This is what communism will look like

[Saorsa]

I had a total epiphany the other day. I think it's cool and I'm wondering what other people think about it. This is my vision of how living in the transition to communism will look like.

I'm warning you, it's also very rambly. But meh.

I realised that the sole true purpose and primary aim whenever and wherever possible of the state under socialism, i.e. the dictatorship of the proletariat (the one anarchists disagree with existence of to varying degrees), is to scientifically reorder the production and distribution of resources across the world, and above all the automation of the process of production, so as to drastically and universally reduce the amount of jobs that actually need to be performed by humans, and to utilise computerization, automization and robotics to create a situation where humans no longer need to work for an employer, and are free to develop themselves and work on whatever they wish in a post-scarcity society of complete material abundance (with the automated production system working to supply whatever humans demand, anywhere, any time, so that whatever you want (within limits of course) can be had without having to do anything other than request it). Once this society has been achieved, the phrase from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs can truly be practiced. A society where work is seen for what it is, i.e. slavery. All forms of work are slavery, created by a capitalist system which creates scarcity, a system that cannot be directed for the purpose of bettering all of humanity but instead requires scarcity and social disparities to exist.

Once we have a post-scarcity, post-work society, humanity's existence will be totally changed. Nations will no longer be relevant. The state will be unnecessary, although of course forms of organisation will evolve, that will be democratic in the extreme. In a society where nobody ever goes without, or even can go without (the concept of 'going without' could disappear!), noone can amass more power than anyone else, as all power is is the monopolisation of more resources than somebody else. Robbery will be meaningless. Poverty will be a distant historical memory. Crime and anti-social behaviour will drastically decline.

People could lives their lives in true freedom, as they chose. They could pursue art, science, music, sport, travelling, writing, poetry, comedy or whatever else they chose, at whatever pace and in whatever direction they chose. No more commercial pressure, pressure to create a product to be 'sold' - instead, total creative freedom. With the whole idea of 'incentives' being totally irellevant, there would be no need and no way to provide incentives to drive people to succeed. Instead, people would motivate themselves by doing things they were genuinely passionate about.

As well as this, it'd mean that if you couldn't be fucked doing any of the above, you could just spend your days chilling in the sun getting blazed as fuck. With free weed on demand :-)

Revolutionaries shouldn't fetishize work, it should be seen as a necessary evil for now and an evil to be gotten rid of as soon as possible.

In this modern, developed late capitalist world, the potential exists for a rapid (in a matter of years, in theory) process of transition from the current system to one of absolute material abundance if a democratically elected, right of recall workers state draws up a scientific plan for the reorganisation of society's resources (and the natural resources society is aimed around extracting) and the social reorganisation of humanity in order to maximise production and achieve this plan. While maximising production, equal attention must be paid to eliminating work. Under capitalism, when technology improves and less workers are needed in the production process, workers are laid off and unemployment grows. Under socialism and shortly afterwards full communism, improvements in technology and computerised automization of the production process will mean that less work and less jobs need to be done by humans, freeing us of all constraints and allowing us for the first time, ever, to be free.

However, it must be stressed that this vision of the future only applies once capitalism has fallen around the world. That is a distant goal yet. History shows that revolutions tend to happen only in the poorer, less developed countries in the world, and revolutions tend to succeed in countries only in ones and twos. Such a revolution would need to direct the state appartus and the resources of the society in question towards defence and military measures to protect the revolution from hostile capitalist nations. Survilal would have to be their priority until the revolution spread to the rest of the world, and in particular the more developed parts.

Once it did spread there, the revolutionary governments of the more developed countries would direct large portions of their countries resources to building up infrastructure and resource production processes in the less developed, formerly "Third" parts of the world. This would not take long.

