's only a forum not a secret service meeting discussing what to do with the Nuclear weapons. (well i hope it isn't)
This strategy you speak of, what does it look like?
Does it react when heated by fire?
Hmmm i must conduct some tests on this new word.

You cannot simply say Communism is bad without giving a good reason that explains why.

Reasoning? Reasoning is for inferior beings - the kind who engage in discussions on NSG! New Granada is on another, much higher plane of reality, and as such your demands for Him to fork over His value time AND reasoning is not only unreasonable, it is SACRILEGE!

There are a lot of people who are much more educated than I am who neverthless subscribe to the despicable ideology of mass murder and theft which has maimed and ruined more lives than any other perversion of reason in mankind's history - communism.

I'm sure your ideas are very interesting and that you could one day become a college professor and write books explaining them though! Good luck and godspeed!

Why thanks! Although I think you're basically just saying that I'm a communist, you nonetheless managed to completely fulfill my expectations. Do continue this fantastic job of being little more than an item for me to humiliate.

Ok, so just so this is entirely clear: I do not believe the political philosophies of socialism and communism are viable, except as applied in small doses to temper unrestricted capitalism and ensure that economic prosperity is not marred by continual and destructive cycles of boom-monopoly-panic-depression-reorganisation-boom (see, for instance, the Gilded Age). I believe in the free market and all that bullshit. Communist governments have been universal failures, et cetera.

Nonetheless, I see New Granada's position as incredibly immature. "I don't like your ideology, so I'm just going to ignore you." If you really want to interact with your community that way, I suggest that a debate forum such as NS General is not the right place for you, and you might be better off spending this time in the "social" threads, or in a kindergarten playground. I might also point out that most of NS's leftists do not actually believe in murdering millions of people, or destroying all nonconformist literature, or suppressing free expression and judicial rights in the name of "equality"; but even if some of them did, that would still be no reason for you to arbitrarily declare yourself superior.

To be fair, I think that the original post was somewhat aimed at Andaras.

Anyway people. As interesting as this all is, there was actually a slight bit of a discussion going on. Would you care to get involved?

Ok, so just so this is entirely clear: I do not believe the political philosophies of socialism and communism are viable, except as applied in small doses to temper unrestricted capitalism and ensure that economic prosperity is not marred by continual and destructive cycles of boom-monopoly-panic-depression-reorganisation-boom (see, for instance, the Gilded Age). I believe in the free market and all that bullshit. Communist governments have been universal failures, et cetera.

Nonetheless, I see New Granada's position as incredibly immature. "I don't like your ideology, so I'm just going to ignore you." If you really want to interact with your community that way, I suggest that a debate forum such as NS General is not the right place for you, and you might be better off spending this time in the "social" threads, or in a kindergarten playground. I might also point out that most of NS's leftists do not actually believe in murdering millions of people, or destroying all nonconformist literature, or suppressing free expression and judicial rights in the name of "equality"; but even if some of them did, that would still be no reason for you to arbitrarily declare yourself superior.

Couldn't it be considered that Facism, or nazism, was the worst form of government? I'm just saying, considering the countless millions that were slaughtered in the name of purification. Communism has that guilt too, but considering the balance of the two, who can say which one was worse?

It is a disservice to the countless tens of millions murdered and robbed by communism and its agents to dignify the ideology of theft, human extermination and terror by debating it as though it were a valid or civilized idea.

The only acceptable response to it's proponents is to ignore them or to mock them, but never to treat them as equals in the marketplace of ideas, never to treat their despicable litany of evil as reasonable or interesting.

Communism is the most devastating and horrific of all human ideologies, it is the belief and advocacy of never-ending crime.
It's nice of you to capitulate and acknowledge the inferiority of your position without us having to demonstrate it to you. Thank you for saving us all a lot of time.

This thread looks like fun. I'm in, as NG has had an opportunity to return fire.


Of course, you strongly oppose this position, believing instead in the 'right' of the capitalist to oppress the worker. Hah! Tell me, what right has one man to profit from the labour of another? What arrogance makes the sweatshop owner think it is acceptable to make vast profits from what is practically slave labour? What conceivable version of justice could consider it anything less than theft? Not our current sham, but a system that provides truly just decisions. By my yardstick, communism is not theft, but capitalism is. Of course, you may disagree, but let us at least be civil about it.


I am a software developer. At the moment, I'm in a voluntary agreement with my boss to work for him. He profits by my work, but so do I. In exchange, he provides the venue and equipment I need to make a profit from my own skills. He gets the contracts and work, which I could not do with my skillset, I program the computers, which he cannot do with his skillset and the amount of time available. As I am not the only developer, and he is able to gain and maintain multiple contracts, he profits from all of us while providing all of us with work and the materials we need to do it. We all benefit. I see no theft here, nor do I see exploitation. Should I become dissatisfied with our arrangement for ANY reason, I am free to leave.


To see this, one may looks at how non-communist many of the totalitarian states were. The USSR, for instance, was nowhere near equality. Instead, it was tremendously unequal, with the workers being exploited and ruthlessly oppressed by the rulers. Similar arguments apply to North Korea, while China has now reached the point where it is best described as authoritarian capitalist, due to the inexorable grip of the free market.

Naturally, this does not by itself prove anything. We must also be able to find examples of working communist or near communist societies that were distinctly non authoritarian. Fortunately, history is littered with examples of these, on both small and large scales. We have the Diggers in England, for instance, or the Anarchists in Spain. In both of these cases, a free society based on very communist principles flourished until destroyed by external forces, generally fighting tooth and nail on the way down. These serve as practical demonstrations that non-authoritarian communist systems can be both successful and effective.


The problem is that an 'ideal' communist society may be peaceful and prosperous, but it is not strong against outside aggression, as your example demonstrated. A society may be utopian, but it is worth little when it is preyed upon by other societies.


The same logic can be applied to those atrocities committed in the name of communism. The message of equality that it brings has occasionally been co-opted for justifying evil acts, but it remains a generally positive idea.


Similar to my previous point, the only Communist systems to have endured are the ones where a class of authority figures separates itself from the common population and takes control, driving the society to build for self-defense and international trade. In this world, pure communism as you describe cannot exist.


Anyway, I have spent quite enough time on the defensive. So let us now consider the weaknesses of capitalism, which I presume you advocate. First and foremost, capitalism is an ideology of exploitation. It encourages man to oppress and steal from his fellow man, to do what he can for the pursuit of wealth. When the core idea of your system is to get everything you can, is it any wonder that vast parts of the world are crippled by poverty, that insurance companies specialise in not paying out claims, and that companies will only issue a recall if the lawyers judge that to be the cheapest option. Human life can be sacrificed in the pursuit of profit.

No one will dispute the fact that large corporations tend to lose their soul, but this is no more a statement against the inherent evil of Capitalism than Stalin is a statement against the inherent evil of Communism. Either system is vulnerable to individuals or groups who take advantage of others to propel themselves to power.

I will agree that Communism, in its purest form, is not evil, but by points are:

Communism is not viable in this world
Capitalism is not inherently evil either.

Advantages of Capitalism over Communism:

Capitalism promotes individual achievement.
Capitalism lends itself to an authoritarian Government which strengthens a nation for defense
Capitalism empowers the individual

Naturally, all of those, carried to an extreme can be negative, but aren't inherently so.

Couldn't it be considered that Facism, or nazism, was the worst form of government? I'm just saying, considering the countless millions that were slaughtered in the name of purification. Communism has that guilt too, but considering the balance of the two, who can say which one was worse?

Fewer people were slaughtered under Hitler and Moussolini combined than under Stalin.

Fewer people were slaughtered under Hitler and Moussolini combined than under Stalin.

Thanks for the refresher. Just was weighing the history there.

Anyways, I'm out!

*adds NG to list of people not to be taken seriously because they cannot back up their points*

The problem is that an 'ideal' communist society may be peaceful and prosperous, but it is not strong against outside aggression, as your example demonstrated. A society may be utopian, but it is worth little when it is preyed upon by other societies.

name me any type of society that always wins against outside aggression. communism still has the longest track record for societal survival, with god-king theocracies coming in a distant 2nd.

name me any type of society that always wins against outside aggression. communism still has the longest track record for societal survival, with god-king theocracies coming in a distant 2nd.

None ALWAYS does. The point is that if you want to survive against your neighbors, then pure Communism isn't the way to go. Uni's examples showed that. Endurance tends to lie in authoritarian government structures precisely because they tend to produce strong militaries and, to be honest, tend to be more aggressive.

The U.S. is a perfect example.

This thread looks like fun. I'm in, as NG has had an opportunity to return fire.

Ah excellent. Someone who is willing to disagree but discuss it.

