Society without property?

Does anything in your post have anything to do with me? Is there something in there I should address?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Nah. What I should have said is that you were correct in assuming it was a theological queston, and I don't know how to start answering those. I actually meant for that to be a general reply. Sorry jar.This message has been edited by Alexander, 04-12-2005 02:39 PM

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'Most temperate in the pleasures of the body, his passion was for glory only, and in that he was insatiable.'

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There are only two systems of organization: free market enterprise, and feudalism.

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This is false. Most of the indigenous cultures encountered by the European explorers were organized along communist principles. It is believed that our pre-agricultural ancestors organized their societies under communist principles. So the majority of human beings that have ever lived, and the majority of cultures that have existed were neither capitalist nor feudal.

To be fair, i said in an earlier post that capitalism had never been tried either, and I am open-minded on whether hardline capitalism combined with institutionalised charity might be a good economic system. It might work. It's never been tried.when I look at capitalism as it exists today, I don't see much enterprise. I see price fixing quite a lot, and I see deception regarding a product's characteristics through advertising. These are both thoroughly anti-capitalistic. Adam Smith is slowly rotating in his grave.In fact what we have now is more akin to feudalism than pure capitalism, in that consumers, regions and nation states are just "markets" that have to be "dominated" by powerful companies. Capitalism is based in the idea of rational individuals making their own decisions in their own self interest. The current economic system hates individuals and wants to homogenize them. It wants to hoodwink them so that they can not make rational decisions about their economic life, and it wants to lie to them and build a culture based on corporate propoganda. Like communism, capitalism doesn't exist on our planet, it never has, and it never will.

I'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense. There were more societies under true communism (with overwhelming success) than there were societies in other forms. The thing is when communism were experimented in large scale, say a whole country rather than a tribe, it was met with failure. This is because these societies, notably China and Russia, tried to leap frog from feudalistic-like straight to communism. It doesn't work that way, at least not according to Marx. If a society that large want to turn communism, it has to go through industrialization first. Neither China nor Russia took that necessary step.

This is simply not true. The majority of civilizations that ever existed were communistic. 19th century England got pretty close to true Capitalism, and it failed miserably. It almost reverted back to the times where there were the haves and the havenots.

I agree that some capitalistic nations (including the US) have few safety nets for those who find themselves on the lower rungs. I feel that the US should have better social programs so that everyone would be guarantied the necessities. I too was unemployed for almost two years when the job market tanked and the place I was working outsourced the job I was doing to India. Fortunately I had enough savings to not lose my house, but it was a very trying time. I'm not convinced communism or some other ism out there would be any better though. I'm open to serious suggestions on what systems would be better, why they would be better, and how they could be implemented.

A sign of CapitalismWe don't need that again.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Sorry, Jar, but I'm terrible at reading your mind. What's going on?

That's strange-these perfectly communist societies, where are they today? The problem isn't that societies needed to industrialize, it's that communism doesn't work. It seems to be possible for communes to provide the most basic services to their members if the number of people is small; on a larger scale it is simply impossible. Technology and progress requires specialization, which seems to be difficult to achieve to any degree under communism. So, unless living like Indians is especially appealing, capitalism is eventually required.Jar, I'm with Troy on this one. What is that a picture of?This message has been edited by Alexander, 04-12-2005 03:07 PM

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'Most temperate in the pleasures of the body, his passion was for glory only, and in that he was insatiable.'

Let me guess, this is a company town's money that can only be spent in the company store! Those were definitely bad times for workers when this sort of stuff was going on. Unbridled capitalism can get very ugly.

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That's strange-these perfectly communist societies, where are they today?

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Destroyed by rapacious non-communist societies. If your idea of a superior society is one that conquors and destroys the ones around it, then I guess you have a point.--

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So, unless living like Indians is especially appealing, capitalism is eventually required.

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Considering that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle practice by many of the Native American groups actually produced a pretty healthy diet for about 3 hours of work each day, I am sure it would appeal to the majority of the world's population that live in poverty under global capitalism.Or is the point that you, an American who is fabulously wealthy in comparison to the majority of humans that ever existed, don't find living like Indians appealing?

You might not know what that is, I forget at times. That's a mill coin, company money (Sixteen Tons and all that).Not too long ago when you were paid, you were paid in Company Script. The script could only be spent in the company store. The coin shown was a $1.00 coin issued by AC&M, a textile company in Anderson, South Carolina. Here are a few more such coins..Just in case anyone thinks these are from long ago and far away, they all date to WWII or later. The practice of company towns where the COMPANY owned everything, store, homes, schools, fire department, church, even the graveyard continued into the mid sixties.The problem was that within such a system, there was no way out. Since you never recieved anything that was generally negotiable, you could not accumulate enough wealth to break free. Even if you saved all your comapny money, it was not something you could spend anywhere else. If you wanted to leave the company, you did it as the day you were born, with only what you brought into this world.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This is like saying there aren't any Romans around anymore therefore the Roman Empire never existed. Yes, the problem is industrialization, or the lack thereof. Read Marx again. According to his theory, a society must go through all the phases in order to achieve true communism in a modern form. So far, none of the major experiments actually followed this outline. Instead, they jumped from feudalism to communism. And this is exactly what I was saying. These societies were small but efficient. You seem to deny the fact that they existed at all. Ok, how many times do I have to repeat myself? Let me repeat one more time. Industrialization, according to the theory, does not occur under communism. Communism come after industrialization. No, it is not. True capitalism will result in disaster. The guilden age was an example. 19th century England was another example. You just end up with a hand full of people monopolizing everything.As much as people deny this, the fact of the matter is modern western societies have many communistic traits. Social security, unions, welfare, insurance, etc. are all communist ideas.

I was wondering how long it would take you to poison the well.May I point out that on average, a single member of a hunter-gatherer society needs something like ten or twenty times as large an area of land to support their livelihood than does a member of an agriculturally advanced, capitalistic society. How do you propose to extend this lifestyle to the 6.2 billion or so people currently residing on earth?I would also be interested to know: what exactly is keeping the "majority of the world's population that live in povert under global capitalism" from assuming a hunter-gatherer type existence? Evil capitalists, whomever or wherever they may be?Your post is a good example of the well-intentioned nonsense that characterizes modern socialism. Everyone deserves a decent living, but I don't see how communism is going to help.

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'Most temperate in the pleasures of the body, his passion was for glory only, and in that he was insatiable.'