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puddingmouse
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12 Nov 2011, 10:23 am

peebo wrote:
puddingmouse wrote:
androbot2084 wrote:
Under Communism every child is your own child.


It's statements like these that make me distance myself from the radical left (despite the fact that I agree with certain aspects of Marxism).


why? a community functioning as an extended family is, to me at least, far, far superior to the policies of the reformist left of heavy social intervention and children of parents who are experiencing difficulties of any sort being snatched by the state and either put in homes or with foster parents. i see very often first hand the inherent problems this system creates both for parents and children.


My problem is communal children. It doesn't work very well. The kibbutzim children were pretty traumatised by it and would sneak into their parents' houses in the night.

I'm all for a community functioning as an extended family; I believe that sort of thing agrees very well with human nature. However, social workers don't just intervene for any half-baked reason. You can do without them in a small community but in a big city, you need them.


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peebo
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12 Nov 2011, 11:03 am

ruveyn wrote:
peebo wrote:


have you ever read huxley's island? people always interpret this kind of thing in a very extreme way. i grew up in a working class community in the uk in the 1970s, and in that place at that time, people within the community looked out for one another. children weren't communal, but to a point the community did actually work like an extended family. it quite simply works.


Isn't -Island- a work of fiction? What does it have to do with reality?



it is a work of fiction, yes, but in the way that a few of huxley's (and other fiction writers) other books are, it is very much a political/social critique. don't you often find reality mirrored or critiqued succinctly in works of fiction? i certainly do.

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It takes a village to raise an idealist who is out of touch with reality.
ruveyn


is this in some way directed at myself? for your information, i did not grow up in a village, although i have been accused of being an idealist who is out of touch with reality on more than one occasion, although generally i am of the belief that i approach life in a far more pragmatic way than said accusers.


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JakobVirgil
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12 Nov 2011, 11:11 am

peebo wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
peebo wrote:


have you ever read huxley's island? people always interpret this kind of thing in a very extreme way. i grew up in a working class community in the uk in the 1970s, and in that place at that time, people within the community looked out for one another. children weren't communal, but to a point the community did actually work like an extended family. it quite simply works.


Isn't -Island- a work of fiction? What does it have to do with reality?



it is a work of fiction, yes, but in the way that a few of huxley's (and other fiction writers) other books are, it is very much a political/social critique. don't you often find reality mirrored or critiqued succinctly in works of fiction? i certainly do.

Quote:
It takes a village to raise an idealist who is out of touch with reality.
ruveyn


is this in some way directed at myself? for your information, i did not grow up in a village, although i have been accused of being an idealist who is out of touch with reality on more than one occasion, although generally i am of the belief that i approach life in a far more pragmatic way than said accusers.


in America being raised in a village does not have a pejorative connotation or if it does
then it is a reference to Hilary Clinton's book. <-- I think this is how ruve means it.
What you all call villages we call small towns and only WholesomeGoodness(tm) comes out of them. :wink:


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ruveyn
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12 Nov 2011, 11:28 am

peebo wrote:
is this in some way directed at myself? for your information, i did not grow up in a village, although i have been accused of being an idealist who is out of touch with reality on more than one occasion, although generally i am of the belief that i approach life in a far more pragmatic way than said accusers.


I was referring to Hillary's village. But if the shoe fits, by all means wear it.

How many idealists does it take to change a light bulb. Answer: none, because ideally light bulbs never burn out

ruveyn



Robdemanc
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12 Nov 2011, 11:58 am

peebo wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
HairlessAlbinoCat wrote:
androbot2084 wrote:
Communism is the ultimate utopia.


In theory I agree.
It has been said that the fault with communism is that it goes against human nature, but how about when speaking of Aspie (human) nature?


People will always prefer their own children to the children of others. Commonality simply will not work.

ruveyn



have you ever read huxley's island? people always interpret this kind of thing in a very extreme way. i grew up in a working class community in the uk in the 1970s, and in that place at that time, people within the community looked out for one another. children weren't communal, but to a point the community did actually work like an extended family. it quite simply works.


Yeah but Mrs Thatcher came and put a stop to that. She didn't want communities working together.



ruveyn
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12 Nov 2011, 12:59 pm

Plato's Republic is the Handbook and ur-guide to collective living. Plato proposed the collectivization of the upbringing of children. Men and women were to be the breeding stock of the State and have no ownership in the up bringing of who they begat. It was an inhuman proposal then just as it is now. Doomed to fail.

