Hierarchies, human nature, and capitalism debate

[Gio]

Greetings commrades :). I've been a lurker on here for a very long time, and have just now decided to make an account and join the family.

But I need help right now. I am currently locked into a massive debate with a guy who I used to go to high school with. He is pretty far right in his beliefs, but he is not a "libertarian", nor is he a fascist (yet). Our debate is mainly centered on human nature, and whether hierarchies are just a natural part of being human, or a by-product of the capitalist system. We're also discussing the true meaning of socialism. He maintains the typical Glenn Beck mentality that anyone who just likes big government handouts is a socialist, and therefore, a socialist is merely anyone who likes big government. In my last addition to our argument, I explained, the best that I could have, private property and it's relation to the state, and what the capitalist does to keep being a capitalist (labour surplus value stuff). I thought I did a great job, but I guess it wasn't worded well enough, or this guys is very ignorant.

This was his response to my argument:

A nice steamy pile of naive utopian dreaming.

Where to begin...

Since my entire thesis relies on the fact that humans do create hierarchies everywhere, that's where I'll start. I'm well aware that dogs are not humans, but they do share a trait. Think of having three or four dogs at home, if you've ever seen it almost consistently you'll find one the leader, and one trying to become the leader. All of the dogs will follow the lead of the head dog. Your insinuation that we should all desire to obey is completely bogus. Biologically, why would one ever cease trying to become the head, the alpha? The goal of life has always been reproduction, and the head gets more of that. To the contrary, we all should desire to overthrow the system, our parents, the government. We all resent authoritative figures, because we want to be in charge.

Back to the dogs, the top dog will be challenged, and challenged regularly. If the challenger wins, he's ahead. Your assumption that it is necessary to indoctrinate in order to breed compliance is half true. It's not necessarily implemented to avoid all rebellion completely, only to increase the space in-between challenges, I feel I'm not explaining this well enough, but you should get what I mean.

That said, there is something to be said about subconscious hierarchy. For instance, while in your group there is no defined or officially established hierarchy, there is a subconscious one. You would have more sway than him, and you might bend to the will of say Peter Kropotkin without even invoking a vote. When someone asks a question, who is the one everyone automatically looks to for an answer? What if they don't know the answer, who do they go to? Now, I'm sure you'll tell me that your group looks at no one, or rather everyone looks at everyone else, but this is not true. Someone is looked at first. Even in families, there is a hierarchy. The parents are looked to first. There are natural hierarchies EVERYWHERE. And if you look at the natural ones, such as the family, you'll realize that it's set up so the most powerful or most knowledgeable one is typically on top.

Also, you failed to explain how evolution was anything but capitalistic. I would love to hear an explanation as to how fighting for resources was in any way a proponent to socialism.

Now that we've established that human hierarchy is natural, I would like to talk about your assertion that all workers are doomed to a factory job, and will never be able to acquire their own stakes in the world.

First, let's talk about small business. Most our outlets. They don't make, or harvest the goods they sell. Hardware stores, restaurants, etc. But, there are some that do. For instance farms. Farms are small businesses that produce everything they have from seed, whether it's seed they bought or seed from last season it's still seed. Also, just because there are big businesses harvesting a lot of resources, it does not make it automatically impossible for one person to start a corporation. You act like everything has been monopolized. That it's impossible to start a restaurant because McDonald's is around. It's impossible to start a steel mill because of Geneva steel. It's not, or else there would be no small business left. In fact, small businesses can create capital due to the fact that they are not big corporations, there is a huge market for that, and that is part of the capitalist system. By that I mean, people can regulate the market without a government. No one is telling you that you absolutely must use the biggest corporation's product.

Now that we're on the subject, let's talk about the free market. Certainly, at some level there must be government intervention in the market, but indirectly. No one should monitor business or prevent growth.Businesses should not be bailed out, should be allowed to die etc. The only thing the government should monitor in the free market is monopoly, and human rights. What I mean is the government should regulate at what point a person becomes a slave, and they've kind-of done this by instituting minimum wage, the response was the send labor overseas, which is an effective work around that could be nullified. However, in all honesty we're helping the people over seas who are happy to be making their $5 a week. We could also be helping them, and giving them charity, but that is not something that should be controlled by the state. No one should be REQUIRED to give away money they worked for.

As for the commonwealth proposal, you fail to recognize a simple constant. Human beings always push. They poke, and prod, and figure out HOW MUCH THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH. Commonwealth will never, ever work Gia! It's a utopian concept It's unrealistic! Even if you could get everyone on Earth to agree to that kind of system, and no one abused it, what about their children? And their children? You said yourself no one wants to obey, we're all rebellious. You cannot rely on people's good will in economics!

