thought for the day... again... capitalism? dying? dead?

[kaosmark2]

The problem with the Soviet Union was that a few people used it as an opportunity to get rich while the vast majority of people struggled and suffered....

Someone explain how what we've got is any better?

[lost]

The problem with the Soviet Union was that a few people used it as an opportunity to get rich while the vast majority of people struggled and suffered....

Someone explain how what we've got is any better?

[Purple Monkey]

The problem with what happened with the Soviets is that people like to hark back to that as a failure of Communism. Let me make this clear - communism cannot exist under the monetary system as true communism has no hierarchy. What happened in Soviet Russia or any other 'Communist' states was not communism, not by a long shot. They, like any states under the monetary system - fascism, capitalism whatever - were/are all dictatorships. It doesn't matter what branding you like to apply to your regime; under the monetary system it will always be hierarchical, with a minority of winners, or dictators, while the masses struggle. Under the monetary system, communism cannot function, and ideals fall in line with dictatorships regardless of the original intent because the system is inherently corrupt. Orwell nailed it with Animal Farm.

Communism has always been an idea that has been utterly tarnished because of misguided failures.

The problem is past versions of communism have been attempted as isolated experiments within a world operating on corruption. There were still requirements like trade and value systems which completely hamstring the notion of a communist nation. They will always turn into corrupt states in order to play ball with the other corrupt states. It has to be all or nothing; a global movement.

What we have now is the technology and ability to unify the world without scarcity - to essentially go from a social system built of straw, doomed to collapse with a sudden change of wind to one built from brick that is sustainable.

Jacques Fresco hit the nail on the head when he said we apply scientific modes of thought to all sorts of engineering, but when it comes to society and the thought processes used for social engineering, we are still in the dark ages. We like to put faith in arbitrary numbers, we rely on a system of growth for growths sake, we indulge in irrational traditions and support outdated institutions. There is no regard for efficiency or sustainability, and any discussion about, say, a resource based economy causes irrational references to irrelevant cases where the meaning and context has been lost entirely or distorted beyond comprehension. Discussions are quickly destroyed as soon as one party starts bringing up Hitler or something as a go-to justification for the status quo; a double whammy of confirmation bias and blind ignorance. It kills discussion stone dead, and that's precisely how the elite like it.

It's stupidity of the highest order. Nothing to me is more gobsmacking than how we are behaving as a species right now. It is an absolute nightmare across the board. If we don't evolve, we are done. I sometimes feel as though these global protests are the human species immune system finally kicking in, facilitated by powerful tools like the Internet allowing people born into cages to finally notice the world that sits beyond and they are slowly but surely waking up and smelling the bullshit.

Edited October 30, 2011 by Purple Monkey

[feral chile]

As a species we're subject to a hierarchy of needs, I can't see a way around that. Power brings benefits, the more power, the greater benefits. No matter what societal organisation is in place, you'll always get competition for resources. You'd need an absolutely iron-clad enforcement system to prevent that. And that system would have to be governed by incorruptible people.

can you really see genuine equality of resources, a genuinely egalitarian society, without social control? and as soon as you have someone responsible for societal control, you've let in privilege and corruption again.

So anarchy and totalitarianism end up the with the same end result - just with the spoils going to those with the strength or authority to take them.

Until you can take competition out of evolution, it'll always end the same way. There's just not enough of everything to go round, we'll always want more. And supposing all basic needs could be met, we'd all want different things for self gratification - how can you begin to quantify them?

Edited October 30, 2011 by feral chile

[feral chile]

if there were less of us, some of the problems might be alleviated a bit...

Dr Seuss understood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3yJomUhs0g&feature=related

[abdoujaparov]

can you really see genuine equality of resources, a genuinely egalitarian society, without social control? and as soon as you have someone responsible for societal control, you've let in privilege and corruption again.

[Katster]

Overpopulation is currently my main reason for not wanting a child. I have always said it might be something I wanted (even though I have always tended to swing towards not wanting to, for all kinds of reasons) but now, at 31, my time is running out (I don't want to be an old mum, not to a baby). However, I look at the overcrowded selfish world we live in and I hear about all those children who's birth mothers can't or won't give them a decent life and I am fast swinging towards adoption. The main stepping stone I have, however, is convincing my partner that an adopted child could be just as much our own as one we have created.

I am actually quite depressed about it right now, and with around 4 years left (in my opinion) to bear a child of my own, time is running out for me to make such a humongous decision.

And meanwhile, millions (I don't actually have any clue of worldwide figures) of people are getting pregnant without giving it a second thought...

[feral chile]

alternatively, one could argue that systems of control are necessary to maintain societies based on inequality and that a genuinely egalitarian society, based on a shared community of interests, would not need such a system of control. That's what an anarchist, or a even a social libertarian, might argue. For what it's worth, I dont think that competition is always inevitable - such behaviour is socially constructed, not inate.

[abdoujaparov]

How do anarchists, who don't believe in property, distribute resources and shelter? If that fish you've just caught isn't an earned entitlement, it's not yours to keep, so fair game for someone to take from you.

I love the anarchist take on human nature, but I don't think humans will share if it means their family getting a tiny portion of what they've managed to acquire when they could have all of it.

