I should have added:
…assuming we last that long.
Just a quick question to all the “humans are intrinsically lazy” people.
If humans are intrisically lazy, why have we developed a society in which everyone has to work all of the time (and seems to like it that way)?
Does it not seem more likely that humans are instinctively workaholics (like ants) since we seem to have developed a society that is work-oriented?
If we look at other mammals related to humans we can see clues that may point to this conclusion. Mountain Gorillas, after all, just laze around picking leaves off the trees but chimps (the closest animal relative to humans) are constantly inquisitive and active.
The obvious conclusion to draw is that we are an advanced version of chimp, so humans will always keep themselves busy whatever else is going on.
50+ million dead in the 20th century. I’m sure we all wait eagerly to see what communism (or should I say, “the thing known by the name communism”) can produce once it’s warmed up.
Jojo: That’s scarcity economics. You work because food is scarce, and you must produce it directly or produce something else to trade with those who produce food directly. That’s how economics has worked ever since the first caveman decided he had enough berries and that he could probably convince Og to trade his piece of meat for some of them.
For a look at how humans naturally live, look at nonagricultural societies: Hunter-gatherer populations in Africa have no reason to move to farming because they only work a few hours a day finding food and keeping their shelters from collapsing, spending the rest of the time sleeping or making art or making babies. Humans are no more than the brainiest of the Higher Apes, and, when placed in a situation where we can be as lazy as a gorilla or a chimp, we most certainly are.
Reminds me of that line from Office Space: “I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be.” 
Lobsang:
You have just described the world envisioned in the novel “1984”.
I wish you happiness in that world, if you ever find it.
First let’s agree on a definition of communism. I’m using the term in it’s broadest description. An economic system with collective rather than private ownership of property. I think you’ll agree In that context it has nothing to do with democracy or autocracy. Next, communists don’t have a monopoly on murder. Millions die in wars and acts of genocide because of autocracies. People like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam, and Milosevic. They’re not dead because Karl Marx took it upon himself to elaborate a Platonic ideal society that would evolve and should be strived for.
Ecclesiastical sources will tell you God made the world unequal and he intends for it to stay that way. I just don’t buy it. I think feudalism was unethical and flawed and doomed to be surpassed and the same can be said of capitalism. If maximization of profits for personal benefit and not sustainable and equal growth is our reason for being we’re doomed to a world of factionalized, antagonistic cutthroats. Most of Europe and Asia realize this already; the Asian culture is by definition characterized by collectivism, placing the success of the group above the individual.
Americans have the economic and military proof to verify the solvency of capitalism. What we don’t have is the moral authority we once did to complete the picture. Post WWII capitalism has led this nation amok. In pursuit of constant growth and superiority we have made enemies of a good chunk of the world. America played no holds barred politics and assassinated democratically elected leaders, influenced political affairs, aided or installed outright tyrants like the Shah and Saddam, and generally stepped on the backs of the third world to defeat the Soviets, the Islamists, and the Asians. Oil money, slave labor, and political influence have replaced geographic territory as the hot commodity for a growing hegemonist. Someone better bring “Risk” up to date.
Marx thought capitalism was either going to change gradually to be more socialistic and communistic or there was going to be a revolution. He might not have been wrong. Right now I don’t believe capitalism is sustainable indefinitely. The whole idea of it being less than perfect gets people up in arms, but I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts people weren’t thrilled at the prospect of feudalism being replaced, especially those not at the bottom of the pay scale. Is it any wonder that our reaction to the idea of communism has been so tumultuous?
p.s. it’s late and I shouldn’t even be up posting, so I apologize in advance for any typos
Yes, as I said in my ver first post communism is an ECONOMIC system. So is capitalism.
Why do you suppose communism has NEVER existed in a democratic country? Why has it ALWAYS existed under dictatorial regimes? Do you really think that simple fact does not say something very disturbing about the very nature of communism?
Or are humans too imperfect for this wonderfully perfect system? Gee, if we just got rid of the people, then everything would be just great for communism.
What do we do with those who refuse to go along? What group of 60,000 (referring to the anarchist system described above) people need no law or law enforcement? How are disputes settled? What if someone does something damaging to the collective? What if someone does something someone else thinks is damaging to the collective?
Given the difficulty of maintaining a society with laws, I hate to imagine one without law.
Just a few questions to stir the pot.
Here you have asked one of the most important questions possible. Communism (and anarchy) work reasonably well as long as the participants are in it of their own free will. Of course, things just don’t stay that way, do they?
RR
Yes it’s true, all communist nations have been authoritarian, but that seems purely circumstantial to me. It doesn’t say a thing about the “nature” of communism. It was a noble goal sought after before its time by people desperate for a more equitable system. I hope we see it implemented under better conditions some time in the future, because free market capitalism just isn’t the panacea for economic performance it once was. It still brings in the bucks, but at the expense of geopolitical stability, notably in the third world.
What did we do to the people in Waco or Ruby Ridge who refused to “go along” ? What does any government, regardless of its economic system, do when a group of its citizenry fails to adopt their norms, fails to buy into their propaganda lock stock and barrel? First they try and reason with them, then they send in the troops, that’s what.
It just occurred to me that African Americans in the Civil Rights movement and women in the Feminist movement would also qualify as those, “who refused to go along.”
There is an example where an out-group managed to face down the guns and change society for the better. So there is a diversity of experiences encapsulated by that broad question.
This time it will be different. This time we won’t kill millions of people and set up a repressive regime that terrorizes the very people we are supposed to help. This time living standards for the average person will be better than under other systems.
I certainly hope so.
Cain:
OK, let’s assume that all the communist regimes being dictatorial was pure chance. How about no democractic country ever electing to implement communism. Is that pure chance, too? I’m sorry, but I don’t think communism is simply “unlucky”.
I didn’t say chance John, I said circumstantial. As in it was a product of its own unique circumstances. If communism was “unlucky” in any way, it’s that those circumstances were premature. People hungry for equality tried to replace capitalism before it was time for it to go.
Quite frankly it is somewhat disgusting to see you blow off the deaths of millions and millions of people as a small error in timing. Can you give any reason to think the communism would result in more equality? It has been tried several times and has resulted in a elite that controlled most/all of the resources while the common folk were repressed. I suppose they were equally repressed but that does not seem like progress to me.
What makes deaths as the result of communist dictators any more or less egregious than deaths as the result of any other dictator? What about my lumping all dictators together is so disgusting to you?
Nothing but unless I missed something were are not talking about non communist dictators.
Let’s go back for a moment. You said, “Quite frankly it is somewhat disgusting to see you blow off the deaths of millions and millions of people as a small error in timing.”
My reply was that I’m not downplaying those deaths, I’m just not differentiating them from deaths caused by other autocracies. Because unless I’m missing something every communist state has been rigidly authoritarian, which as I postulated was a consequence of circumstance and not an inherent feature of communism.