I can almost see your response now, something about how the government could limit how much is taken. Well there are three problems with this. First of all, people would have zero inventive to work. If you were going to reward people with living even if they did not work, or did not work very hard they would not have incentive to do anything.

The second problem is how would you assign menial work? Factory work? Garbage duty? You can't simply share all the menial work for the same reason as the first. There would be no incentive to work hard to avoid these menial jobs! How would you decide who got education in what? Standardized testing? You of all people must know how laughable basing futures off of standardized testing is.

The third problem is moral. Why would you limit humans? You are creating equilibrium between all humans which as good as it sounds is a BAD thing. You may be bringing the quality of living up for the poor, but you're also bringing the quality of living DOWN for those who are working hard and can take advantage of their surroundings!

I knew that there was no system you could propose, and neither can I. There is simply no system that can control such complex human beings. But expecting them all to put into everyone's common interest is naive. It's not human.

Socialism does have a shared flaw with capitalism, the possibility of tyrannical governments. Your form of Socialism because of the power vacuum created by the lack of any leader, and capitalism because of the need to regulate human rights in order to establish a fair free market. While I think capitalism would last much longer before needing one, and is a fairer system, I think that regular revolutions would be required to avoid tyranny in both cases.

-------------------------------------------------

Just by reading a lot of the things on this forum, I can see that most of you guys are far more well read than I. With that being said, could one of you maybe find the time to help me formulate a solid response to this ass-hat? This debate has lasted for almost a week now, and I am very tired of it. I just want to tell him something that will once and for all prove him wrong, and prove to all of the spectators that socialism is the only way to go, and that capitalism is fucking the world, and the working class over.

In solidarity.

[SonofRage]

TL; DR

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

[Tim Cornelis]

Greetings commrades :). I've been a lurker on here for a very long time, and have just now decided to make an account and join the family.

Comrade, I will try to the best of my abilities to gloriously retort, armed with scientific Marxism, the reactionary drivel and propaganda the reactionary has spewn. For the motherland.

Sorry of it sounds incoherent.


But I need help right now. I am currently locked into a massive debate with a guy who I used to go to high school with. He is pretty far right in his beliefs, but he is not a "libertarian", nor is he a fascist (yet). Our debate is mainly centered on human nature, and whether hierarchies are just a natural part of being human, or a by-product of the capitalist system. We're also discussing the true meaning of socialism. He maintains the typical Glenn Beck mentality that anyone who just likes big government handouts is a socialist, and therefore, a socialist is merely anyone who likes big government. In my last addition to our argument, I explained, the best that I could have, private property and it's relation to the state, and what the capitalist does to keep being a capitalist (labour surplus value stuff). I thought I did a great job, but I guess it wasn't worded well enough, or this guys is very ignorant.

This was his response to my argument:

Speak of "socialist mode of production" instead of socialism. We Marxists have monopolised that one, so he can't deny that the Sweden has the captialist mode of production.

A nice steamy pile of naive utopian dreaming.


Where to begin...

Since my entire thesis relies on the fact that humans do create hierarchies everywhere, that's where I'll start. I'm well aware that dogs are not humans, but they do share a trait. Think of having three or four dogs at home, if you've ever seen it almost consistently you'll find one the leader, and one trying to become the leader. All of the dogs will follow the lead of the head dog. Your insinuation that we should all desire to obey is completely bogus. Biologically, why would one ever cease trying to become the head, the alpha? The goal of life has always been reproduction, and the head gets more of that. To the contrary, we all should desire to overthrow the system, our parents, the government. We all resent authoritative figures, because we want to be in charge.

Humans are different than non-human animals. We have social skills with which we can manipulate social groups to bring down the alpha male.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081003122549.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways
http://libcom.org/history/origins-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism-christopher-boehm

In the same spirit. If a millionaires gain an advantage over the majority of men (working class, predominantly) in terms of alpha-male status, then it's in their interest to bring him down to their own level for the sake of attracting a partner for reproduction, as you would say.

Informal or ad-hoc leadership is not problematic, as long as decision-making power is equally distributed amongst all involved.


That said, there is something to be said about subconscious hierarchy. For instance, while in your group there is no defined or officially established hierarchy, there is a subconscious one. You would have more sway than him, and you might bend to the will of say Peter Kropotkin without even invoking a vote. When someone asks a question, who is the one everyone automatically looks to for an answer? What if they don't know the answer, who do they go to? Now, I'm sure you'll tell me that your group looks at no one, or rather everyone looks at everyone else, but this is not true. Someone is looked at first. Even in families, there is a hierarchy. The parents are looked to first. There are natural hierarchies EVERYWHERE. And if you look at the natural ones, such as the family, you'll realize that it's set up so the most powerful or most knowledgeable one is typically on top.