I am a software developer. At the moment, I'm in a voluntary agreement with my boss to work for him. He profits by my work, but so do I. In exchange, he provides the venue and equipment I need to make a profit from my own skills. He gets the contracts and work, which I could not do with my skillset, I program the computers, which he cannot do with his skillset and the amount of time available. As I am not the only developer, and he is able to gain and maintain multiple contracts, he profits from all of us while providing all of us with work and the materials we need to do it. We all benefit. I see no theft here, nor do I see exploitation. Should I become dissatisfied with our arrangement for ANY reason, I am free to leave.

One of the most fantastic things about the internet and the rise of the information age is a large number of small companies which aren't particularly abusive. Your current situation is a perfect example. Again, I only argue that capitalism tends to favour those who can exploit the worker most successfully. At the moment, the software industry is rather in favour of the worker.

What language do you use, by the way?

The problem is that an 'ideal' communist society may be peaceful and prosperous, but it is not strong against outside aggression, as your example demonstrated. A society may be utopian, but it is worth little when it is preyed upon by other societies.

Well, I wouldn't say that. I'm not sure any system would have stayed up while being attacked by two factions, backed by multiple other powers. It's approximately the same as claiming that democracy is useless because Belgium fell to the Nazis. It's weakness, if one can be assigned, was that it threatened the order enough to have more powers willing to support an attack on it. I discussed this in detail with Yootopia a month or two ago.

Similar to my previous point, the only Communist systems to have endured are the ones where a class of authority figures separates itself from the common population and takes control, driving the society to build for self-defense and international trade. In this world, pure communism as you describe cannot exist.

Again, this is not a point in favour of communism, but saying that large authoritarian states tend to be hard to destroy. Which is true. It does not, however, make them a good thing.

No one will dispute the fact that large corporations tend to lose their soul, but this is no more a statement against the inherent evil of Capitalism than Stalin is a statement against the inherent evil of Communism. Either system is vulnerable to individuals or groups who take advantage of others to propel themselves to power.

Any system involving a government is vulnerable to such persons. Fortunately, the removal of a government tends to make things a little less vulnerable to such issues. This is why I advocate an anarchist communist system---I feel it is most resistant to such issues.

I will agree that Communism, in its purest form, is not evil, but by points are:

1. Communism is not viable in this world
2. Capitalism is not inherently evil either.
(numbering added by me)

1. I disagree with this, for reasons listed a little more earlier in this post. In brief, the forces arrayed against most attempts at communism would have wiped out any system.
2. I agree here. However, I feel that capitalism is more likely to bring out the worst in humans, and communism more likely to bring out their best.

Advantages of Capitalism over Communism:

1. Capitalism promotes individual achievement.
2. Capitalism lends itself to an authoritarian Government which strengthens a nation for defense
3. Capitalism empowers the individual

Naturally, all of those, carried to an extreme can be negative, but aren't inherently so.
(numbering added by me)

1. Debatable. I contend that as capitalism requires the worker to focus on earning enough to buy the next day's bread, potential for self-betterment is harmed by its employment.
2. Ah. This is a fundamental disconnect in our positions. I consider any system which lends itself to an authoritarian government to be flawed, for the simple reason that I reject the legitimacy of any government.
3. See my comment on 1.

On another note, how many of the right-wingers on here are New something, or the equivalent in another language? There's Neo Brettonia, New Granada, Neu Leonstein, and that's just this thread.

Ah excellent. Someone who is willing to disagree but discuss it.

Always the preferred ;)


One of the most fantastic things about the internet and the rise of the information age is a large number of small companies which aren't particularly abusive. Your current situation is a perfect example. Again, I only argue that capitalism tends to favour those who can exploit the worker most successfully. At the moment, the software industry is rather in favour of the worker.

Agreed. I would theorize this is due to the fact that software development is a skill that requires significant education, and thus is empowering to the individual workser. Microsoft is huge but probably can't get away with exploitation of its workers any more than the small company I work for. An unskilled laborer is much easier to exploit.


What language do you use, by the way?


Around here we use VB.NET mostly, though my personal preference is C# so I sneak it in wherever I can.


Well, I wouldn't say that. I'm not sure any system would have stayed up while being attacked by two factions, backed by multiple other powers. It's approximately the same as claiming that democracy is useless because Belgium fell to the Nazis. It's weakness, if one can be assigned, was that it threatened the order enough to have more powers willing to support an attack on it. I discussed this in detail with Yootopia a month or two ago.


Could be, but we can point to a LOT of examples of other forms that have endured and built empires. No such example exists for pure Communism. You're right that the fall of Belgium doesn't prove weakness in democracy, but that's only because we can easily point to much stronger nations that have been the conquerors, who are democratic, such as England, the United States and France. Monarchies that have conquered include Rome, Czarist Russia, England and France (Funny how some get to be in both categories lol)


Again, this is not a point in favour of communism, but saying that large authoritarian states tend to be hard to destroy. Which is true. It does not, however, make them a good thing.


Granted, but a lack of durability does go in the 'cons' column. A stable civilization is nearly always preferable.


Any system involving a government is vulnerable to such persons. Fortunately, the removal of a government tends to make things a little less vulnerable to such issues. This is why I advocate an anarchist communist system---I feel it is most resistant to such issues.


I see what you mean, but I think on some level human beings have a natural tendency to fall in behind leaders. Some are naturally gifted with leadership, others are followers. In an anarcho-communist form, I'd say it's only a matter of time before it begins to shift to authoritarian on some level.


1. I disagree with this, for reasons listed a little more earlier in this post. In brief, the forces arrayed against most attempts at communism would have wiped out any system.

i'd agree they could wipe out any individual nation regardless of system, but not any system per se.


2. I agree here. However, I feel that capitalism is more likely to bring out the worst in humans, and communism more likely to bring out their best.


It's hard to be sure of that. Certainly we can look at the United States as an example of Capitalism where people at their worst have exploited others for profit. At the same time, that same nation has a conscience where we've collectively enacted laws to prevent such exploitation. I imagine you and I would disagree as to what constitutes said exploitation, but individuals going out of control in a Capitalist society can be checked by the might of the majority without destroying the individual freedom to excel.


1. Debatable. I contend that as capitalism requires the worker to focus on earning enough to buy the next day's bread, potential for self-betterment is harmed by its employment.

How so? In many cases the employer benefits by the workers improving themselves in some way. Also, in a prosperous land an individual worker can tap into resources for education that can be obtained by means of one's wages.


2. Ah. This is a fundamental disconnect in our positions. I consider any system which lends itself to an authoritarian government to be flawed, for the simple reason that I reject the legitimacy of any government.


How come?


On another note, how many of the right-wingers on here are New something, or the equivalent in another language? There's Neo Brettonia, New Granada, Neu Leonstein, and that's just this thread.

Maybe we need Neo Art in here to tip the balance back some.

None ALWAYS does. The point is that if you want to survive against your neighbors, then pure Communism isn't the way to go. Uni's examples showed that. Endurance tends to lie in authoritarian government structures precisely because they tend to produce strong militaries and, to be honest, tend to be more aggressive.

The U.S. is a perfect example.

except that authoritarian structures have an even more mixed record on enduring than communist ones. most implode within a few years (or decades at the outside).

the u.s. is, even now, somewhat politically egalitarian, and it has only survived as long as it has by being lucky and by being geographically isolated in a way that makes outright invasion rather complicated. but take the anarchists in spain. what countries on the mainland of europe that had either the fascists or stalinists lined up to destroy them beat either? pretty much nobody, especially not if they were up against both. but we also know that both of those systems are inherently unstable inside, while systems much like those conquered were put back in place after their removal and seem to be doing as fine as anything. so what abstract lesson about relative worth of governing systems can we take from the authoritarian victories over relative and radical egalitarianism?

except that authoritarian structures have an even more mixed record on enduring than communist ones. most implode within a few years (or decades at the outside).

the u.s. is, even now, somewhat politically egalitarian, and it has only survived as long as it has by being lucky and by being geographically isolated in a way that makes outright invasion rather complicated. but take the anarchists in spain. what countries on the mainland of europe that had either the fascists or stalinists lined up to destroy them beat either? pretty much nobody, especially not if they were up against both. but we also know that both of those systems are inherently unstable inside, while systems much like those conquered were put back in place after their removal and seem to be doing as fine as anything. so what abstract lesson about relative worth of governing systems can we take from the authoritarian victories over relative and radical egalitarianism?

Although in fairness we should acknowledge that Spain, too has geography on its side, the border between it and France being heavily mountained. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Spain a dictatorship?

Can you answer all the fundamental questions of reading comprehension with regards to that passage? If you do it correctly I will send you Seven Chinese yuan renminbi or eight Hong Kong dollars via paypal.
Can I use post #2 as evidence for an answer of "Yes" to your question and claim some of the cash?

Although in fairness we should acknowledge that Spain, too has geography on its side, the border between it and France being heavily mountained. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Spain a dictatorship?

