A Camping Trip

[Pavlov's House Party]

Not to long ago I was looking through a bookstore and came across this little pamphlet called something along the lines of "Why Socialism?". The author uses an analogy of a camping trip throughout the pamphlet to highlight why capitalism is contrary to human behaviour and cooperation: on a camping trip, the campers all share their resources collectively and freely, and that the privitization of resources on a such a trip is absurd.

Because Paul starts a fire, does he charge his fellow campers to cook their food on it? If Sarah is good at catching fish, does she keep all her catch, and sell some to her friends? If John finds the campsite first, must everyone else pay him rent to stay there? The answer is no, and anyone who would do such stuff would be shunned by their fellow campers and excluded from the group.

[redSHARP]

simple analogy. i like it, but its application to the real world might be difficult.

[Revolte_Wolf]

simple analogy. i like it, but its application to the real world might be difficult.

well that's more of the "real" world then the concrete jungle. Think about it, when people go on camping trips they go with the mindset of "spending time in nature" and because of this they work in ways that are more "real" then back in the city. If you ask me it isn't hard at all to apply it to the city world, its just a matter of getting what you may have grew up with out of your head and being, well, human. The HARD part is that it has to happen collectively for it to have an effect, and with people thinking their offsprings of god, it may be troublesome to get through, but in the end what has ever been worth while without an extreme amount of effort?

[Dean]

well that's more of the "real" world then the concrete jungle. Think about it, when people go on camping trips they go with the mindset of "spending time in nature" and because of this they work in ways that are more "real" then back in the city. If you ask me it isn't hard at all to apply it to the city world, its just a matter of getting what you may have grew up with out of your head and being, well, human. The HARD part is that it has to happen collectively for it to have an effect, and with people thinking their offsprings of god, it may be troublesome to get through, but in the end what has ever been worth while without an extreme amount of effort?

I didn't take the original post very seriously until your response. Very good point! :thumbup1:

[Konstantine]

Good analogy. On a camping trip, the campers need to work together or else they won't be able to stay out very long. In our modern world, the capitalist governments give us such an excess of resources that we feel we never have to work with our fellow man to survive. We're all perfectly great by ourselves.

This excess is what they use to diminish human kind's innate desire to work together.

[Peace on Earth]

The only problem with the camping analogy is the close bond shared between campers compared to the loose bonds formed between members of regular society. On a camping trip surrounded by people I know well, it wouldn't benefit me socially to withhold fire, fish, or room to pitch a tent. However, many don't seem to care charging others to use basic things like food or land.

It's much easier to engage in a communal style of living with a) a small number of people and b) a group of people you know well, as opposed to a large mobile population that makes it difficult to develope any sort of bonds with a majority of people.

[synthesis]

The main problem is that the lessons we learn from camping are not the same lessons that will be useful in the modern day. The principal omission in the OP is the issue of scarcity.

When we go camping, we pack enough food, or else we're never really in danger of going without it, unless we're dumb or careless. Before the rise of what we call modern civilization, however, that safety net wasn't there. So, yes, we did develop positive social instincts, but in so doing we also learned to distinguish between the "self" and the "other," as well as all sorts of other nasty-but-natural habits.

The "self" - extended family and such - we'd be perfectly happy to share our fish with them, even to the point of starvation. The "other" - those folks in the next forest over - well, they come second to the "self." If we're starving, we'll feed them after ourselves, if at all. In fact, if we're starving, we might as well take their fish, too, because they're not "us."

So the extrapolation is ultimately incomplete. We do have "natural" socialistic impulses, but we have a lot of other "natural impulses" that have also carried over into modern civilization. The answer is not in holistically embracing our animalistic tendencies - it is in using the fruits of modern civilization to bolster those which will help us as a species and to overcome those which will not.

[LeftSideDown]

Also the fact camping trips are generally temporary creates an environment where longterm survival isn't really in question. They are not really producing anything, nor are they engaging in trade since neither of these are necessary for them. There is no question of "1000 barrels of oil or 6000 bushels of wheat", economic calculation isn't really a problem since there really isn't all that much economic activity occurring.

[synthesis]

Also the fact camping trips are generally temporary creates an environment where longterm survival isn't really in question. They are not really producing anything, nor are they engaging in trade since neither of these are necessary for them. There is no question of "1000 barrels of oil or 6000 bushels of wheat", economic calculation isn't really a problem since there really isn't all that much economic activity occurring.

What exactly are you saying here?

[Zanthorus]

He's repeating the old Austrian canard about the impossibility of rational economic calculation in a planned economy.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Haha i liked that! To make it even clearer we could show how sick it would bee if we aded another character, Jerry, who doesnt do anything eccept giving orders. He says wen evrybody should get up in the morning and decides who will do what, and wen evrybody has cooked food Jerry gets all of it and gives just a small portion to each of the otherones. Some will get a little more and some will get a little less, that will divide them and make them and hopfully distract them from questioning why Jerry has the right to decide evrything.