Can't process this, but, it sounds maybe like a naturallistic fallacy / appeal to nature?


Also, you failed to explain how evolution was anything but capitalistic. I would love to hear an explanation as to how fighting for resources was in any way a proponent to socialism.

Not sure if it's interpreted correctly, but:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23529849


Now that we've established that human hierarchy is natural, I would like to talk about your assertion that all workers are doomed to a factory job, and will never be able to acquire their own stakes in the world.

First, let's talk about small business. Most our outlets. They don't make, or harvest the goods they sell. Hardware stores, restaurants, etc. But, there are some that do. For instance farms. Farms are small businesses that produce everything they have from seed, whether it's seed they bought or seed from last season it's still seed. Also, just because there are big businesses harvesting a lot of resources, it does not make it automatically impossible for one person to start a corporation. You act like everything has been monopolized. That it's impossible to start a restaurant because McDonald's is around. It's impossible to start a steel mill because of Geneva steel. It's not, or else there would be no small business left. In fact, small businesses can create capital due to the fact that they are not big corporations, there is a huge market for that, and that is part of the capitalist system. By that I mean, people can regulate the market without a government. No one is telling you that you absolutely must use the biggest corporation's product.

wut... I'll get back at this tommorrow.


Now that we're on the subject, let's talk about the free market. Certainly, at some level there must be government intervention in the market, but indirectly. No one should monitor business or prevent growth.Businesses should not be bailed out, should be allowed to die etc. The only thing the government should monitor in the free market is monopoly, and human rights. What I mean is the government should regulate at what point a person becomes a slave, and they've kind-of done this by instituting minimum wage, the response was the send labor overseas, which is an effective work around that could be nullified. However, in all honesty we're helping the people over seas who are happy to be making their $5 a week. We could also be helping them, and giving them charity, but that is not something that should be controlled by the state. No one should be REQUIRED to give away money they worked for.


As for the commonwealth proposal, you fail to recognize a simple constant. Human beings always push. They poke, and prod, and figure out HOW MUCH THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH. Commonwealth will never, ever work Gia! It's a utopian concept It's unrealistic! Even if you could get everyone on Earth to agree to that kind of system, and no one abused it, what about their children? And their children? You said yourself no one wants to obey, we're all rebellious. You cannot rely on people's good will in economics!

I don't understand how this relates to socialism. Surely


I can almost see your response now, something about how the government could limit how much is taken. Well there are three problems with this. First of all, people would have zero inventive to work. If you were going to reward people with living even if they did not work, or did not work very hard they would not have incentive to do anything.

The second problem is how would you assign menial work? Factory work? Garbage duty? You can't simply share all the menial work for the same reason as the first. There would be no incentive to work hard to avoid these menial jobs! How would you decide who got education in what? Standardized testing? You of all people must know how laughable basing futures off of standardized testing is.

The third problem is moral. Why would you limit humans? You are creating equilibrium between all humans which as good as it sounds is a BAD thing. You may be bringing the quality of living up for the poor, but you're also bringing the quality of living DOWN for those who are working hard and can take advantage of their surroundings!

I knew that there was no system you could propose, and neither can I. There is simply no system that can control such complex human beings. But expecting them all to put into everyone's common interest is naive. It's not human.

Socialism does have a shared flaw with capitalism, the possibility of tyrannical governments. Your form of Socialism because of the power vacuum created by the lack of any leader, and capitalism because of the need to regulate human rights in order to establish a fair free market. While I think capitalism would last much longer before needing one, and is a fairer system, I think that regular revolutions would be required to avoid tyranny in both cases.

-------------------------------------------------

Just by reading a lot of the things on this forum, I can see that most of you guys are far more well read than I. With that being said, could one of you maybe find the time to help me formulate a solid response to this ass-hat? This debate has lasted for almost a week now, and I am very tired of it. I just want to tell him something that will once and for all prove him wrong, and prove to all of the spectators that socialism is the only way to go, and that capitalism is fucking the world, and the working class over.

In solidarity.

okay. Tomorrow. Night, night.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

TL; DR

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

Cool post


Greetings commrades :). I've been a lurker on here for a very long time, and have just now decided to make an account and join the family.