A world of complete freedom. Voluntary association in every respect. Never having to do anything for anyone that you did not want to do, unless you chose to do so of your own free will. No pressures of survival. A world where you could sleep in every day, eat whatever you want whenever you want every day, a world you could wake up at whatever time you wanted and do whatever you wanted, including nothing much, with your day. A fucking paradise, and if communism is possible then please let it happen in my lifetime because I really want to retire into a society like this. I just wish I could have been born into it :-(

[Ovi]

A fucking paradise, and if communism is possible then please let it happen in my lifetime because I really want to retire into a society like this. I just wish I could have been born into it :-(
See the bright side: we have the chance to change the world.

[chegitz guevara]

One of our comrades in South Florida wrote something similar. His big thing is that we should be trying to abolish work, automate everything we can.

He wants to read more from Marxists on this, but off the top of my head I'm have a hard time finding anything from the classics.

[punisa]

Very good post ! Thanks for sharing it.
But abolish work? Nooo comrade. "Work" is actually a good thing, but it must provide one with decent life and plenty of free time. Not like in todays capitalism.

Personally I'd like to work in this post-socialist communist paradise.
Preferably manual labor. And I'm 100% honest here, I'd much rather dig ditches with a shovel then spend all my day in front of a computer.
But I can't while in capitalism, I must work the computer cause otherwise my pay would be much lower and would not even cover my rent :(
I hope in that future communism robots won't take all the manual work, cause I wont some ! :)

Sure, everyone will be able to choose a profession he/she likes. But me, I'm hammer and a sickle all the way comrade :thumbup1:

[Saorsa]

I think the key thing there is that work would be optional. In a society without laws, without repressive institutions, nobody could be forced either to work or not to work. Instead you'd do as much work as you felt like in the calling of your choice.

[gorillafuck]

I think the key thing there is that work would be optional. In a society without laws, without repressive institutions, nobody could be forced either to work or not to work. Instead you'd do as much work as you felt like in the calling of your choice.
Why will society not have laws? Surely there need to be rules of some sort?

Edit: And by rules I mean common sense type rules.

[punisa]

Why will society not have laws? Surely there need to be rules of some sort?

Edit: And by rules I mean common sense type rules.

Indeed, rules and certain laws will still be needed. At least in a communist society that would be established in the near future.
Cause maybe in 300 years people figure a way to alter the human DNA in order to remove or constrain unwanted behavior.

But in current times you still need certain laws, even in communism (even more in socialism). If a guy kills somebody, we still need to prosecute him somehow.
Ok, we should definitively abandon death - capital punishment. Mmm, but forced labor still sounds very sweet :lol:

[punisa]

I think the key thing there is that work would be optional. In a society without laws, without repressive institutions, nobody could be forced either to work or not to work. Instead you'd do as much work as you felt like in the calling of your choice.

Exactly. If all work was optional and provides same amount of benefits. I think we would be amazed at how diverse people would be when it comes choosing professions.
Also, one thing that I'm very fond of - switching professions. You only live for so long, why not try yourself at many things, learn new skills etc.
That would indeed be fun :)

[rednordman]

Very good post ! Thanks for sharing it.
But abolish work? Nooo comrade. "Work" is actually a good thing, but it must provide one with decent life and plenty of free time. Not like in todays capitalism.

Personally I'd like to work in this post-socialist communist paradise.
Preferably manual labor. And I'm 100% honest here, I'd much rather dig ditches with a shovel then spend all my day in front of a computer.
But I can't while in capitalism, I must work the computer cause otherwise my pay would be much lower and would not even cover my rent :(
I hope in that future communism robots won't take all the manual work, cause I wont some ! :)Totally agree with you, but I think that in the future communist society, the robots will take all the office and computor jobs, and all that will be left for humans is the manual and agrarian jobs:cool:!

[Q]

A very good post. I'm glad you got the point of communism :p

[Axle]

Totally agree with you, but I think that in the future communist society, the robots will take all the office and computor jobs, and all that will be left for humans is the manual and agrarian jobs:cool:!

Maybe, but much office work that exists today is tied into insurance or the financial sector...industries that would completely disappear under Communism.