Spain is a constitutional monarchy much in the same way that Britain, Belgium, Denmark and a number of other European countries are.

*snip*

See, this is what I get from mousing over the title before delving into the thread.

I thought that there actually was a 'New Granada' and you were calling for it to defend its supposed right to secede from the original...

(No offense to NG, I just don't dissociate real bases for names from the names themselves)

Spain is a constitutional monarchy much in the same way that Britain, Belgium, Denmark and a number of other European countries are.

Ok thanks.

It being late here, I'm going to have to hold off on a detailed response until tomorrow. NB, I'll have a response to your post #38 up tomorrow sometime. Night all!

What is made belongs to everyone and is a common possession, any single person who tries to claim it as exclusively theirs steals it from the rest of the group.
But that supposes that some sort of ownership relationship exists between everything that is made and that already exists and every person on the planet. So as I pointed out before, I'm going to have to ask you why that is. Does merit come into it? Can someone have more of a right to consume something than someone else? If a good is destroyed in the process of consumption, then only a few of us can consume it - is it first come, first serve? Is it put to a vote, and if so, why does the majority get to decide? What if it decides the wrong way, giving something vital to someone who looks pretty and perhaps leaving someone ugly or unpopular to suffer?

Now, the main place we seem to disagree is that having created something means it is fundamentally 'yours'. I feel that a more constructive approach is to say "let's all use what we have created together, for the common good".
But nothing is created by all of us together. All property comes down to someone who first made a resource usable by human beings. So in a situation like this, where I go to colonise America and build a farm where before there was the wilderness that provided pretty much no economic value, while you stay in Britain and live the good life, how can you deserve a share in the economic value I created, against my will? Or if one brother goes and mows the lawn, why should the other brother who watched TV instead also get a few dollars from the parents?

Even more important than considerations of merit is the whole incentive thing. If it makes no difference to my eligibility to economic value whether I work or I don't, then why would anyone in their right mind go out of their way to achieve anything of economic value? People care the most about their immediate vicinity, about themselves, their family and their friends. By working and achieving something, they improve the living standards of these people - but now you say that my work and my reward aren't really connected and someone in Cambodia has just as much a right to the value I created as me. So no amount of work I do can be expected to actually help those I love any more than it would help completely faceless people about whom I know little and care even less. So if I could be with my family instead of working, then wouldn't that be the better option for me?

You could now say that my reward may not be guaranteed equal, but perhaps up to a democratic vote by all who were involved or affected - but in that case I wouldn't really be after doing work, I would be after making sure that I get a good outcome at the vote, right? Work may be a way to do that, if I assume the others are fair and rational people. Realistically, people could also try and be popular with those who are good at public speaking, who can convince the voters to award me a greater reward. They could exchange favours in a black market, they could blackmail each other. Democracy is already a rotten spectacle in many countries - what do you think will happen if it's not just about the guy we see on the evening news, but about the question whether we have steak tonight or gruel?

If I do something useful, instead of hoarding it to myself, I let others work from that and come up with even better and more beautiful things.
But isn't that what capitalism is all about? You don't earn wealth by hoarding things, you earn it by exchanging them. You create something others find useful or beautiful, and you make it available to them in exchange for something they made which you like. And in many cases, what you made is only a basis for what others do with it to make something even better.

Not reward as much as life. Every human is entitled to a reasonable standard of living, enough that they can spend their time engaged in productive and interesting behaviour.
So the both of us are in a plane. You buy yourself a big muesli bar from the flight attendant and then the plane crashes. We're the only survivors on a desert island. There is no food on the island and we don't know how to fish.

Assuming that we know we'll be rescued in two weeks time and the muesli bar is only enough to keep one of us alive for that long (we both die if we share), then would you be happy to give me the bar and die? Would it be right of me to take it? Would it be right of you to forego the ability to help others and make moral decisions in the future?

The whole thing about capitalism is that it is a system that deals with the distribution of scarce resources. Utopian communism really wants scarcity to go away so that everyone can have the same and no one misses out or is treated unfairly as a result. The fun fact is that if scarcity disappeared, capitalism and communism would be the same thing because the market price of something with unlimited supply is zero and if something has no value then there is no need for protecting it as property.

So for all the good intentions and "humans are entitled to X", if scarcity were to strike hard, I think that you'll be really hard-pressed to ignore the relationship between creator and created when making decisions.

Once the needs of all are provided for, each can spend their time doing what they do best. This is a bit of a utopian dream, but we need to have something to aim for, and I feel it is the best option available.
Who decides what a need is?

http://www.libertarian.to/NewsDta/templates/news1.php?art=art432

Have a read of that. It points out many of the things that can happen in socialist/communist systems which their proponents never really consider. The guy who liked old records had that judged not a need but a want and was refused. But if someone is old and sad, perhaps records are what gives their life meaning - how do you expect other people to accurately judge this?

In capitalism you yourself decide what a need and what a want is, and you are yourself when trying the difficult task of distinguishing between the two (if you bothered at all).

I'm not sure. Of course, remember that the competition drives people in two ways. One is to be better, but the other is to become cheaper. If the capitalist can get away without paying a living wage, they will (see further comments lower down).
I'll address that bit here. I would suggest that a market in which an employer can pay less than a cost price of labour (which is what a "living wage" is) is broken somewhere. You wouldn't expect to be able to consistently buy goods for less than it cost to make them either - sometimes it happens but it's not a sustainable situation.

Realistically you would see this sort of thing happen in third world countries in which markets are badly developed, these corporations and corrupt governments are working together (and there are few things more deadly than seeking profit and using violence put together) and workers have no way of getting the education or access to transport they'd need to find alternative employees. It's not what any capitalist would consider a free market.

That being said, I also think that cheaper and better are the same thing in many ways. If Toyota can make a car cheaper than GM, then that's an achievement on the part of Toyota that didn't just happen but required a sustained effort due to the realisation that this is a competitive strategy. As a result, we can buy cheaper cars and Toyota uses less resources to produce a certain number of cars. Of course in the case of people talking about using fewer resources to do the same labour finds a limit somewhere, but someone who doesn't have a giant mortgage to pay and drives a little efficient car is of course in a better position to compete on price than someone who put himself into a lot of debt and has massive fixed costs. Is that necessarily unfair?

If we use the generally accepted definition of totalitarianism as being where the state has near complete control, then when the state is removed, it cannot be totalitarian.
Well, the question is whether this lib-soc society sorta is a "state" in an abstract sense. I've had many supporters of such a system tell me that because any economic activity requires the use of scarce resources, not consulting with those who might have had an alternative use for them is a bad thing. It imposes externalities and can lead to inequality, so they proposed that economic decisions be made or judged by society in the form of putting things to a vote.

So by that logic anything you do in life must really be judged by everyone else - or rather, by the whole. You're never alone, society is always around you. And that's the totalitarian part - all your actions, decisions and interests are observed, judged and directed by not the state, but society.

The important difference is that not every action requires democratic consultation. Do what you damn well like, basically.
Realistically, there is no system that says "do what you damn well like". There can't be, there are always exceptions.

Well, 3 million people isn't exactly small scale. As for the time periods. In general, such efforts are crushed before they can pose any serious threat to the prevailing order. The problem is simply that it is very hard to rapidly form a strong enough group to be able to take on multiple governments.
I didn't say that it was due to the systems that they failed, just that we can't judge their success because they did. But the Kibbutzim for example fell apart by themselves because they couldn't sustain the sort of living standards people expected (hence why they got money from the Israeli government) and because younger generations felt suffocated and left for regular society.

I'll concede stealing, but I stand by oppression.
Is a sado-masochistic relationship violence?

Always the preferred ;)

But of course.

Agreed. I would theorize this is due to the fact that software development is a skill that requires significant education, and thus is empowering to the individual workser. Microsoft is huge but probably can't get away with exploitation of its workers any more than the small company I work for. An unskilled laborer is much easier to exploit.

Very true. Just look at the condition of sweatshop workers in India, for example. Of course, the computing industry would love to be able to move this way. For instance, attempts at 'trusted computing', so that only authorised code could be executed. Seems fantastic, but in fact cements a monopoly position for the manufacturers and the big corporations, and nukes the idea of hobbyist programmers and open source software.

Around here we use VB.NET mostly, though my personal preference is C# so I sneak it in wherever I can.

Hm. I tend to prefer dialects of Lisp: my two favourites are Arc and Scheme. They're interesting to think in.

Could be, but we can point to a LOT of examples of other forms that have endured and built empires. No such example exists for pure Communism. You're right that the fall of Belgium doesn't prove weakness in democracy, but that's only because we can easily point to much stronger nations that have been the conquerors, who are democratic, such as England, the United States and France. Monarchies that have conquered include Rome, Czarist Russia, England and France (Funny how some get to be in both categories lol)

Well, can a pure communist society really be said to be successful if it builds an empire? The very concept of imperialism would seem to me to be anathema to equality.

