Communism in Nature

[Red Saxon]

I've been wondering, are there any examples of Collective resources in Nature? An ant colony is one example that I could come up with, but are there others?

[Cymru]

An Ant colony?
Care to explain this a bit further?

[Vendetta]

Yeah, ant colony's got a queen, so I'm not sure how that would work.

[Red Saxon]

Yeah, ant colony's got a queen, so I'm not sure how that would work.The ants all share resources? :(

I guess I forgot about the queen...

Any other examples?

[Cymru]

There's a bit more to Communism than the sharing of resources :laugh:
Only joking, I see what your getting at.

[Killfacer]

also ants take slaves and farm aphids.

[Red Saxon]

also ants take slaves and farm aphids.Ok ok, so I was dead wrong :lol:

[Cymru]

Ok ok, so I was dead wrong :lol:
It got me thinking :)

[bellyscratch]

It's pretty irrelevant whether you can find communism in nature and I doubt that you will find any real examples of it.

Nature is too bound up in competition for a communism to be able to function within it. Communism requires a high level of consciousness and intelligence, a level which humans are the only species on the planet capable of having. It requires much thought to plan so wealth is distributed equally.

[Klaatu]

Bees

[Red Saxon]

BeesBees have queens, too.

Stupid unevolved creatures

[Cymru]

/thread :laugh:

[Red Saxon]

Communism is a feature of human civilization, not animal civilization. It is a yet unrealized feature though. Primitive varieties of communism were to be found in human civilization in pre-historical times, but such systems have long been overtaken by feudalism and now capitalism. The version of communism we are for does not resemble in any way the primitive communism of pre-historical times. In fact it resembles nothing that we have seen so far since communism can form only in an advanced technological society and such conditions have yet to be established on a world wide scale because of the barrier of capitalism. In fact, capitalism acts as a barrier to further development of humans. That is the reason capitalism has to be destroyed in order to achieve a high degree of technological advancement for all humans.Makes sense, but maybe I should rename the thread "Example of collective resources in nature" xD

[Cymru]

I'm sure there are countless species that share their resources

[FreeFocus]

Most species in nature show a noteworthy degree of collectivist behavior or cooperation. Also, consider the principle of reciprocal altruism, which is widespread in the animal kingdom.

[Lynx]

Yeah, ant colony's got a queen, so I'm not sure how that would work.
Matriarchal hierarchal communism?

This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_interaction)should help give an overview of the kinds of relationships to be found in nature and in ourselves.

[Blackscare]

Uh, the ant queen doesn't exercise any control or "rule" at all. It just performs the "job" of pumping out millions of babies.


LOL @ people acting like ant colonies are actually monarchies.


I've actually read some interesting articles about studies of ant colonies and their method of consensus decision making. I'll post links later if I can find them.

[Blackscare]

Peter Kropotkin (founder of anarchist-communism) also wrote the best book on this subject that I know of, "Mutual Aid", which goes through examples of cooperation in nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution

[ckaihatsu]

I'm fond of repeatedly noting that only human civilizations build up a surplus -- animal collectives *do not*. That means that we, as social people, have to deal with the resulting issue of what to do with the surplus, who controls its production, what *kind* of surplus to produce, etc.

Once private property is collectivized throughout the world we would quickly -- if not instantly -- solve all of the anti-human problems we have today, since they result from tending to private-property-surplus development, instead of human need.


Chris





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-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --

[JimmyJazz]

Ant colonies are brutally exploitative and semi-feudal societies, watch A Bug's Life ffs.

[Lynx]

Ant colonies are brutally exploitative and semi-feudal societies, watch A Bug's Life ffs.
Perhaps this is anti-communist propaganda?
I once saw a German documentary that showed how rats were Jewish.

[Lynx]

I'm fond of repeatedly noting that only human civilizations build up a surplus -- animal collectives *do not*.
What do you mean? Animals build and maintain larders, and bees produce honey.

[Killfacer]

Ants only ended up this way because of the material conditions forced upon them by the capitalist imperialist powers.

Stop beleiving the lies of imperialist scholars and their manipulative media.

Look at some of the definatly not biased sites i can use as sources in the defence of ants:

www.antsaintfacsists.com
www.antsantsandmoreants.com
www.liesaboutants.com
www.whyohwhydoyoulieabotants.com

[Blackscare]

What do you mean? Animals build and maintain larders, and bees produce honey.
qft

[ckaihatsu]

What do you mean? Animals build and maintain larders, and bees produce honey.


Yeah, but to survive for *what duration* of time? Enough to survive the winter? *One* season, perhaps? This is equivalent to primitive communism, or human society in nature before * organized agricultural practices *.

[More Fire for the People]

Marx had a fondness for bees. :lol:

Bees, ants, wolves, monkeys, elephants, etc. Reciprocal altruism works well in the struggle of a species to live and sustain. And what is communism but a maximization of reciprocal altruism?