[rednordman]

Maybe, but much office work that exists today is tied into insurance or the financial sector...industries that would completely disappear under Communism.Even better then! mmm..I wonder where the people who enjoy working in offices and finacial sector jobs would transfer to, in a communist society?

[Q]

Even better then! mmm..I wonder where the people who enjoy working in offices and finacial sector jobs would transfer to, in a communist society?
They'll do other stuff, obviously. In a planned economy you can guarantee full employment. The working week will just be shorter, while your pay remains the same. For example, we can lower the working week to 32 hours right now to create millions of new jobs. Under socialism the working week will progressively shorten until we reach a critical point where we finally abolish "work" as a social institution. That'll be the point when we reach communism.

A shorter working week is also vital to begin the process of socialism; after all you can only have the working class manage society if they have the time and energy to do so.

[Outinleftfield]

Indeed, rules and certain laws will still be needed. At least in a communist society that would be established in the near future.
Cause maybe in 300 years people figure a way to alter the human DNA in order to remove or constrain unwanted behavior.

That scares me. Who gets to decide how human DNA is altered? What will stop them from using it to their own advantage? What if some positive aspects of humanity are only possible from genes that also make negative aspects possible?

I think a better solution is to negate the harm of human nature. Nanobots could quickly eat up a bullet fired from a gun, or a knife about to strike someone. Even if it reached its target they could quickly repair the damage and the person wouldn't die. Death is the root of all evil. Throughout life we live in fear of death. That is why we need laws(I'm an anarchist but I believe in polycentric law negotiated by multiple organizations run on the principles of socialism and internal direct democracy), it's why people try to get so much money (limited time), and it makes war possible (without death there'd be no point). Sophisticated Nanotechnology could abolish death or make it optional(don't see why anyone in their right mind would want to die if they didn't have to, maybe get a memory wipe at some point when you've ran out of things to do and are bored though).

[Q]

I wonder if even in a "post-capitalist" society, if there would be the kind of technology that would allow work to be made optional. All though ideally work should be optional, looking at the massive infrastructure, production facilities etc that are yet to be built around the world in the least developed regions, it would seem we have a long way, maybe hundreds of years to go, before a work-optional society can come about.

Of course socialism taking power is the only way to move towards any kind of sustainable society.

Capitalism just cannot provide for all human beings, it can only bring about death and destruction.
Hundreds of years? Realistically I think 20 years would provide a large margin. I think you seriously underestimate our productive capabilities. But I can understand your mistake as the capitalist mode of production is so amazingly wasteful and inefficient and that is the only point of reference we really know well.

[Bitter Ashes]

His big thing is that we should be trying to abolish work, automate everything we can.
Has this man ever seen The Matrix, Terminator, Wargames or Wall-E? :lol:

Maybe I'm a bit of a luddite, but my fear is that too much automation makes human organisation worthless. Most likely the biggest form of organisation you'd see after work's abolished is going to be either the trivial like sports teams, or the reactionary. Substantially reducing the working week's great though. I just dont think we should allow ourselves to become too detached from things that could blow up in our face.

Indeed wouldnt humanity itself be a bit worthless? Would we become Golgafrincham's useless middle third, doomed to argue about what colour the wheel should be?

To the OP. Great post. Very inspiriing :)

[RedSonRising]

Has this man ever seen The Matrix, Terminator, Wargames or Wall-E? :lol:

Maybe I'm a bit of a luddite, but my fear is that too much automation makes human organisation worthless. Most likely the biggest form of organisation you'd see after work's abolished is going to be either the trivial like sports teams, or the reactionary. Substantially reducing the working week's great though. I just dont think we should allow ourselves to become too detached from things that could blow up in our face.

Indeed wouldnt humanity itself be a bit worthless? Would we become Golgafrincham's useless middle third, doomed to argue about what colour the wheel should be?