Granted, but a lack of durability does go in the 'cons' column. A stable civilization is nearly always preferable.

You cannot really accuse the Anarchists, for example, of a lack of durability. It took over 70 years for the movement to finally be stamped out, after all. While their heyday may have been short, they were active and a thorn in the side of the government for a long time.

I see what you mean, but I think on some level human beings have a natural tendency to fall in behind leaders. Some are naturally gifted with leadership, others are followers. In an anarcho-communist form, I'd say it's only a matter of time before it begins to shift to authoritarian on some level.

I have no quarrel with leaders, so long as they do not attempt to impose their status. Or as was (apparently) said by one of the French anarchists: "I do not feel we can win without the red and black flags, but once we win we must burn them all". My biggest problem is with those who feel they can impose their will on me, or on anyone else. See below on why I reject the legitimacy of government.

i'd agree they could wipe out any individual nation regardless of system, but not any system per se.

Sorry, I was unclear in my phrasing. That's what I intended to convey.

It's hard to be sure of that. Certainly we can look at the United States as an example of Capitalism where people at their worst have exploited others for profit. At the same time, that same nation has a conscience where we've collectively enacted laws to prevent such exploitation. I imagine you and I would disagree as to what constitutes said exploitation, but individuals going out of control in a Capitalist society can be checked by the might of the majority without destroying the individual freedom to excel.

The key thing here is that it concedes that pure, unchecked capitalism tends to lead to such abusive monopolies and practices. That is has then been regulated to protect the common good serves as a useful reminder of the potential dangers of such a system.

Also, I take issue with the seeming claim that it is impossible for the individual to excel in a communist society. I feel that it is definitely possible---one might be more able at poetry, or at constructing roofs. The fact that one will get what one needs anyway does not destroy the freedom to excel. If anything, it enhances it, as one does not need to think "well, I'd love to do this, but I need to do that to provide for the family". Make sense?

How so? In many cases the employer benefits by the workers improving themselves in some way. Also, in a prosperous land an individual worker can tap into resources for education that can be obtained by means of one's wages.

If the job of the worker is to push a trolley from point A to point B, how does the employer benefit if they have a degree in biochemistry? An extreme example, yes, but one that I hope points out that large numbers of jobs simply have workers doing what it would be too expensive for robots to do. Also, the rise of globalisation has lead to many of the more menial jobs being shoved to the third world, where such resources are simply not affordable on the pittance we pay.

How come?

Simply, I feel that no human being has the right to force any other to do anything. Therefore no government can be legitimate, as it is founded on forcing humans to abide by its laws. Each man is his own king, as it were, and none has the legitimate right to rule over another, to force another to obey his will. Or in the words of the AOA (Association for Ontological Anarchy), "Ontological Anarchy proclaims flatly, bluntly, & almost brainlessly: yes, the two are now one. As a single entity the anarch/king now is reborn; each of us the ruler of our own flesh..."

Does this make sense? If it doesn't, do say, and I'll be happy to have another go at explaining it---I need the practice, after all.

Maybe we need Neo Art in here to tip the balance back some.

Da, possibly.

Neu Leonstein. I should have a response up by some time tomorrow---too much real life at the moment to read and compose a reasonable response.

Trotskylvania. If you happen to be passing through, do feel free to join in. I could do with another debater on my side to help keep things moving.

I think you are handling yourself admirably. I'll jump in after your response to Neu Leonstein, and cover anything you might miss.

Actually I have debating such things with Granada, and he refuses to give me evidence of the 'atrocities' he claims in the Soviet Union and China, plus he also said that he lived in Maoist China but will not tell me when he was born.

Actually I have debating such things with Granada, and he refuses to give me evidence of the 'atrocities' he claims in the Soviet Union and China, plus he also said that he lived in Maoist China but will not tell me when he was born.

The Yezhovshina? Cultural Revolution? The treatment of bourgeois women in the early years of the Soviet regime?

Surely an accomplished communist historian such as yourself will have read such works as "A People's Tragedy", "Stalin; The court of the Red Tsar" and "Russia", and will thus be familiar with such atrocities?

Actually I have debating such things with Granada, and he refuses to give me evidence of the 'atrocities' he claims in the Soviet Union and China, plus he also said that he lived in Maoist China but will not tell me when he was born.

The first part is holocaust denial and doesn't deserve a response.

The second part is an outright lie.

The third part refers to the outright lie in the second part.

But that supposes that some sort of ownership relationship exists between everything that is made and that already exists and every person on the planet. So as I pointed out before, I'm going to have to ask you why that is. Does merit come into it? Can someone have more of a right to consume something than someone else? If a good is destroyed in the process of consumption, then only a few of us can consume it - is it first come, first serve? Is it put to a vote, and if so, why does the majority get to decide? What if it decides the wrong way, giving something vital to someone who looks pretty and perhaps leaving someone ugly or unpopular to suffer?

We all live in this world, don't we? Well, I'm presuming we do anyway. Therefore whatever is done on this world is in some way our property, as the world belongs to all of us. If a good is destroyed in the process of consumption, it's time for someone to make more of it. Food, for instance. You can't eat the same loaf of bread twice, but we can eat a loaf each when there's two.

There is no circumstance under which the majority get to decide something against the will of the minority. Let all discuss it, until a mutually agreeable conclusion is reached. Anything less is oppression, pure and simple.

But nothing is created by all of us together. All property comes down to someone who first made a resource usable by human beings. So in a situation like this, where I go to colonise America and build a farm where before there was the wilderness that provided pretty much no economic value, while you stay in Britain and live the good life, how can you deserve a share in the economic value I created, against my will? Or if one brother goes and mows the lawn, why should the other brother who watched TV instead also get a few dollars from the parents?

Why should either brother be paid? Let one be praised, maybe arrange to be slightly more generous and willing to help him with projects in future. That should be sufficient motivation, I would think. (more comment on this below)

Even more important than considerations of merit is the whole incentive thing. If it makes no difference to my eligibility to economic value whether I work or I don't, then why would anyone in their right mind go out of their way to achieve anything of economic value? People care the most about their immediate vicinity, about themselves, their family and their friends. By working and achieving something, they improve the living standards of these people - but now you say that my work and my reward aren't really connected and someone in Cambodia has just as much a right to the value I created as me. So no amount of work I do can be expected to actually help those I love any more than it would help completely faceless people about whom I know little and care even less. So if I could be with my family instead of working, then wouldn't that be the better option for me.

You could now say that my reward may not be guaranteed equal, but perhaps up to a democratic vote by all who were involved or affected - but in that case I wouldn't really be after doing work, I would be after making sure that I get a good outcome at the vote, right? Work may be a way to do that, if I assume the others are fair and rational people. Realistically, people could also try and be popular with those who are good at public speaking, who can convince the voters to award me a greater reward. They could exchange favours in a black market, they could blackmail each other. Democracy is already a rotten spectacle in many countries - what do you think will happen if it's not just about the guy we see on the evening news, but about the question whether we have steak tonight or gruel?

Ah, Homo Economicus. You see, most people recognise that there are two kinds of reward: tangible and intangible. If I know that my physical needs will be met regardless, I can concentrate on intangible rewards. For instance, let us take my current activity, debating on NSG. Why on earth would I be doing this? It brings me no tangible rewards. I'm not getting paid for it, it takes up time, and cements my reputation as a nerd. However, I still do it, for other reasons. Namely, that I occasionally get people saying "You're good at that".

I feel that the same principle can apply to nearly everything. If I know that what tangible needs have are going to be met, I will instead do those things which will earn me praise and respect, commodities that are harder to come by in many cases. What makes you think that this is not a powerful enough motivator of people?

But isn't that what capitalism is all about? You don't earn wealth by hoarding things, you earn it by exchanging them. You create something others find useful or beautiful, and you make it available to them in exchange for something they made which you like. And in many cases, what you made is only a basis for what others do with it to make something even better.

But for them to do so, you first demand they pay you. By doing so, many are often priced out of the market, or rendered unable to use their full potential.

So the both of us are in a plane. You buy yourself a big muesli bar from the flight attendant and then the plane crashes. We're the only survivors on a desert island. There is no food on the island and we don't know how to fish.

Assuming that we know we'll be rescued in two weeks time and the muesli bar is only enough to keep one of us alive for that long (we both die if we share), then would you be happy to give me the bar and die? Would it be right of me to take it? Would it be right of you to forego the ability to help others and make moral decisions in the future?

The whole thing about capitalism is that it is a system that deals with the distribution of scarce resources. Utopian communism really wants scarcity to go away so that everyone can have the same and no one misses out or is treated unfairly as a result. The fun fact is that if scarcity disappeared, capitalism and communism would be the same thing because the market price of something with unlimited supply is zero and if something has no value then there is no need for protecting it as property.