It runs completely counter to the inbred hardwired nature of our species.

ruveyn



Sweetleaf
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12 Nov 2011, 1:08 pm

Robdemanc wrote:
I think capitalism is a good way because people can be rewarded for hard work and ingenuity. But it would have to be regulated by government and I do not want primary industries to be privately owned.



But its more common people are rewarded for manipulating and screwing over other people because the reward at the end of the narrow tunnel is the most important thing in the world.

So it would seem in theory Capitalism, Socialism and Communism are great ideas, but in practice they all seem to fail.



peebo
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12 Nov 2011, 1:17 pm

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peebo
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12 Nov 2011, 1:18 pm

Robdemanc wrote:
Yeah but Mrs Thatcher came and put a stop to that. She didn't want communities working together.


you're on the button here, robdemanc!


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peebo
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12 Nov 2011, 1:20 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
So it would seem in theory Capitalism, Socialism and Communism are great ideas, but in practice they all seem to fail.



socialism and communism haven't had the chance to fail, they've never existed.


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Sweetleaf
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12 Nov 2011, 1:52 pm

peebo wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
So it would seem in theory Capitalism, Socialism and Communism are great ideas, but in practice they all seem to fail.



socialism and communism haven't had the chance to fail, they've never existed.


That is a good point...after all true communism and socialism have yet to actually exist.



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12 Nov 2011, 2:25 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
peebo wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
So it would seem in theory Capitalism, Socialism and Communism are great ideas, but in practice they all seem to fail.



socialism and communism haven't had the chance to fail, they've never existed.


That is a good point...after all true communism and socialism have yet to actually exist.


Perhaps we are seeing the outcome of capitalism foretold by Karl Marx. Europe is becoming a dictatorship, an imperialist group of states. Greece and Italy are being taken over by Brussels. The leaders know that capitalism is in its final days so they are pushing through Marx's outcome of capitalism.

I wonder how long it will be before people are marched to the shops and ordered to buy things at gun point. :lol:



ruveyn
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12 Nov 2011, 2:41 pm

peebo wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
So it would seem in theory Capitalism, Socialism and Communism are great ideas, but in practice they all seem to fail.



socialism and communism haven't had the chance to fail, they've never existed.


Neither has honest to goodness Capitalism. The closest we have ever got to Capitalism is Hong Kong under British rule.

ruveyn



peebo
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13 Nov 2011, 3:55 am

ruveyn wrote:
peebo wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
So it would seem in theory Capitalism, Socialism and Communism are great ideas, but in practice they all seem to fail.



socialism and communism haven't had the chance to fail, they've never existed.


Neither has honest to goodness Capitalism. The closest we have ever got to Capitalism is Hong Kong under British rule.

ruveyn


well a semantic argument may be had on definitions of what some refer to as "pure capitalism" but generally capitalism does indeed exist. wage labour, private ownership of means of production, accumulation of capital, the profit motive, competitive markets, a ruling class and a proletariat etc. etc.


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ruveyn
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13 Nov 2011, 4:23 am

peebo wrote:

well a semantic argument may be had on definitions of what some refer to as "pure capitalism" but generally capitalism does indeed exist. wage labour, private ownership of means of production, accumulation of capital, the profit motive, competitive markets, a ruling class and a proletariat etc. etc.


Markets and trade have existed for at least 50,000 years among homo sapians. and community life and towns have exists for 10,000 years when agriculture became them main way of getting one's next meal.

Neanderthal's did not have markets and exchanges. Which is one of the reasons they are extinct.

ruveyn



peebo
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13 Nov 2011, 7:02 am

ruveyn wrote:
peebo wrote:

well a semantic argument may be had on definitions of what some refer to as "pure capitalism" but generally capitalism does indeed exist. wage labour, private ownership of means of production, accumulation of capital, the profit motive, competitive markets, a ruling class and a proletariat etc. etc.


Markets and trade have existed for at least 50,000 years among homo sapians. and community life and towns have exists for 10,000 years when agriculture became them main way of getting one's next meal.

Neanderthal's did not have markets and exchanges. Which is one of the reasons they are extinct.

ruveyn


perhaps, but this isn't really comparable with the global, institutionalised neo-liberal capitalism we have today. that is clearly a fairly recent phenomenon.


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?Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.?

Adam Smith