Is workable Communism really impossible?

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edgewaters
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03 Aug 2012, 12:19 pm

AspieRogue wrote:

What about the strong man who teams up with others, conquers another tribal family group, kills the men and then rapes the women, establishing his own new extended family?

Yes, but who do you team up with? This happened - and it was done by groups that cooperated well. Those that didn't were at a distinct disadvantage and ended up being the ones this happened to.

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Also, what makes you so certain that there weren't multiple filial groups living in single area and coming into contact with each other?

There were ... but they generally tried to get along with close neighbours, because they had to avoid inbreeding. In your above example, they still wind up with this problem, unless they go after a group not tied in with them by exchange of daughters/sons (which means one living at some distance away, usually, not a close neighbour).

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Hunter gatherers tend to dwell in areas where game and edible plants are plentiful. And if one wondering group stumbles into such an area and finds another group, they just might decide to *move in*.

Again, same problem as above. If violent parasites been preying on the members of their own group, they'll have fewer and less fit men to fight, and they'll be the victims, not the aggressors. These were the sort of groups that got wiped out. Strong families that cooperated well, dominated other groups (and in fact, that has never changed, it remains true today).

Last edited by edgewaters on 03 Aug 2012, 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

enrico_dandolo
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03 Aug 2012, 12:35 pm

AspieRogue wrote:

I don't buy that. Strong, aggressive men who had other strong men following them could easily overpower others and take what they wanted by force.

In real life, strong, aggressive men who take other people's stuff are called bullies, not leaders.

AspieRogue

03 Aug 2012, 1:11 pm

enrico_dandolo wrote:

AspieRogue wrote:

I don't buy that. Strong, aggressive men who had other strong men following them could easily overpower others and take what they wanted by force.

In real life, strong, aggressive men who take other people's stuff are called bullies, not leaders.

That's true. But bullying unfortunately seems to work very well in many situations where bullies aren't punished for their behavior by a higher authority.

2 very interesting thing about Ants: Like humans, ants enslave one another. IDK of any examples of this behavior among others mammals. Also, both us and them wage war.

JakobVirgil
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03 Aug 2012, 1:39 pm

AspieRogue wrote:

enrico_dandolo wrote:

AspieRogue wrote:

I don't buy that. Strong, aggressive men who had other strong men following them could easily overpower others and take what they wanted by force.

In real life, strong, aggressive men who take other people's stuff are called bullies, not leaders.

I would not trust one bully to save you from another.

Ants of one species enslave ants of other species.
Do you like ants? I have done some work with Hodobler he wrote "ANTS" with E.O. Wilson.
You should read it. It is a great book. I think socio-biology may answer your questions about
the formation of society.

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We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots??

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edgewaters
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03 Aug 2012, 1:50 pm

AspieRogue wrote:

That's true. But bullying unfortunately seems to work very well in many situations where bullies aren't punished for their behavior by a higher authority.

It may or may not work well for the individual, but it's destructive and expensive to groups and weakens them, relative to other groups. This is why succesful societies take steps to minimize theft and robbery, sometimes to the point of physical mutilation or death to discourage the practice. A group ridden with many robbers preying on their own, will not be as competitive as one with fewer problems there, all else being equal.

In the era before the agricultural revolution (and during the early part of that) such competitive disadvantages meant extermination, usually. Either by collapse (starvation, inbreeding, etc) or external rivals. There was no margin that allowed competitive disadvantage without benefit.

Aspie_Chav
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03 Aug 2012, 6:48 pm

Communism can't work. It has to use the resources created by capitalism as a starting point.

edgewaters
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03 Aug 2012, 6:55 pm

Aspie_Chav wrote:

Communism can't work. It has to use the resources created by capitalism as a starting point.

I don't think it can work either, but that's not why. Capitalism had to use the resources and institutions created by feudalism to develop, too. You just couldn't go from a usufructory property system where possession and ownership were indistinguishable, to a system of rent, profit from the labour of others, ownership by deed and title, etc. The concept of property that wasn't actually possessed, being owned by virtue of a title to land had to develop. Among other things.

enrico_dandolo
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03 Aug 2012, 11:55 pm

AspieRogue wrote:

enrico_dandolo wrote:

AspieRogue wrote:

I don't buy that. Strong, aggressive men who had other strong men following them could easily overpower others and take what they wanted by force.

In real life, strong, aggressive men who take other people's stuff are called bullies, not leaders.

That's true. But bullying unfortunately seems to work very well in many situations where bullies aren't punished for their behavior by a higher authority.