So for all the good intentions and "humans are entitled to X", if scarcity were to strike hard, I think that you'll be really hard-pressed to ignore the relationship between creator and created when making decisions.

That's a really interesting hypothetical situation. I would have to say that whoever is 'better' should survive. Godwin argued that, if there was a fire and you could only rescue one person, it was better to rescue a philosopher than your mother. I'm not happy with the idea, but if one of us was clearly worth more to humanity as a whole, they should survive. Otherwise, whoever has it, so in this case myself. Again, I don't like it.

Just to follow up on the scarcity comment. It is precisely because items that are not scarce have value that capitalism cannot allow complete elimination of scarcity. We can see this in software---thousands and thousands of dollars are charged for some computer programs, even though the overhead cost of copies is nigh on zero. This is an artificial scarcity, designed to enhance the profits of the company. And therefore by disposing of capitalism, many of these issues can be eliminated.

Who decides what a need is?

http://www.libertarian.to/NewsDta/templates/news1.php?art=art432

Have a read of that. It points out many of the things that can happen in socialist/communist systems which their proponents never really consider. The guy who liked old records had that judged not a need but a want and was refused. But if someone is old and sad, perhaps records are what gives their life meaning - how do you expect other people to accurately judge this?

In capitalism you yourself decide what a need and what a want is, and you are yourself when trying the difficult task of distinguishing between the two (if you bothered at all).

Interesting passage. Of course, I disagree entirely with its conclusions. The main issue, I feel, is that what this describes is not what I advocate. The passage considers a centralised system, where a single authority dishes out material. This is obviously completely different to a voluntary decentralised collectivism, which is what I actually advocate. Goods that need to travel further do so by being gifted between areas. Again, I advocate a system like this because it's actually known to work in practice---this is (roughly) what the Spanish Anarchists used.

The other thing I noted was that this piece still has a fundamentally capitalist view. Reason: all are still working to the goal of 'maximise what I personally get, at the expense of others'. For all involved, a more effective principle is 'recognising that each of our positions is improved if all of our positions are improved, let us maximise our collective benefit'. A parallel may be drawn with the classic "Prisoner's Dilemma", especially in its iterated form. When a large number of separate agents are all playing, the group attain their optimum result by all co-operating, even though any agent could end up slightly ahead by defecting instead.

I'll address that bit here. I would suggest that a market in which an employer can pay less than a cost price of labour (which is what a "living wage" is) is broken somewhere. You wouldn't expect to be able to consistently buy goods for less than it cost to make them either - sometimes it happens but it's not a sustainable situation.

Realistically you would see this sort of thing happen in third world countries in which markets are badly developed, these corporations and corrupt governments are working together (and there are few things more deadly than seeking profit and using violence put together) and workers have no way of getting the education or access to transport they'd need to find alternative employees. It's not what any capitalist would consider a free market.

The problem is that it is in the interests of the corporations for there to be such markets, places where they can find dirt cheap or free labour, to maximise their profits. That in itself is something that we should deal with in some way. Also, because the corporation will be making more money this way, the irresistible free market will push it in that direction. After all, the only responsibility of a corporation is to deliver a profit to its shareholders, using whatever means necessary.

Otherwise, would you care to explain how we prevent corporations from pulling such stunts while maintaining a free market?

Well, the question is whether this lib-soc society sorta is a "state" in an abstract sense. I've had many supporters of such a system tell me that because any economic activity requires the use of scarce resources, not consulting with those who might have had an alternative use for them is a bad thing. It imposes externalities and can lead to inequality, so they proposed that economic decisions be made or judged by society in the form of putting things to a vote.

So by that logic anything you do in life must really be judged by everyone else - or rather, by the whole. You're never alone, society is always around you. And that's the totalitarian part - all your actions, decisions and interests are observed, judged and directed by not the state, but society.

And there I disagree with these persons. Each person is their own person, able to take actions. What they require, they take. What they produce, they give back. All are therefore provided for. It seems deceptively simple, but I don't think you'll be able to find a hole in it, somewhere where it leads to absurdity. Basically, I totally reject the authority of any group of persons to say to any person "Thou shalt do this".

Realistically, there is no system that says "do what you damn well like". There can't be, there are always exceptions.

Why?

I didn't say that it was due to the systems that they failed, just that we can't judge their success because they did. But the Kibbutzim for example fell apart by themselves because they couldn't sustain the sort of living standards people expected (hence why they got money from the Israeli government) and because younger generations felt suffocated and left for regular society.

Yes, it's not perfect. And it's quite likely that such situations were somewhat authoritarian, although I haven't looked into them myself. Again, I in no way advocate anything that is compulsory. Anyone who is unhappy with their situation is entitled to leave. Of course, that's not the best option, but if you insist, you can.

Is a sado-masochistic relationship violence?

No, that's voluntary. It may involve violence, but it is entered into from all sides without coercion. Capitalism does not fit that. If we take our hypothetical poor worker in backwaterstania, what choice is "Work for us, or your family will starve to death"? Do you see what I'm getting at?

Sorry, this reply is a little rushed, but I don't have a decent permanent connection right now, so I write when I can.

Therefore whatever is done on this world is in some way our property, as the world belongs to all of us.
Why?

If a good is destroyed in the process of consumption, it's time for someone to make more of it. Food, for instance. You can't eat the same loaf of bread twice, but we can eat a loaf each when there's two.

There is no circumstance under which the majority get to decide something against the will of the minority. Let all discuss it, until a mutually agreeable conclusion is reached. Anything less is oppression, pure and simple.
Yeah, but "make more" really avoids the question, doesn't it? The loaf of bread has a unique value, namely that you can eat it without having to do any additional work. Having another loaf also involves expending the energy and time to make it. So if we were to have something like 200 year old wine and we're sitting there trying to figure out who gets it, your system doesn't work anymore. Especially since unanimous decisions are rare and rarer still when there's many people involved. The best you can hope for is some sort of social pressure to conform, which may well not end up what people actually wanted if they made the decision by themselves.

Ah, Homo Economicus. You see, most people recognise that there are two kinds of reward: tangible and intangible. If I know that my physical needs will be met regardless, I can concentrate on intangible rewards.
You're avoiding the question. Whether or not a reward is intangible or not doesn't make a difference to considerations of merit or incentives. The only difference is that intangible rewards don't take up any physical resources, so you could theoretically give everyone the same reward all the time.

Unfortunately, that also makes them sorta meaningless since the whole idea of a reward is that you get it if you do something good. So if neither brother gets paid, but both get praised, we still have the same situation of one doing work to deserve a reward and the other receiving it without having done that work.

It brings me no tangible rewards. I'm not getting paid for it, it takes up time, and cements my reputation as a nerd. However, I still do it, for other reasons. Namely, that I occasionally get people saying "You're good at that".
Which is still a reward. Homo economicus does things because he ranks them highly as giving him or her utility (=happiness). Money is a means to get utility, but it's hardly the only one.

What makes you think that this is not a powerful enough motivator of people?
Apart from what I already said, I'd also put forward that if someone is actually willing to give up some of his limited resources to reward me for something, I know it meant something to him, namely at least as much as he gave me. A pat on the back is cheap and might not necessarily mean anything, particularly if it comes from a stranger.

But for them to do so, you first demand they pay you. By doing so, many are often priced out of the market, or rendered unable to use their full potential.
"Priced out of the market" really just means that they don't have something I find sufficiently useful or beautiful. In your world, would I have to take stuff I don't want because someone else happened to make it and really liked it?

If the rules are that everyone makes something and everyone can take something, what if one person is a really horrible painter but doesn't seem to realise it? She might be painting all day and all night and be really proud of the results, but should she really be getting the, I dunno, air-conditioning units I make, leaving me with ugly paintings on my walls, or in the trash? That's neither particularly efficient, nor a very good deal for anyone but the painter. Why would we want to participate in this society - wouldn't it be nicer to have the same society but without her?

I'm not happy with the idea, but if one of us was clearly worth more to humanity as a whole, they should survive.
That's a bit subjective. If you're a great accountant and I'm a great football player, then who is better? And how many people would willingly commit suicide to allow some random to survive because he's "better"? Some might, but plenty of people would have an issue with it, so unanimous agreement is going to be relatively rare.

For that matter, if someone was "better" but there is no agreement, so the better person kills the useless one and takes the bar, would that be morally just?

Otherwise, whoever has it, so in this case myself. Again, I don't like it.
Why? What does your posession or the fact that you bought have to do with a right to exclusive ownership all of a sudden?

You don't have to like it, by the way. But the thing about moral systems is that you usually only see their value if you push them to extremes.

