Remember communists, would they have started a commune?

[Joejojoba111]

I'm just remembering stuff we were taught about communists. Obviously we are all in agreement here about the merits of their ideology - not good - but it seems that they had a bit more internal motivation.

For instance, if there was a communist party with lots of members in NO, wouldn't they have gotten right to work organizing a commune with food and water and security? They always did things like that in other countries, to try and show how their ideology was superior. They even had their own anti-Nazi resistance movement in WW2, in fact they were the first French resistance movement.

What I'm trying to say is, they seemed like hard-working people who co-operated well. If they gained contol of society it became hell on earth, to be true, but they sure worked well in small groups.

Right now we're seeing all the pitfalls of the police state, with none of the merits of co-operation. When they hassle a kid for stealing a bus and evacuating people, well initiative and motivation are not just lacking, they are being suppressed from above.

 

[Justin]

The days of things like the Paris Commune and the quasi-agrarian conclaves of hippies in the 1960's are long since over.

 

[Standing Wolf]

If they gained contol of society it became hell on earth, to be true, but they sure worked well in small groups.

[WINK] Much the same could be said of government in general. [/WINK]

 

[JohnBT]

They aren't all gone. www.twinoaks.org Since 1967. JT

 

[GT]

Europeans love getting together in little groups and parties that espouse their pet cause - "To the barricades!"

That doesn't go down so well in the US because individuality and emancipation have been core values of the New World since before the Constitution (slavery notwithstanding).

G

 

[Joejojoba111]

Might I point out that very few families single-handedly raised their barns. It is possible to combine capitalism with co-operation, imo. Sort of short-term communism, for specific agendas. Like raising a barn. Or surviving a hellish flood of biblical proportions.

 

[JohnBT]

Yes, but what does cooperation have to do with communism? One is neighborly, the other tyrannical.

JT

 

[EVIL5LITER]

Communism works great in theory, but when applied, it usually comes out all ????ed up.

 

[Buck Snort]

Most of the "rugged individualism" we've heard so much about in this country was a product of Hollywood. The pioneers survived by sticking together and helping each other. Johnny Yuma may have been one macho sunnuvagun but he was a rare commodity in the old west.

 

[Lucky]

John Wayne's real name war Mirriam, and he liked to lounge around in a house coat and got manicures, instead of fighting bobcats with a hatchet, to complement Buck's 'Hollywood unrealism' post.

"Yes, but what does cooperation have to do with communism? One is neighborly, the other tyrannical.

JT"

Communism is a synonym for cooperation, afaik, and it's just a means for distributing economic resources. Tyranny is opression, neighbourly is friendly. Tyranny is about rule and power, not economics. And neighborly/friendly is about morals and interpersonal relations.

And in a crisis situation I see nothing wrong with short-term small-scale communism. Even in family life I see no problem with that means of economic distribution. Much more likely, however is a group functioning in a tribal or feudal manner, in a crisis situation.

edit:I oughtta mention that IMO a free society lets people do what they want, and that's the #1 priority, so if people wanna commune let them, and if they don't then let them do other things. A lot of religions would be oppressed if communism was outlawed. At least 4, I think. But if you have forced communism then you don't have #1 priority, freedom.

 

[thorn726]

should we use this as a set-up for why NorCal folks take such good care of each other?

 

[Sam]

Communism is a peculiarly European disease. It works well for insect but not people. This leads me to wonder if some Europeans are in fact insects.
Nothing personal folks but to my reckoning, everyone over there with a lick of brains left a long time ago.
Sam

 

[CAnnoneer]

Communism is a peculiarly European disease.

What about Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam?

There also are a bunch of others on the same road, mainly in Latin America and Africa.

 

[Sam]

Asia is too thoroughly interested in personal sucess to ever be communist.
Call them anything you want they are not communists. All same same with Africa.

Latin America, yep thats part of YURRUP.

Sam

 

[MechAg94]

Most of those Western pioneers stuck together, but they didn't have a problem killing anyone who tried to take their property or possessions. They beleived in helping each other, but not in communal property or philisophical communism. If they helped a neighbor build a barn, they all understood it was HIS barn, not the groups. They might work out a deal to help build each other's barns, but that is only a form of trade and capitalism.

Firearms in general and Repeating firearms specifically are one of the things that really allowed people to be more independent as well.

 

[Art Eatman]

There is a lot of rather sloppy understanding of "Communism" in some of the posts above.

Remember, there is no ownership of business or property in a Communistic system. For a country, the State--the central government--owns everything. Land, houses, businesses. All minerals, all water.

A person who works hard and smart has no advantage over one who goofs off and does little. Same housing, same salary...

And the State can and will tell you what education you will get, what job you will take--for the needs of the State, not your own desires.

Since all this flies in the face of instinctive human behavior, the smarter ones use the State to become nomenklatura, with privilege and--of course--cynicism. This leads to a nepotistic ruling class.