To the OP. Great post. Very inspiriing :)

I've always been a skeptic of machines becoming self-aware or human importance lessening. There will always be the arts and the pursuit of knowledge and thus a need for organizational, communication, and leadership skills. I agree we shouldn't become too detached, we should have us as individuals/teams maintain a watchful and involved role in production, just simply without so much of the mundane dirty work having to be done by a less willing, less efficient human that could be doing something far more lucrative for themselves or society.

[Omi]

Thanks for reminding us all of what we are fighting for, communists and anarchists alike.:cool:

[punisa]

That scares me. Who gets to decide how human DNA is altered? What will stop them from using it to their own advantage? What if some positive aspects of humanity are only possible from genes that also make negative aspects possible?

I think a better solution is to negate the harm of human nature. Nanobots could quickly eat up a bullet fired from a gun, or a knife about to strike someone. Even if it reached its target they could quickly repair the damage and the person wouldn't die. Death is the root of all evil. Throughout life we live in fear of death. That is why we need laws(I'm an anarchist but I believe in polycentric law negotiated by multiple organizations run on the principles of socialism and internal direct democracy), it's why people try to get so much money (limited time), and it makes war possible (without death there'd be no point). Sophisticated Nanotechnology could abolish death or make it optional(don't see why anyone in their right mind would want to die if they didn't have to, maybe get a memory wipe at some point when you've ran out of things to do and are bored though).

Well duh - you scare me right back :lol:
I could counter-argument your statement by saying: if you can build nanobots that would instantly eat a bullet, what if they make nanobots that will eat my brain instead? :p

Point I tried to get across is that people will figure ways to counter illegal activities in the future - thus I used "300 years from now" in my statement.
Could be DNA, could be Nanobots, could be pig fart - thing is, once reasons for crime disappear - crime will also suffer a heavy decline.

[yuon]

Lovely. Sure.

Except, at one point you say that the maxim "from each according to their ability ..." will be followed. And then you say:

As well as this, it'd mean that if you couldn't be fucked doing any of the above, you could just spend your days chilling in the sun getting blazed as fuck. With free weed on demand :-)
I have a number of abilities, and am able to do lots of stuff, if I want to fuck around all day do nothing, surely I'm not providing to the best of my abilities?

So, yes though, the real socialist aim is the abolition of work. Simply by getting rid of capitalism, we would abolish so many jobs off the bat (financial, legal etc.).

One thing, you also mention something about a socialist state. I'm not sure that the "point" of the "transition" is to slowly abolish work as such. Though, that would obviously be a result of such a transition. Do you think that this "state" would be "top-down"? That's the real thing that anarchists object to, the enforcement of the will of the government.

:cool::closedeyes:

[Q]

If I may ask, are you using a point of reference to say 20 years, and if so, which one?
It is more or less a guestimate. But factors worth considering are the production facilities that do exist right now, the time it'll take to build new industries and infrastructure and the fact that a democratically planned economy is vastly more efficient then a capitalist one. The last factor in my consideration is the fact that capitalism already creates overproduction. That's the whole reason it has crises. Socialism is just the stage taking the hurdle of overproduction and continue that to post-scarcity. In the west that would take a few years (5 to 10), in today's third world countries it would take a bit longer, but again not "hundreds of years" because of the simple point that these countries would be integrated into a global plan in which the west can send out vast quantities of industrial output and human resources to these places. Seeing how the early Soviet union developed in the 1930's, despite the limiting factor of a zigzagging bureaucracy, I have all confidense the development of Africa, the poorest and less developed continent on the planet right now, could be achieved within a timespan of 20 years, if not less.

[The Something]

Is this a review of that crappy movie surrogates? /sarcasm

Complete automation would not be good I think. To a degree I feel like it would stifle creativity and invention. I could be wrong, but I feel this to be at least a little true.

Wall-e anyone? (yes too many movie references I know I can't help it)

[Saorsa]

I have a number of abilities, and am able to do lots of stuff, if I want to fuck around all day do nothing, surely I'm not providing to the best of my abilities?