Just to follow up on the scarcity comment. It is precisely because items that are not scarce have value that capitalism cannot allow complete elimination of scarcity. We can see this in software---thousands and thousands of dollars are charged for some computer programs, even though the overhead cost of copies is nigh on zero. This is an artificial scarcity, designed to enhance the profits of the company. And therefore by disposing of capitalism, many of these issues can be eliminated.
It's not artificial*, otherwise someone else could just make a similar or same program. Fact is that the company brought together various skills and technologies to create the software, and you're paying for those, not the CD it happens to be stored on.

But even so, you'd have to agree that software is a special case. With more open source stuff, big software firms now moving to end up almost completely on the web, web 2.0 and so forth, we're seeing a move towards user-generated content replacing the centralised approach of the past. I find it unlikely that we will see the same thing happen to cars, haircuts or financial advice.

*Leaving aside considerations of intellectual property right protection, which is a contentious issue even among different schools of capitalism. But those would be imposed by a government anyways, not by a free market.

Interesting passage. Of course, I disagree entirely with its conclusions. The main issue, I feel, is that what this describes is not what I advocate. The passage considers a centralised system, where a single authority dishes out material.
The package in the actual book is a bit longer. It had actually started out as a collective discussion, but because those started to take too long, the system was streamlined and this Ivy Starnes character put forward a plan everyone voted for or against. 'For' always won, of course.

The other thing I noted was that this piece still has a fundamentally capitalist view.
There is no doubting the author's capitalist convictions, yes. ;)

Reason: all are still working to the goal of 'maximise what I personally get, at the expense of others'. For all involved, a more effective principle is 'recognising that each of our positions is improved if all of our positions are improved, let us maximise our collective benefit'.
They're real people as you will find them if you try and implement your system in the real world. I don't like moral, political or economic systems that presume things about people's characters and intentions without there being enough empirical support. Remember, in a prisoner's dilemma if just one actor moves away from the collective optimum, every other player must too or suffer enormously. In a community of perhaps 100 people, chances are you'll find at least one unapologetically selfish person there. Me, for example...

A parallel may be drawn with the classic "Prisoner's Dilemma", especially in its iterated form. When a large number of separate agents are all playing, the group attain their optimum result by all co-operating, even though any agent could end up slightly ahead by defecting instead.
The irony of that is of course that the optimum outcome of the dilemma is only achieved by some sort of intervention from outside the normal parameters of the game...which I see as a problem in a "do as you like" society where forcing anyone to do anything isn't allowed.

The problem is that it is in the interests of the corporations for there to be such markets, places where they can find dirt cheap or free labour, to maximise their profits.
But cheap labour isn't the problem we've described. The lack of alternatives due to the underdeveloped state of the economy is. Wages in Slovakia are lower than in the US, but that doesn't mean that Slovakian workers are being exploited or virtually enslaved - quite the opposite in fact.

Also, because the corporation will be making more money this way, the irresistible free market will push it in that direction. After all, the only responsibility of a corporation is to deliver a profit to its shareholders, using whatever means necessary.
The corporation has an incentive to do this in the same way anyone else has an incentive to kill their neighbour and take over their house. Fact is that the employment conditions you described would involve some level of force (likely administered by local police), fraud (since the workers clearly weren't informed about what was going on) and the compliance of courts in order to make the debt an issue. So what you have is the corporation working in tandem with the government, which is not a free market.

Otherwise, would you care to explain how we prevent corporations from pulling such stunts while maintaining a free market?
So just to make it very clear: when I talk about the free market, I am talking about the effort to get as close to the theoretical ideal of perfect competition as possible, within certain limits (namely a Schumpeterian view of entrepreneurial success and therefore the belief that the consolidation of market power is temporary in nature unless entrenched by government). In other words, in a poor country like this the government should make sure poor and uneducated people don't get involved in fraudulent deals like this by making sure everyone is informed. It should also put great effort into creating the education and infrastructure system these people will need to switch to other employers if that is a better deal for them.

It seems deceptively simple, but I don't think you'll be able to find a hole in it, somewhere where it leads to absurdity.
Actually, I find the idea of "What they require, they take. What they produce, they give back." absurd in itself, because that's not how people will respond to your way of organising society. Without someone to judge what is required, what is taken, what is produced (and how much could have been produced) and what is given back, only a select few, very naive people will do this in good faith. And they'll be the suckers, because everyone else is safe in the knowledge that there is no one to detect their fraud and no one to punish them for it.

Eventually standards of living will drop, but still every individual would be stupid to be the one person to join the naive ones while everyone else just consumes the extra produce.

Why?
Well, am I allowed to murder you?

No, that's voluntary. It may involve violence, but it is entered into from all sides without coercion. Capitalism does not fit that.
You do realise that a voluntary agreement that involves violence is basically what a contract is, right? Both sides agree because they'd be worse off if they didn't, and if a side breaks the contract there's the threat of violence from the administering entity. So yeah, capitalism fits this description perfectly.

If we take our hypothetical poor worker in backwaterstania, what choice is "Work for us, or your family will starve to death"? Do you see what I'm getting at?
Just because people are more likely to choose one option over another doesn't mean that there was no choice. If I'm a masochist but there's only one dominatrix in town and I choose to be with her, has our relationship become violence?

Why?

To quote Kropotkin: "Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth." That basically expresses what I feel on this.

Yeah, but "make more" really avoids the question, doesn't it? The loaf of bread has a unique value, namely that you can eat it without having to do any additional work. Having another loaf also involves expending the energy and time to make it. So if we were to have something like 200 year old wine and we're sitting there trying to figure out who gets it, your system doesn't work anymore. Especially since unanimous decisions are rare and rarer still when there's many people involved. The best you can hope for is some sort of social pressure to conform, which may well not end up what people actually wanted if they made the decision by themselves.

Well, xe who needs, takes. And xe who makes, gives back. So basically, if I need it, I take and eat. And then I give back to the group, by doing whatever it is I can and enjoy. If a roof needs raising, I pitch in and help. The same holds with the wine, although 'need' is a little strong here. Probably the best place for us to use it is in a party or celebration.

Anyway, you're still thinking, "there are items x, y, and z, so I get x, he gets y, and she gets z". That's still not what I'm actually advocating. See below for an explanation of the position I'm arguing.

You're avoiding the question. Whether or not a reward is intangible or not doesn't make a difference to considerations of merit or incentives. The only difference is that intangible rewards don't take up any physical resources, so you could theoretically give everyone the same reward all the time.

Unfortunately, that also makes them sorta meaningless since the whole idea of a reward is that you get it if you do something good. So if neither brother gets paid, but both get praised, we still have the same situation of one doing work to deserve a reward and the other receiving it without having done that work.

Where on earth did I say that both would be praised? I was simply arguing that there is no need to have inequality in possessions to reward people, which you seem to have accepted. There are many ways to reward someone for their actions without giving them stuff, I just listed a couple as a way of demonstrating that your example wasn't particularly useful.

Apart from what I already said, I'd also put forward that if someone is actually willing to give up some of his limited resources to reward me for something, I know it meant something to him, namely at least as much as he gave me. A pat on the back is cheap and might not necessarily mean anything, particularly if it comes from a stranger.

Which is why I listed a limited resource in my example --- time. Doing something for someone and taking the time to be with them are significantly more meaningful, in my eyes, than just giving them some stuff. If it wasn't meaningful, it's not a reward, is it?

"Priced out of the market" really just means that they don't have something I find sufficiently useful or beautiful. In your world, would I have to take stuff I don't want because someone else happened to make it and really liked it?

If the rules are that everyone makes something and everyone can take something, what if one person is a really horrible painter but doesn't seem to realise it? She might be painting all day and all night and be really proud of the results, but should she really be getting the, I dunno, air-conditioning units I make, leaving me with ugly paintings on my walls, or in the trash? That's neither particularly efficient, nor a very good deal for anyone but the painter. Why would we want to participate in this society - wouldn't it be nicer to have the same society but without her?

You're still thinking of trading. And the other misconception you appear to have is that I think anyone 'has' to do anything. See below.

That's a bit subjective. If you're a great accountant and I'm a great football player, then who is better? And how many people would willingly commit suicide to allow some random to survive because he's "better"? Some might, but plenty of people would have an issue with it, so unanimous agreement is going to be relatively rare.

For that matter, if someone was "better" but there is no agreement, so the better person kills the useless one and takes the bar, would that be morally just?

I don't know, and I'm unsure as to the answer I would give. Let me think on it some more.

Why? What does your posession or the fact that you bought have to do with a right to exclusive ownership all of a sudden?

You don't have to like it, by the way. But the thing about moral systems is that you usually only see their value if you push them to extremes.

Very true. Just out of interest, what does your brand of capitalism argue in this case?

It's not artificial*, otherwise someone else could just make a similar or same program. Fact is that the company brought together various skills and technologies to create the software, and you're paying for those, not the CD it happens to be stored on.