Who says, under a communal system with common ownership, that there wouldn't be any punishment?

Also, interestingly, in small communities with a strong sense of solidarity, exclusion is the worst punishment.

AspieRogue

04 Aug 2012, 12:01 am

enrico_dandolo wrote:

AspieRogue wrote:

enrico_dandolo wrote:

AspieRogue wrote:

I don't buy that. Strong, aggressive men who had other strong men following them could easily overpower others and take what they wanted by force.

In real life, strong, aggressive men who take other people's stuff are called bullies, not leaders.

That's true. But bullying unfortunately seems to work very well in many situations where bullies aren't punished for their behavior by a higher authority.

You're right, there is a punishment under communal systems with common ownership:
lynching. What you are prescribing was common in rural 19th century america, and they even had a name for it...........MOB RULE. It wasn't just lynchings though, there were extremely violent family and blood feuds whose cycle of violence continued from one generation to the next.
In the absence of a central authority and an officially sanctioned legal system with rule of law, people take matters into their own hands. The result is endless violent reciprocity.

enrico_dandolo
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04 Aug 2012, 3:19 am

No, lynching is what happens when a central authority is not listened to and is totally inadequate. In this case, the central authority is just strong enough to prevent the creation of smaller, autonomous communities, but not strong enough to truly enforce anything. The individuals have no legal means of enforcing justice, so they have to use extralegal means. This is chaos, not anarchy.

I don't know specifically how it would be handle under a communal system, because each community would create its own rules and its own system. However, I can assure you that it would not involve random violence, nor wanton revenge. Rather, the group would decide what is best, either by creating its own rules and procedures, by judging individual cases collectively or any other way.

ruveyn
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04 Aug 2012, 3:23 am

Aspie_Chav wrote:

Communism can't work. It has to use the resources created by capitalism as a starting point.

That is a non-sequitor. Marx himself postulated that communism would emerge from the dynamics of capitalistic exploitation of labor. The so-called Marxist dialectic. One could not get to communism except by having capitalism first.

ruveyn

Aspie_Chav
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04 Aug 2012, 2:18 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Aspie_Chav wrote:

Communism can't work. It has to use the resources created by capitalism as a starting point.

So parasites can only come about on the back of its host. When the host dies, so will the parasite. Mmm.. I guess if parasites can thrive in nature, then it can also thrive as a philosophy too.

Never seen Communism in such a positive light.

ruveyn
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04 Aug 2012, 2:21 pm

Aspie_Chav wrote:

So parasites can only come about on the back of its host. When the host dies, so will the parasite. Mmm.. I guess if parasites can thrive in nature, then it can also thrive as a philosophy too.

That is not how Marx's version of the Hegelian dialectic worked. And Communism in the manner of the Marxian dialectic never happened. Not once, Not anywhere.

ruveyn

JakobVirgil
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04 Aug 2012, 2:30 pm

enrico_dandolo wrote:

Is this Marcos's "world that contains all worlds"?

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Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots??

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edgewaters
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04 Aug 2012, 2:33 pm

Aspie_Chav wrote:

So parasites can only come about on the back of its host. When the host dies, so will the parasite. Mmm.. I guess if parasites can thrive in nature, then it can also thrive as a philosophy too.

No, its (supposedly, theoretically) an evolution not a "parasite" that is "hosted" by capitalism but the stage of history following it, same as capitalism is not "parasite" that feudalism "hosts", but a stage that follows feudalism.

Marx was right about some things. He was right in predicting that capitalism would destroy national industries and subordinate them to a global economy, complete with its own culture, and this would be the harbinger of a new class coming to dominance after pushing the merchant-industrialists of the 19th and 20th centuries out of the way. But he was wrong about which class, it wasn't the factory worker, it was the managerial/executive class (who, in his time, were little more than supervisors/accountants and were essentially trusted servants, classified by him as members of the "petty bourgeouis" rather than true bourgeouis).

AspieRogue

04 Aug 2012, 3:13 pm

enrico_dandolo wrote:

Who is going to protect the rights of an individual who is despised by the community for being different despite having done no wrong? Who will protect someone falsely accused by another member of the community who is better liked and respected than the accused? With no central authority, there is nothing to stop people from ganging up on somebody they dislike and harming that person. Anarchy soon leads to chaos. If don't believe me, just look at what happened in Somalia following the collapse of the government.

Perhaps a better example was the Occupy movement, which was based on the principles of leaderless resistance and communal living. It was unable to achieve its goals due to being disorganized and chaotic.

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