I agree, and frankly I don't think we should get hung up about whether or not our future society matches a line from a book Marx wrote in the 1800s. Marx was alive before computers, before the internet, before machinery and technology truly took off - I doubt he could even have imagined a society where work became unnecessary.

The primary goal of humanity after the revolution will not be to rigidly follow Marxist (or anarchist) doctrines to the letter. The primary goal of humanity then will be to make life as good as it can possibly be for everyone living on this planet, in a way that doesn't destroy our environment and while constantly seeking to advance our species' knowledge of the universe and how we can harness and utilise it to further improve the quality of our lives.


So, yes though, the real socialist aim is the abolition of work. Simply by getting rid of capitalism, we would abolish so many jobs off the bat (financial, legal etc.).

Definitely. Entire sectors of our current economy will just disappear.


One thing, you also mention something about a socialist state. I'm not sure that the "point" of the "transition" is to slowly abolish work as such. Though, that would obviously be a result of such a transition. Do you think that this "state" would be "top-down"? That's the real thing that anarchists object to, the enforcement of the will of the government.

I don't see it as necessarily being a slow process at all. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution finally liberating all of humanity, it would be necessary to organise the development of the former Third World, to oversee the restructuring of the economy and plan and implement the creation of automated production processes that free humans from the need to work. There will need to be, for a time at least, armed organisations of the working class to defend the gains of the revolution against possible reaction. There will still need to be prisons for a time. etc etc etc

Communism can't just be wished into existence. The material basis for it has to be created, i.e. an automated system of production that ensures complete material abundance throughout the world, and some kind of (also presumably automated) distribution system through which people can obtain the products they need. Scientists the world over would be tasked with making this possible. Until the actual, material basis for communism exists, communism (obviously) will not exist.

This wold be the primary function of a socialist state. This state would be based on democratic councils with right of recall who send representatives to various bodies that appoint delegates to various committees that oversee various matters. Transparency, accountability and right of recall at all points of the process. I don't think that's top down at all, and until a post-scarcity society is achieved throughout the world these forms of organisation would still be necessary. However, they'd be tasked very clearly with their own destruction, and we have to rely on the ability of the working masses to defeat any tendencies away from this task.


Complete automation would not be good I think. To a degree I feel like it would stifle creativity and invention.

On the contrary, it would free people to devote their energies to what they're truly passionate about. What's so conducive to creativity about being forced to work in a job you hate? Having to get up at hours you don't want to, spending your time and energy on boring tasks you couldn't care less about? In almost all my experiences of work you just go home tired. An automated, post-scarcity communist society would allow people to develop themselves in whatever directions they wished and at whatever pace suited them. Art would be freed from the need to be sold for profit, and would instead reflect only the vision of the artist. Scientists would no longer have to worry about funding, or the approval of their corporate sponsors or gray-suited government overseers, but could instead explore whatever avenues they wished in their quest to learn about the world. Humans would be free to do whateve rthey wanted, and humans don't generally like doing nothing. We're a creative species, and once our creativity in and of itself becomes the driving force behind what we create, I think it will make possible things we've never even dreamed of.

[Outinleftfield]

Is this a review of that crappy movie surrogates? /sarcasm

Complete automation would not be good I think. To a degree I feel like it would stifle creativity and invention. I could be wrong, but I feel this to be at least a little true.

Wall-e anyone? (yes too many movie references I know I can't help it)

Creativity is part of human nature. When people are completely free to do what they want they're not going to stop being creative. Automation would automate things that have to be done. From there people would be free to create without automation if they decided, just people would have a choice. I can think of a million things I'd be out doing if all work was automated.

[Pogue]

I had a total epiphany the other day. I think it's cool and I'm wondering what other people think about it. This is my vision of how living in the transition to communism will look like.

I'm warning you, it's also very rambly. But meh.