But even so, you'd have to agree that software is a special case. With more open source stuff, big software firms now moving to end up almost completely on the web, web 2.0 and so forth, we're seeing a move towards user-generated content replacing the centralised approach of the past. I find it unlikely that we will see the same thing happen to cars, haircuts or financial advice.

*Leaving aside considerations of intellectual property right protection, which is a contentious issue even among different schools of capitalism. But those would be imposed by a government anyways, not by a free market.

The biggest risk with software, I feel, is that a company such as Microsoft will get a serious trusted computing environment in, and seize control of things like that. Artificially locking down the hardware for the "protection of the users", and also securing their own monopoly until the end of time in the process. Interestingly, it wouldn't require a government to do that, only a well placed collaboration and a new protocol for the internet, really. Altogether too likely, unfortunately.

The package in the actual book is a bit longer. It had actually started out as a collective discussion, but because those started to take too long, the system was streamlined and this Ivy Starnes character put forward a plan everyone voted for or against. 'For' always won, of course.

I see. Again, this is why I do not agree with central distribution.

There is no doubting the author's capitalist convictions, yes. ;)

They're real people as you will find them if you try and implement your system in the real world. I don't like moral, political or economic systems that presume things about people's characters and intentions without there being enough empirical support. Remember, in a prisoner's dilemma if just one actor moves away from the collective optimum, every other player must too or suffer enormously. In a community of perhaps 100 people, chances are you'll find at least one unapologetically selfish person there. Me, for example...

I've given the prisoners dilemma some more attention just below. Unfortunately, your assertion here is not quite true. The optimum strategy is regardless of the strategy of all other players, presuming they aren't all murderous bastards. Which is, I think, just about a safe assumption under any view of humanity.

The irony of that is of course that the optimum outcome of the dilemma is only achieved by some sort of intervention from outside the normal parameters of the game...which I see as a problem in a "do as you like" society where forcing anyone to do anything isn't allowed.

Nonsense. The optimum method in the iterated prisoners dilemma is extremely simple. Shall I explain it? It's a strategy known as 'tit-for-tat', and works like this: First, co-operate. Then always do what your opponent did on the last round. In experiments, this has been confirmed as the very best way of playing, leading to the overall greatest gain. Of course, let's change the game a little, shall we? Presume a number of perfectly rational agents, all independently deciding whether or not to co-operate. Any agent can reason as follows "We are all perfectly rational, and therefore we will all adopt the same course of action. Now, if we all co-operate, we all gain more, so that is the course of action I shall adopt." Reasoning like this requires no communication with other agents, and is logically flawless.

Therefore, the mathematics at least suggest that co-operating tends to lead to higher gains, even under a zero sum system, and without communicating with other agents. Seems to be a reasonably strong case there.

But cheap labour isn't the problem we've described. The lack of alternatives due to the underdeveloped state of the economy is. Wages in Slovakia are lower than in the US, but that doesn't mean that Slovakian workers are being exploited or virtually enslaved - quite the opposite in fact.

Why the opposite?

The corporation has an incentive to do this in the same way anyone else has an incentive to kill their neighbour and take over their house. Fact is that the employment conditions you described would involve some level of force (likely administered by local police), fraud (since the workers clearly weren't informed about what was going on) and the compliance of courts in order to make the debt an issue. So what you have is the corporation working in tandem with the government, which is not a free market.

Or in other words, you expect me to be able to believe that if given one goal --- "Grab all you can" --- a corporation will not use these methods to its advantage? If your only and overriding concern is the acquisition of wealth, and it is obvious that such abusive methods lead to higher profits, one would be stupid not to. It may not be a free market, but it's the end result of an unregulated one.

So just to make it very clear: when I talk about the free market, I am talking about the effort to get as close to the theoretical ideal of perfect competition as possible, within certain limits (namely a Schumpeterian view of entrepreneurial success and therefore the belief that the consolidation of market power is temporary in nature unless entrenched by government). In other words, in a poor country like this the government should make sure poor and uneducated people don't get involved in fraudulent deals like this by making sure everyone is informed. It should also put great effort into creating the education and infrastructure system these people will need to switch to other employers if that is a better deal for them.

And the fact that such a market does not exist in reality is not a point against capitalism? The government in a poor country like this will likely not have the resources to educate the citizens, mostly because there aren't enough resources arriving, because large corporations find it cheaper to pay less of a wage. It's a vicious circle that I don't think you've managed to avoid.

Actually, I find the idea of "What they require, they take. What they produce, they give back." absurd in itself, because that's not how people will respond to your way of organising society. Without someone to judge what is required, what is taken, what is produced (and how much could have been produced) and what is given back, only a select few, very naive people will do this in good faith. And they'll be the suckers, because everyone else is safe in the knowledge that there is no one to detect their fraud and no one to punish them for it.

Eventually standards of living will drop, but still every individual would be stupid to be the one person to join the naive ones while everyone else just consumes the extra produce.

No, those who follow such a course of action will simply find themselves shut out from the community. Grassroots enforcement of this sort is perfectly possible without a central authority.

Well, am I allowed to murder you?

Theoretically. I also realise that the law won't actually stop one who wants to kill, as is evidenced by the fact that we still have murders. Therefore I feel that the law is superfluous in this case, and that we can instead reach an amicable agreement by trusting each other.

You do realise that a voluntary agreement that involves violence is basically what a contract is, right? Both sides agree because they'd be worse off if they didn't, and if a side breaks the contract there's the threat of violence from the administering entity. So yeah, capitalism fits this description perfectly.

I'm sorry, I forgot that there was a difference between picking a partner and deciding whether to starve to death. In future, I will try to remember that the two are obviously synonymous.

Just because people are more likely to choose one option over another doesn't mean that there was no choice. If I'm a masochist but there's only one dominatrix in town and I choose to be with her, has our relationship become violence?

Interesting question. Again, not quite a straight comparison (and what's with all the masochism, anyway?), but a good one nonetheless. I would argue that it becomes violence when you must. A masochist can still find other ways of satisfying themselves, even if they aren't quite ideal.

-----

I'm addressing this here because you've brought up various parts of it in several places, and I don't want to have to repeat it too much. Consider it to be addressing any points argued against a voluntary communist society that it seems relevant to.

Now, let me make my position clear. I contend that a voluntary free society, organised along communist lines, can be successful, and I further argue that this is the system which has the most benefits for humanity. I feel that far from rapidly collapsing in an orgy of greed and selfishness, such a system would be stable and effective, leading in the long run to improved conditions for all.

The key to understanding what I advocate might be found by looking at autarchy, which holds that each is xir own ruler, beholden to no-one. This strikes at the heart of what I feel. Each member of this society has no external limits forced upon their behaviour, no code of laws. If they choose, they may leave, and go it alone. If trust instead in rational self interest and community bonds to keep society stable and successful. No court or congress to decide what one does, rather spontaneous giving, motivated by a desire to repay past actions.

I would also like to make clear that I am advocating a small-scale system. By that I do not mean a system that will only work with small numbers, but a system that is based on small groups of people, or 'collectives' if you will. Each of these is small enough for each person to know every other, for there to be a real sense of community. This is, in my opinion, the best foundation for a society, truly built on "liberty, equality, fraternity".

One of the key principles of this society is giving back to the group, of recognising what they have done for you and contributing back to help enable the development of others. No human can go it alone as successfully as those working together, and the most successful method of working together is that based on free co-operation. Therefore this system functions by each giving back their creations to the rest, passing them on to those without and with less, pitching in and helping any way they can.

Now, you may well ask how I intend to arrange a larger society along these lines. After all, what I have laid out so far is not exactly a system that would scale well---trying to distribute resources held in common across millions of people would be tricky, to say the least. Therefore, to consider a larger scale enterprise. The best way, I feel, is by free transfer of surplus resources. This is effectively a gift economy; we have, you don't, so here you are. Of course, one must consider how to deal with groups that refuse to pass material on. The best method is probably simply ostracism---refuse to give them stuff, and avoid them where possible. This is also the best way of dealing with similar persons inside a group.

Does this make sense?

Oh Crap, were not gonna have a repeat of those "Memorial Thread for the Victims of [X] Ideology" threads now, are we?

I didn't know that there were so many commies on NS. Damnit, why did I have to discover this site after my teenage commie years?! I'm kinda glad that this thread was created because I think New Grenada's initial comment needed to be defended. Communism isn't evil, actually it has some good points ideologically, however one can't deny the atrocities done in the name of Communism. Were there "evil" Communists? Of course. But there are/were "evil" capitalists, kings, queens, tsars, emperors, etc.



and Jesus you NS commies, why do you make your posts so long?