[BlackCapital]

Ants are clearly state-capitalist.

No other species really function in any comparable way to humans in this instance so its really impossible for there to be "communism". They obviously don't have any type of economic system, don't trade, in situations where they do produce do not create surplus value with the motive of profit.

[Lynx]

Yeah, but to survive for *what duration* of time? Enough to survive the winter? *One* season, perhaps? This is equivalent to primitive communism, or human society in nature before * organized agricultural practices *.
Food is perishable. I don't believe modern society is prepared for the long term, with the exception of survivalist type installations and nuclear bomb shelters. Seed repositories are an important development however. As TheEarthVolta has mentioned, these are not profit-making ventures.

[mikelepore]

"We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement."

---- Marx, Capital, chapter 7

[ckaihatsu]

"We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement."

---- Marx, Capital, chapter 7


Yeah, what *he* said....

(People! The *conscious* brain function is a *recent* evolutionary development...!)

[mikelepore]

It seems to me that "the part played by labor in the transition from ape to man" (Engels) has been verified.

Mainstream archaeology now offers an explanation that some ape-like animals found themselves in a situation where they had to survive on the plains instead of in the canopy of treetops. This relocation presented new types of dangers related to finding food and escaping from predators. It would seem plausible that those individuals which were able to find clever uses for sticks and stones would be the ones who would survive long enough to reproduce. A tool-making species evolved, and tool-making implies greater rates of survival for those who can reason abstractly.

A related point also fascinates me -- the implications of this for the probable forms of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. If those intelligent beings are out there, I think it is probably due to a similar circumstance: that their ancestors were put in a situation where they had to pick up artifacts from their surroundings and find ways to use them to survive, analogous to our own ancestors' requirement to make use of sticks and stones. A few fortunate conditions must have been met on those other worlds too. They also had the right kinds of senses and extremities for it to be feasible for them to pick up and use those environmental objects. They must have been confronted with a moderate degree of threat to their survival, so that it wasn't so easy to survive that evolving into tool-makers and reasoners wouldn't be necessary at all, but not so difficult to survive that no one could meet the challenge and all of them would become extinct. So when we meet the extraterrestrials someday, and we find that they are tool-makers and logical thinkers, we will know why -- because they were, like us, beings whose survival required them to figure out how to mix their creative labor with nature's raw materials.

[ckaihatsu]

A related point also fascinates me -- the implications of this for the probable forms of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. If those intelligent beings are out there, I think it is probably due to a similar circumstance


Yeah, well, that's how Superman came to our planet....


x D





So when we meet the extraterrestrials someday, and we find that they are tool-makers and logical thinkers, we will know why -- because they were, like us, beings whose survival required them to figure out how to mix their creative labor with nature's raw materials.


*Or* -- we'll find out that life on other worlds came about through creationism while *we* had to scratch and claw our modern existence into the making with *no* outside help.... (Wait, there's more!) By implication we'll discover that *no one* here is the "chosen people" and we will suffer a global collective feeling of divine jiltedness and abandonment...!


x D

[Code]

Whale pods?

[Holger Meins]

Why the hell are you trying to find examples of "communism" in animal societies? That has no relevance what so ever, since communism is a political system which consists of people and not animals. Focus on whats important instead, for fuck sake.

[rosie]

what about wolves? They have a male and female leader, chosen by other members of the pack based on their intelligence, hunting skills, and strength. They divide their "resources" based on who in the pack puts in the most...they get the bigger share of the pie. Whoever puts in the least amount of effort gets the scraps (but still enough to sustain life). Duties are divvied up amongst the pack, they communicate to each other and to other packs...and have also been known to accept outside members (even inter species members) when necessary. Also, when a leader does not perform his or her tasks to the benefit of the rest of the pack, they will fight off the leader and chose a new one (usually the one who wins the fight).

[Holger Meins]

That's not true. They have a very strict social hierarchy within the group, organized a little like an extremist religious sect. The leadership is determined, not through some kind of "democratic" procedure, but instead by another wolf challenging the alfamale/female.
One cannot apply political theories, or any kind of philosophy based on the notion of human behaviour, to animal societies, simply because humans have a very developed fantasy, humans can think in abstract terms such as religion or economy, something that animals can't. Trying to find any formation of any political system in animal society is pointless and meaningless because no such thing can exist because animals follow their instinct, not their intellect.

[rosie]

So true. Thanks!

[Manifesto]

Trying to find any formation of any political system in animal society is pointless and meaningless because no such thing can exist because animals follow their instinct, not their intellect.
This oddly sounds A LOT like what General Zaroff says in "The Most Dangerous Game".

[Klaatu]

Here is a radical thought: Humans may be the "ants" of some advanced alien race (?) ;)

Is there an "extraterrestrial" thread here somewhere?