I realised that the sole true purpose and primary aim whenever and wherever possible of the state under socialism, i.e. the dictatorship of the proletariat (the one anarchists disagree with existence of to varying degrees), is to scientifically reorder the production and distribution of resources across the world, and above all the automation of the process of production, so as to drastically and universally reduce the amount of jobs that actually need to be performed by humans, and to utilise computerization, automization and robotics to create a situation where humans no longer need to work for an employer, and are free to develop themselves and work on whatever they wish in a post-scarcity society of complete material abundance (with the automated production system working to supply whatever humans demand, anywhere, any time, so that whatever you want (within limits of course) can be had without having to do anything other than request it). Once this society has been achieved, the phrase from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs can truly be practiced. A society where work is seen for what it is, i.e. slavery. All forms of work are slavery, created by a capitalist system which creates scarcity, a system that cannot be directed for the purpose of bettering all of humanity but instead requires scarcity and social disparities to exist.

Once we have a post-scarcity, post-work society, humanity's existence will be totally changed. Nations will no longer be relevant. The state will be unnecessary, although of course forms of organisation will evolve, that will be democratic in the extreme. In a society where nobody ever goes without, or even can go without (the concept of 'going without' could disappear!), noone can amass more power than anyone else, as all power is is the monopolisation of more resources than somebody else. Robbery will be meaningless. Poverty will be a distant historical memory. Crime and anti-social behaviour will drastically decline.

People could lives their lives in true freedom, as they chose. They could pursue art, science, music, sport, travelling, writing, poetry, comedy or whatever else they chose, at whatever pace and in whatever direction they chose. No more commercial pressure, pressure to create a product to be 'sold' - instead, total creative freedom. With the whole idea of 'incentives' being totally irellevant, there would be no need and no way to provide incentives to drive people to succeed. Instead, people would motivate themselves by doing things they were genuinely passionate about.

As well as this, it'd mean that if you couldn't be fucked doing any of the above, you could just spend your days chilling in the sun getting blazed as fuck. With free weed on demand :-)

Revolutionaries shouldn't fetishize work, it should be seen as a necessary evil for now and an evil to be gotten rid of as soon as possible.

In this modern, developed late capitalist world, the potential exists for a rapid (in a matter of years, in theory) process of transition from the current system to one of absolute material abundance if a democratically elected, right of recall workers state draws up a scientific plan for the reorganisation of society's resources (and the natural resources society is aimed around extracting) and the social reorganisation of humanity in order to maximise production and achieve this plan. While maximising production, equal attention must be paid to eliminating work. Under capitalism, when technology improves and less workers are needed in the production process, workers are laid off and unemployment grows. Under socialism and shortly afterwards full communism, improvements in technology and computerised automization of the production process will mean that less work and less jobs need to be done by humans, freeing us of all constraints and allowing us for the first time, ever, to be free.

However, it must be stressed that this vision of the future only applies once capitalism has fallen around the world. That is a distant goal yet. History shows that revolutions tend to happen only in the poorer, less developed countries in the world, and revolutions tend to succeed in countries only in ones and twos. Such a revolution would need to direct the state appartus and the resources of the society in question towards defence and military measures to protect the revolution from hostile capitalist nations. Survilal would have to be their priority until the revolution spread to the rest of the world, and in particular the more developed parts.

Once it did spread there, the revolutionary governments of the more developed countries would direct large portions of their countries resources to building up infrastructure and resource production processes in the less developed, formerly "Third" parts of the world. This would not take long.

A world of complete freedom. Voluntary association in every respect. Never having to do anything for anyone that you did not want to do, unless you chose to do so of your own free will. No pressures of survival. A world where you could sleep in every day, eat whatever you want whenever you want every day, a world you could wake up at whatever time you wanted and do whatever you wanted, including nothing much, with your day. A fucking paradise, and if communism is possible then please let it happen in my lifetime because I really want to retire into a society like this. I just wish I could have been born into it :-(

Half the fun is fighting for the fucking thing! :cool:

[Drace]

you could just spend your days chilling in the sun getting blazed as fuck. With free weed on demand :-)

Im not sure if I understood you right, but how the hell does this contribute to society?