I'd like to read them, but I'm too lazy. And no, the problem is not laziness it's that your posts are too long:p

-snip-

very good, well put, concise post. couldn't have said it better myself (though some was tl;dr cos i'm tired)


just thought i'd throw in this quote from Rousseau regarding your first point

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying this is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To quote Kropotkin: "Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth." That basically expresses what I feel on this.
And to answer him: why?

Need doesn't translate into a right, I've never seen a good argument that it does. The vast majority of people on this planet haven't moved one finger to help me deliver the pizzas that allowed me to pay for this uni semester - why shouldn't I be able to use it for just that purpose? Why should they claim it to buy themselves something different?

I find it interesting that Kropotkin would be talking about the calculation problem, which is of course capitalism's trump card. Yes, it's not possible to calculate - but it's not necessary either. Capitalism is a decentralised system in which you concern yourself with the people you trade with, and no one else. You're only their judge, and since you're in their environment, you're well-positioned to be.

Well, xe who needs, takes. And xe who makes, gives back. So basically, if I need it, I take and eat. And then I give back to the group, by doing whatever it is I can and enjoy. If a roof needs raising, I pitch in and help.
So say you make a bread, but we both need it. You already made the bread, while I offer to do something I enjoy (a ridiculous notion - who enjoys carrying trash?) in the future. Do I get the bread and you have to make yourself another one, or do you have first dibs? And if so, why?

Anyway, you're still thinking, "there are items x, y, and z, so I get x, he gets y, and she gets z". That's still not what I'm actually advocating. See below for an explanation of the position I'm arguing.
Noted, but I don't consider it valid. We're talking about systems of allocating resources, which is precisely about who gets x, y and z. You can talk about community and the group as much as you want, but I don't get fed by your eating a bread. The denial of our individuality in mind, body and spirit serves no purpose.

Where on earth did I say that both would be praised? I was simply arguing that there is no need to have inequality in possessions to reward people, which you seem to have accepted. There are many ways to reward someone for their actions without giving them stuff, I just listed a couple as a way of demonstrating that your example wasn't particularly useful.
So only one gets praised, which means that by mowing the lawn he has earned the praise, which means that he "exclusively owns" the praise, which means that his action has in fact created an ownership relation. How did that happen?

Which is why I listed a limited resource in my example --- time. Doing something for someone and taking the time to be with them are significantly more meaningful, in my eyes, than just giving them some stuff. If it wasn't meaningful, it's not a reward, is it?
It's neither feasible for someone to spend time with anyone who makes anything I might use, nor necessarily a reward. There are plenty of people I'd rather not spend time with, even if they do have skills that have come in handy at some point in my lifetime.

You're still thinking of trading. And the other misconception you appear to have is that I think anyone 'has' to do anything. See below.
Your society is based on trading. Everyone is trading their time and effort with everyone else's, except that now we're no longer individuals but we interact with some sort of aggregate thing, namely "the group". You say that I could be kicked out - what else is that but refusing to trade with me? Refusing to take what I offer and give access to what everyone else offers in return?

I know getting kicked out of the group certainly doesn't take account of my needs, and since I would now presumably be wrong to just walk into the village and take what I need, you're still going with property rights. Really, anything you say against the notion of property rights is shooting yourself in the foot because your society necessarily needs a mechanism to exclude freeriders.

Very true. Just out of interest, what does your brand of capitalism argue in this case?
I'd say that since you bought the muesli bar, it's yours and you decide. If you want you can give it to me, which presumably means that I provide you with some sort of value which is greater than your own life. But if you decide to let me die (or rather, choose to live yourself), that's your right and no one in the world should have the authority to stop you.

It's very simple, but it's consistent.

Interestingly, it wouldn't require a government to do that, only a well placed collaboration and a new protocol for the internet, really. Altogether too likely, unfortunately.
So then you'd get rival protocols competing with one another, like BluRay and
HD-DVD. Unlike natural monopolies for things like water pipes, different protocols can exist side by side and even use the same cables (connect me if I'm wrong here...). And do you really think the internet world (both us and the commercials) would be happy to accept Microsoft's grab for power?

Nonsense. The optimum method in the iterated prisoners dilemma is extremely simple. Shall I explain it? It's a strategy known as 'tit-for-tat', and works like this: First, co-operate. Then always do what your opponent did on the last round. In experiments, this has been confirmed as the very best way of playing, leading to the overall greatest gain.
That's if we repeat the game, which we're not. Every game is a new one, with different actors having different interests and different strategies, and indeed, different coalitions as a result. Then there's the time factor - future pay-offs have a lower present value than present ones.

Plus, getting back to the example, if need is what gives me a claim to resources, then it doesn't really matter what we all have in the future, because my need still reigns supreme and it is everyone else's duty to figure out weighs of satisfying it.

Why the opposite?
Because wages in Slovakia have been exploding, in part due to shortages in labour (allowing them to switch companies and forcing them to bid up wages) and in part due to people improving their skills and education (again giving them a credible threat of being able to leave the job).

Or in other words, you expect me to be able to believe that if given one goal --- "Grab all you can" --- a corporation will not use these methods to its advantage? If your only and overriding concern is the acquisition of wealth, and it is obvious that such abusive methods lead to higher profits, one would be stupid not to. It may not be a free market, but it's the end result of an unregulated one.
Of course it will use them. The trick is not to have these methods as part of society. Corporations can do bad things because they can take control of government regulations that affect the economy. Cut the regulations and corporations can't hijack them.

And the fact that such a market does not exist in reality is not a point against capitalism?
No more than the fact that your socialism doesn't exist is a point against it. But unlike you, I know precisely why such a market doesn't exist and I know precisely what would be needed to fix it.

The government in a poor country like this will likely not have the resources to educate the citizens, mostly because there aren't enough resources arriving, because large corporations find it cheaper to pay less of a wage. It's a vicious circle that I don't think you've managed to avoid.
South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore...have a look at any of the Asian Tigers from 1950 to today. They managed, and they were just about as poor as you could get.

No, those who follow such a course of action will simply find themselves shut out from the community. Grassroots enforcement of this sort is perfectly possible without a central authority.
Grassroots enforcement means "might is right", yes?

Theoretically. I also realise that the law won't actually stop one who wants to kill, as is evidenced by the fact that we still have murders. Therefore I feel that the law is superfluous in this case, and that we can instead reach an amicable agreement by trusting each other.
I'm a murderer, I'm not after an amicable agreement right now. I'm after shooting you, just because I want to. Would there be anything, on any level, wrong with this?

I'm sorry, I forgot that there was a difference between picking a partner and deciding whether to starve to death. In future, I will try to remember that the two are obviously synonymous.
They most certainly are. Or rather, choosing whether to go without whipping or without food are.

A masochist can still find other ways of satisfying themselves, even if they aren't quite ideal.
That's like saying you might as well kill rats from the local sewage and eat them.

No court or congress to decide what one does, rather spontaneous giving, motivated by a desire to repay past actions.
Sounds great. But you haven't shown that this motivation necessarily exists, and in response to the possibility that it doesn't you have given me "grassroots enforcement" as a stand-in for court or congress.

I would also like to make clear that I am advocating a small-scale system. By that I do not mean a system that will only work with small numbers, but a system that is based on small groups of people, or 'collectives' if you will.
That's a given.

One of the key principles of this society is giving back to the group, of recognising what they have done for you and contributing back to help enable the development of others. No human can go it alone as successfully as those working together, and the most successful method of working together is that based on free co-operation. Therefore this system functions by each giving back their creations to the rest, passing them on to those without and with less, pitching in and helping any way they can.
Do you see what I meant by anti-authoritarian totalitarianism? The notion that there is no one to force you to submit to the group (which tends to fall flat on its face), but the belief that you should anyways?

The best way, I feel, is by free transfer of surplus resources.
And my response would be to make sure we only make exactly as much as we need, and not a thing more. No one has the authority to come in from another village to judge what we did, and others should give us their surplus resources as we happen to require them.

Maybe I should support you, I think I'd do well in your world.

The best method is probably simply ostracism---refuse to give them stuff, and avoid them where possible. This is also the best way of dealing with similar persons inside a group.
Easy when there's a big bunch of crates and you don't hand them over. Hard if you didn't make the crates in the first place and I have no means of figuring out why you didn't (nor the authority to make you make them next time around).

Does this make sense?
I just want to make clear that I am actually sympathising with your world. I have no real problem with libertarian socialists or communists because their world is based on voluntary cooperation and would allow capitalists to have our own little towns (which would of course be vastly more advanced and richer).

There are just two points of contention which I don't feel can be resolved easily: firstly the question of what to do with the property that currently exists - clearly I can't be libertarian about people coming into my house and stealing mah bucket. Secondly the refusal by pretty much all left-libertarians to consider a world that would be capitalist but within which they would be able to build their own utopia on a piece of land they'd have the exclusive property right to as guaranteed by the capitalist world outside.