[Katster]

Did you guys ever watch the beach? I know it's 'not real' but I reckon it pretty much sums up how people would act even if given the opportunity of a 'perfect world'.

There's enough for everbody's need, but not for everybody's greed...

[abdoujaparov]

Did you guys ever watch the beach? I know it's 'not real' but I reckon it pretty much sums up how people would act even if given the opportunity of a 'perfect world'.

There's enough for everbody's need, but not for everybody's greed...

[Katster]

I've read the book, but not seen the film...but the "community" as it is in the book is nothing like the kind of community which an anarchist might want to create. The Beach's community is a secret semi-sect, rather than a voluntary community with a shared set of ideals.

Edited October 30, 2011 by Katster

[kaosmark2]

I'd be interested to know how much 'greed' affected people if every need was met comfortably (ie. not just they've got food that minute, but have a steady supply of food). I don't doubt that there will always be some who try to gain an unfair share, the question is how society is set up to stop them succeeding. You wouldn't necessarily need a state, in an idealised anarchist society, they would become a social pariah and unable to take advantage of anything where they're reliant on others, and would probably, after realising their dependence, return and accept the equality and sharing principles.

(Note, I'm not saying it'd work).

[abdoujaparov]

Which doesn't stay secret for long and ends up being destroyed. By the very people who created it.

There are already plenty of voluntary communities with shared sets of ideals.

[Katster]

I'd be interested to know how much 'greed' affected people if every need was met comfortably (ie. not just they've got food that minute, but have a steady supply of food). I don't doubt that there will always be some who try to gain an unfair share, the question is how society is set up to stop them succeeding. You wouldn't necessarily need a state, in an idealised anarchist society, they would become a social pariah and unable to take advantage of anything where they're reliant on others, and would probably, after realising their dependence, return and accept the equality and sharingprinciples.

(Note, I'm not saying it'd work).

[Katster]

yes, the "community" in the Beach is destroyed, mainly because of the nature of its existence (ie being secret and a quasi-sect)...I dont agree, therefore, that it serves as a blueprint for human behaviour in different circumstances.

I'm not sure what your poitn is about voluntary

communities. I'm not sure what your definition is, but non-hierarchical, voluntary communities, based on anarchist-type principles are pretty rare in capitalist countries. They do exist, some quite successfully

[abdoujaparov]

Even if everyone went back to complete basics and had nothing but four walls, someone would make themselves something pretty, and someone else would want it.

[Katster]

but that views negative bahaviour as an inate human trait (human nature, for want of a better term). It's a very Hobbesian outlook and one to which I do not subscribe. There is, in my

opinion, no such thing as human nature - just behaviours which are socially constructed

[abdoujaparov]

I don't think it's negative, I simply think it is so. All animals like to 'prettify' their homes and all animals work on survival of the fitest. Why should humans be any different?

[abdoujaparov]

But of course you are blowing up your own dogma here...

The "community" of the UK has been acting in its own common interest for a VERY long time... and that seems to be at the root of many of the issues people have. The developed world working in its own interests.

Unless you can find a way for world wide agreement that make the community actually represent the entire world ultimately this common interest will be too localised and will result in what we have to today still.

[eFestivals]

You either have total world agreement (the Star Trek fantasy but forward toward the start of this silly thread) or you have a free for all...

There really is nothing in-between...

Wrong.

25 years ago, I encountered the most amazing attitudes in India, completely alien to a UK mind even back then. They had a 'free for all', but underlying that free for all was a stronger attitude of working as a nation to make India succeed.

I've no idea if the same attitude still exists in India as I've not been back but even if it doesn't that attitude is, I'm sure, responsible for the success that India is having today.

[abdoujaparov]

Your vision is really a wooly one where people don't consume, think of others and keep everything in check and balance...

In reality, it only takes a couple of people not to tow the line and bang... Off we go again...

To be frank, you have taken the view not consume as much, but the reality is you are only causing yourself short term discomfort while the rest of the world gets on with living.

As long as there is someone down the road ready to consume what you have given up then its all fruitless and pointless

[abdoujaparov]

It is pointless... You are achieving nothing... You would be better to get politically involved than just buy one tv less...

Any back to the rest of your woolliness...

You simply can not get away from the fact that unless you have EVERYONE on the planet signed up to sharing everything and being nice and wooly with each other. You will still have people over consuming and taking the other persons stuff.

Unless you get total world agreement then you just have a group of people protecting what they have and denying other of using it. That or they just let other people take what they have... The result of that would be starvation and disaster...

Its actually all a lot simpler than some of the arguments being put forward here...

We either all share with a common goal of caring for each other, otherwise you are protecting what you have at the expensive of others...

There is no middle ground...

[abdoujaparov]

Agreed...

Hence, its a never never dream....

and without the never never dream becoming a reality (but it won't because it can't) then anything you do on a personal level is causing yourself some level of discomfort for no real purpose...

[abdoujaparov]

Do you honestly think China, Africa, Brazil and India are looking at this wooly new world order you speak of ? Are they fuck...

Change is not coming... More greed is coming not less... It just might not be operated by the usual suspects but by others...