[Jia]

I like all of this but I don't like weed.:crying:

Dont know why but it does not appeal to me

[amandevsingh]

I like all of this but I don't like weed.:crying:

Dont know why but it does not appeal to me

Why are you cry-faced? It is a legit opinion, which I share.

[scarletghoul]

Under communism, we will all be artists ;)

[TravisW]

I don't get how people still "roll" with communism.

It's worked terribly in the past, and I hate to say it, but everyone corrupts to a certain degree, which is why it would never work.

Capitalism isn't bad, the people who run capitalism are bad. The system of reaping what you sow is a good thing. More often then not, anyone who works hard enough can succeed. This is a good thing. It thins out the laziness in our population.

[Dimentio]

I don't get how people still "roll" with communism.

It's worked terribly in the past, and I hate to say it, but everyone corrupts to a certain degree, which is why it would never work.

Capitalism isn't bad, the people who run capitalism are bad. The system of reaping what you sow is a good thing. More often then not, anyone who works hard enough can succeed. This is a good thing. It thins out the laziness in our population.

Capitalism is not about working hard, but about making others working hard for you. In fact, the capitalists in the USA has spent the last three decades actively trying to dismantle all kinds of welfare systems established during the Bretton Woods era which benefitted workers enormously and made it possible for them to live a comparably good life. There has been no actual growth in the US working class income since 1981.

[Saorsa]

Im not sure if I understood you right, but how the hell does this contribute to society?

In a society with a self-perpetuating, automated system of production that requires minimal or even no human labour, work becomes optional and there is no obligation to 'contribute to society' in the way you view it. Instead, you can contribute to society by bettering yourself physically, emotionally, intellectually or whatever, by being a good person and making others happy, etc etc etc

How would working in a job you hate contribute to society? Espescially since, in the society I've described, it became unnecessary for you to do so? Who would force you to work against your will and without any need?

Your thinking in capitalistic terms of debt to others. Such a concept would become totally alien in a society of voluntary association.

[#FF0000]

It's worked terribly in the past, and I hate to say it, but everyone corrupts to a certain degree, which is why it would never work.

Is that why it worked terribly in the past? Please, back that statement up.


Capitalism isn't bad, the people who run capitalism are bad.

Oh so it's a problem of individuals then. All the people who have had a hand at "running capitalism" just happened to be bad people then, right? For 200 years straight? All just really similar dudes?


The system of reaping what you sow is a good thing. More often then not, anyone who works hard enough can succeed. This is a good thing. It thins out the laziness in our population.

That's a pretty lazy analysis I think. Have you ever read any Marxist critique of capitalism? Perhaps Capital by Karl Marx himself?

[bcbm]

It thins out the laziness in our population.

why is laziness a bad thing?

[CELMX]

I'm not trying to sound reactionary, off topic or trolly, but just wondering...
what if youngsters get bored and try to get into trouble? For example, if people start murdering, stealing, etc., who would stop them? If everyone could just relax and create, would there be honestly anyone who would want to be a police? I mean, a goal of the revolution is to get rid of this capitalist police force...
would society, the community, take care of crimes? :confused:
and would there be any jails, etc. ?!?!

[the last donut of the night]

I'm not trying to sound reactionary, off topic or trolly, but just wondering...
what if youngsters get bored and try to get into trouble? For example, if people start murdering, stealing, etc., who would stop them? If everyone could just relax and create, would there be honestly anyone who would want to be a police? I mean, a goal of the revolution is to get rid of this capitalist police force...
would society, the community, take care of crimes? :confused:
and would there be any jails, etc. ?!?!

