Quote of the Day
Joe Huffman: How is it people can think communism is viable when even very small children and animals defend their property and territory?
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
 |
|
Find Local
|
Categories
- ATF (769)
- Death Match (10)
- Eminent Domain (225)
- In the bag (9)
- Notes to Junior (546)
- Poker (74)
- Recipes (142)
- Shotgun Noob (11)
- The Airing of Grievances (19)
- uncategorized (47,725)
August 23rd, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Silly, Joe!
That just means capitalism and the principle of private property are manifestations of a childish, savage un-evolved stage.
The truly civilized and sophisticated — the “adults” among us, if you will — understand that Communism is the epitome of all things human.
August 23rd, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Oh! Of course. It makes perfect sense now. That is more than adequate justification to rid the world of those less evolved. It’s for the good of all those who are really human.
August 23rd, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Communism is for internal use only, such as a family. From those with abilities to those with needs. I do not charge my children.)
Do not apply externally.
August 23rd, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Communism is, in fact, viable. But only if all parties involved – including and especially the producers – are willing participants, and are willing to give up the fruits of their labours.
Small, voluntary communes manage to survive, as long as there are members willing to contribute. Most monasteries, to my understanding, are internally communes, and many have survived for several hundreds of years – because everyone involved is a willing participant.
Forced communism, which is necessary for it to exist as a national system, will always collapse under the weight of the ones who are not willing participants.
August 23rd, 2012 at 5:24 pm
In a perfect world, communism would function flawlessly. But in a perfect world, there would be no justification for it to exist.
August 23rd, 2012 at 5:49 pm
I think it is a viable hypothesis communism is viable as long as there are strong bonds between all members of the group. Such bonds lose strength as the number of people in the group grows. My guess is that above about 200 people peer pressure and shame fail to provide sufficient force to maintain compliance with the ideals. At at about that same point increased anonymity enables slackers to avoid producing “their fair share”.
The “cure” for this is other means of enforcing compliance and decreasing the ability to be anonymous. This results in a police state, a large waste of resources in supporting the police state, and corruption of those in power. See East Germany (1949->1989), North Korea, and USSR for examples.
Hence, in computer science terms, we can say communism doesn’t scale to large data sets. Which was the intent of my claim rather than it wasn’t viable on any scale.
August 23rd, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Jake, we had hundreds of commune experiments in the US in the 19th cent. They’re all gone. Sometimes people just walked away; with others, the transition to a next generation got sticky. Nobody likes being born into a social contract. Easy for the Shakers.
Monasteries, as it turns out, are a terrible example: there was a civil war in the Church when they first showed up, and it took several generations of rule-making and establishment of hierarchies to even get them tolerated. And then, they were always vying for influence. Communal at the bottom, maybe, but by no means egalitarian. There’s a reason they call them “Orders.”
August 24th, 2012 at 6:43 am
Families are not such a great example, either. In fact, it’s about the worst example one could use for government.
We can force our children to comply: go to bed without supper, not getting that toy they wanted, silent treatment, go to school “or else”, being dragged off to a church that they have no choice but to belong to, you can’t have a gun because “you’ll put your eye out”…the comparisons are endless and at cross-purposes to governing anything an intelligent being would consider “freedom”.
The last thing I want in my government is some lackey picking out my clothes for me before I go to work, and those being hand-me-down clothes from a more privileged class instead of something new. I don’t need a stooge from D.C. to tell me I have to be home before dark, that I cannot date that “unsavory character”, how and when to brush my teeth, or even to finish all my vegetables before I can have cookies.
It’s too close to that already. We’re already on the cusp for the official campaign: “Government: It’s like Family!”
NO! If I want to take a 20-minute shower without actually using soap because I was playing Nerf basketball instead, wear my pants backwards, make a volcano out of mashed potatoes, invent new words that don’t actually mean anything, play baseball with the rules of soccer and golf mixed in…as long as I’m not actually interfering with the freedom of another I certainly don’t need some government to force me otherwise.
August 24th, 2012 at 10:38 am
comatus Says:
August 23rd, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Jake, we had hundreds of commune experiments in the US in the 19th cent. They’re all gone.
Actually, a few are still going — although the ones that are allow personal possessions — your shoes are YOUR shoes, although they’re paid for out of community funds, for instance. members get minor cash allowances for what you would call “meals and incidentals” on your taxes. But the income from all members all goes into a big pot, major purchases are communally owned, etc.
Heck, there’s a show on National Geographic right now about one such community — a Hutterite colony in Montana.
Of course, it only works because of the top-down utter authoritarianism (they shunned two women because they had the temerity to let their kids go to high school, rather than drop out after the 8th grade.)