Art

 

[Kaylee]

For Communism in any form to work, it requires each member to care about the good of the whole more than themselves as individuals. Given some of the footage from NO, it looks to me like among many of those left behind, such an attitude is in short supply.

 

[fistful]

From link above: Twin Oaks Women's Gathering

A weekend of women celebrating ourselves with creativity in song, dance, ritual and more!

Baby-boomer narcissism?

 

[longeyes]

What about Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam?

Usually there's one seminal genius who spent too many dissolute years studying in Paris behind all of these metastases.

 

[longeyes]

Twin Oaks

Somehow it seems fitting that their primary product is...hammocks.

So one day one of the male members of this utopia wakes up and has a jones for a Harley... Uh-oh. Lucifer, some wags say, took a fall because he got tired of the hymnals.

 

[JohnBT]

Hey, Twin Oaks has outlasted a lot of local corporations. And they make superb hammocks.


"Communism is a synonym for cooperation, afaik"

Read some history and put the dictionary away. Please. Mao. Stalin. Lenin. Castro. No cooperation here, just repression.

John

 

[Joejojoba111]

People quickly define communism, but can't define democracy. I kind of think that's telling. You can break democracy down to it's root words, and still not know what it means, but they figure all communism must be identical. And when they deliberately confuse politics and economics, then you know they're not slow, they're being obfuscatious.

"Remember, there is no ownership of business or property in a Communistic system. For a country, the State--the central government--owns everything. Land, houses, businesses. All minerals, all water."

Says you. Quoting yourself.

In America, can you go to the mountains and build a house? Or do you have to pay someone. Like the eeevilll gov't? And if you want to drill for oil under your house, do you suppose you might have to pay someone, yet again?

"Most of those Western pioneers stuck together, but they didn't have a problem killing anyone who tried to take their property or possessions. They beleived in helping each other, but not in communal property or philisophical communism. If they helped a neighbor build a barn, they all understood it was HIS barn, not the groups. They might work out a deal to help build each other's barns, but that is only a form of trade and capitalism."

I see where you're coming from, but it sort of says 'this is blue, but it's red'. Let's just say they shared a strong sense of community.

Might I point out that, contrary to many beliefs, there are no absolutes in this situation? We do not have absolute capitalism, even the most liberal definition of capitalism is not absolute capitalism.



So in answer to the question, 'Will people co-operate in a crisis, to save their collective lives?'

I must assume the answer is a resounding no.

 

[fistful]

In America, can you go to the mountains and build a house? Or do you have to pay someone. Like the eeevilll gov't?

In a country where at least some personal property rights are enjoyed, you would buy the land from the private or public entity that owns it; unless you happen to own it yourself. Under a communist system (if communism bears any relation to the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin et al) the mountain would already belong to the people. The Party would let you know where and what you may build.

Of course there are zoning ordinances and inspection permits to be considered.

Am I on the right track, Joball?

 

[beerslurpy]

Communism works great up to 150 people and then it gets progressively more and more like hell on earth. Basically you need close ties between everyone in the community to prevent free riding. Once you get above 150 people, you lose those ties and social parasitism begins to drag down the overall productivity of the group. This has been studied extensively.

On a large enough scale, you eventually get situations like gnutella (an early 2000 p2p network) where 99 percent of the people are freeloading and 1 percent are doing all the work. Even if a small percentage of the population could produce all society needs, such a society would still be very vulnerable to outside attack.

The end result is that you need to give people an incentive to work, usually by allowing them to own the fruits of their labor and to freely trade with others for theirs. That is really the only productive means compatible with free will.

An alternative would be to condition people so that they value hard work for its own sake and do not desire material comforts. Sort of a warrior monk mentality. But such a disciplined people would be very dangerous if they decided to reject part of their conditioning. The expense of maintaining the loyalty of such a corps of men would be great. And we get back to the free will problem.

 

[Joejojoba111]

"Am I on the right track, Joball?"

Pretty much! And don't forget that not only are you limited in what you can build, where, when, and how, but you do not actually own what you build - you merely rent it from the gov't. You can tell yourself you own it, but if you miss a payment...

People who don't think we live in a centrally-controlled economy have their heads in the sand. We're as far from laissez-faire as anyone can imagine, Bus Gov't Lab, no-one want's to 'let it be'. If it was just Business and Labor pushing back and forth you'd still have a fair system, but... The gov't controls such minutia of day-to-day economics that it's overwhelming. They've publicly instructed aircraft manufacturers to consolidate, for example of them using their SOFT POWER.

The current system of economics we have is in essence a form of internal mercantilism. We're not laissez-faire, and we're not communist, yet we have extensive central control and direction of every aspect of the economy, and we have taxation. Sounds pretty much like the economic workings of Feudal Europe to me. And it's not hard to find correllations in the political sphere to match.

I guess that's why people didn't string together, coalesce and work together, they weren't able to. In Laissez-Faire they'd work together because it makes good short-term business sense. In Communism they'd form a collective and work together because it's common sense. But in a Feudal centrally-controlled society people wait for orders, and without orders they revert to their Paegan scurrying foraging ways.