Well, I've come across that thought before. But then I realized that these behaviors always come out of an over-worked, over-stressed, over-exploitative society. Working class youths lash out because they feel hopeless, because they see no future aside from drugs or prison or prostitution.

A communist society would abolish the fear so much people have today ("will I have food to eat tomorrow?") of the future. People will feel secure because they know that they have a society which provides them security. Crime would be an outdated and strange concept.

[CELMX]

Well, I've come across that thought before. But then I realized that these behaviors always come out of an over-worked, over-stressed, over-exploitative society. Working class youths lash out because they feel hopeless, because they see no future aside from drugs or prison or prostitution.

A communist society would abolish the fear so much people have today ("will I have food to eat tomorrow?") of the future. People will feel secure because they know that they have a society which provides them security. Crime would be an outdated and strange concept.

I totally understand that this kind of crime would be outdated, but what about crimes out of boredom?
It seems to me that even people who are well off need an adrenaline rush, and go out and do something badass, like doing criminal activity.
How will this boredom be resolved? And if people do this kind of crime, then how will society deal with it?

[the last donut of the night]

I totally understand that this kind of crime would be outdated, but what about crimes out of boredom?
It seems to me that even people who are well off need an adrenaline rush, and go out and do something badass, like doing criminal activity.
How will this boredom be resolved? And if people do this kind of crime, then how will society deal with it?

I'm not sure we can determine if teenage crimes are truly born from boredom. As a teenager, I know that we do the stupid shit we love doing because it's more a way to vent than boredom itself. We go to school stressed and angry, and we return to even worse homes. Many of us succumb to this cynical view of life at 17, where nothing is good. On weekends, we get in fights, burn up shit, and do drugs because life is tough. We need to cope someway if we don't know about socialism.

Very few crimes come out of true boredom.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Indeed, rules and certain laws will still be needed. At least in a communist society that would be established in the near future.
Cause maybe in 300 years people figure a way to alter the human DNA in order to remove or constrain unwanted behavior.Seriously? DNA has nothing to do with behavior. If you want to prevent unwanted behaviors, you need to figure out what conditions cause these behaviors. Maybe one day science can eliminate genetically passed-down conditions by altering genes that cause a propensity for manic-depression or schizophrenia and things like that, but that's not changing the behaviors, that's still changing the conditions that can lead to certain behaviors.

Violence and other anti-social behavior varies within societies and throughout recorded history so I think things like inequality or dysfunctional institutions (like modern prisons and even some modern school systems) are the root causes of the vast majority of anti-social behaviors.

On a side note, even when it comes to things that can be altered genetically, scientists have found only a handful of genes that impact only one particular physical feature. So, for example, maybe they can identify the male-pattern baldness gene, but if you alter that you get hair on your head but also hair on your eyelids or a vestigial tail or something.

[red cat]

Under communism, we will all be artists ;)And scientists too !! :)

[Yazman]

To those who talk of "paradise" etc.


This is not a "paradise." Remember that there will still be problems, some different than we experience today, and some quite similar. Racism, sexism, homophobia etc will likely exist in some forms for example.

"Better" doesn't mean "paradise." Unless you call capitalism paradise in comparison to feudalism..

[the last donut of the night]

To those who talk of "paradise" etc.


This is not a "paradise." Remember that there will still be problems, some different than we experience today, and some quite similar. Racism, sexism, homophobia etc will likely exist in some forms for example.

"Better" doesn't mean "paradise." Unless you call capitalism paradise in comparison to feudalism..

We don't call it paradise. We are using scientific methods to talk about this.

Tell me, how will racism, sexism and homophobia exist?

The material nor social conditions that promote them won't exist anymore.

[Saorsa]

Remember that there will still be problems, some different than we experience today, and some quite similar. Racism, sexism, homophobia etc will likely exist in some forms for example.

Of course there will still be problems, life is never problem free. But I actually find it pretty unlikely that sexism, racism, homophobia etc will persist for that long, because as Manatee points out their material basis will disappear.