But I need help right now. I am currently locked into a massive debate with a guy who I used to go to high school with. He is pretty far right in his beliefs, but he is not a "libertarian", nor is he a fascist (yet). Our debate is mainly centered on human nature, and whether hierarchies are just a natural part of being human, or a by-product of the capitalist system. We're also discussing the true meaning of socialism. He maintains the typical Glenn Beck mentality that anyone who just likes big government handouts is a socialist, and therefore, a socialist is merely anyone who likes big government. In my last addition to our argument, I explained, the best that I could have, private property and it's relation to the state, and what the capitalist does to keep being a capitalist (labour surplus value stuff). I thought I did a great job, but I guess it wasn't worded well enough, or this guys is very ignorant.

This was his response to my argument:

A nice steamy pile of naive utopian dreaming.

Where to begin...

Since my entire thesis relies on the fact that humans do create hierarchies everywhere, that's where I'll start. I'm well aware that dogs are not humans, but they do share a trait. Think of having three or four dogs at home, if you've ever seen it almost consistently you'll find one the leader, and one trying to become the leader. All of the dogs will follow the lead of the head dog. Your insinuation that we should all desire to obey is completely bogus. Biologically, why would one ever cease trying to become the head, the alpha? The goal of life has always been reproduction, and the head gets more of that. To the contrary, we all should desire to overthrow the system, our parents, the government. We all resent authoritative figures, because we want to be in charge.

Back to the dogs, the top dog will be challenged, and challenged regularly. If the challenger wins, he's ahead. Your assumption that it is necessary to indoctrinate in order to breed compliance is half true. It's not necessarily implemented to avoid all rebellion completely, only to increase the space in-between challenges, I feel I'm not explaining this well enough, but you should get what I mean.

That said, there is something to be said about subconscious hierarchy. For instance, while in your group there is no defined or officially established hierarchy, there is a subconscious one. You would have more sway than him, and you might bend to the will of say Peter Kropotkin without even invoking a vote. When someone asks a question, who is the one everyone automatically looks to for an answer? What if they don't know the answer, who do they go to? Now, I'm sure you'll tell me that your group looks at no one, or rather everyone looks at everyone else, but this is not true. Someone is looked at first. Even in families, there is a hierarchy. The parents are looked to first. There are natural hierarchies EVERYWHERE. And if you look at the natural ones, such as the family, you'll realize that it's set up so the most powerful or most knowledgeable one is typically on top.

Also, you failed to explain how evolution was anything but capitalistic. I would love to hear an explanation as to how fighting for resources was in any way a proponent to socialism.

Now that we've established that human hierarchy is natural, I would like to talk about your assertion that all workers are doomed to a factory job, and will never be able to acquire their own stakes in the world.

First, let's talk about small business. Most our outlets. They don't make, or harvest the goods they sell. Hardware stores, restaurants, etc. But, there are some that do. For instance farms. Farms are small businesses that produce everything they have from seed, whether it's seed they bought or seed from last season it's still seed. Also, just because there are big businesses harvesting a lot of resources, it does not make it automatically impossible for one person to start a corporation. You act like everything has been monopolized. That it's impossible to start a restaurant because McDonald's is around. It's impossible to start a steel mill because of Geneva steel. It's not, or else there would be no small business left. In fact, small businesses can create capital due to the fact that they are not big corporations, there is a huge market for that, and that is part of the capitalist system. By that I mean, people can regulate the market without a government. No one is telling you that you absolutely must use the biggest corporation's product.

Now that we're on the subject, let's talk about the free market. Certainly, at some level there must be government intervention in the market, but indirectly. No one should monitor business or prevent growth.Businesses should not be bailed out, should be allowed to die etc. The only thing the government should monitor in the free market is monopoly, and human rights. What I mean is the government should regulate at what point a person becomes a slave, and they've kind-of done this by instituting minimum wage, the response was the send labor overseas, which is an effective work around that could be nullified. However, in all honesty we're helping the people over seas who are happy to be making their $5 a week. We could also be helping them, and giving them charity, but that is not something that should be controlled by the state. No one should be REQUIRED to give away money they worked for.

As for the commonwealth proposal, you fail to recognize a simple constant. Human beings always push. They poke, and prod, and figure out HOW MUCH THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH. Commonwealth will never, ever work Gia! It's a utopian concept It's unrealistic! Even if you could get everyone on Earth to agree to that kind of system, and no one abused it, what about their children? And their children? You said yourself no one wants to obey, we're all rebellious. You cannot rely on people's good will in economics!

I can almost see your response now, something about how the government could limit how much is taken. Well there are three problems with this. First of all, people would have zero inventive to work. If you were going to reward people with living even if they did not work, or did not work very hard they would not have incentive to do anything.

The second problem is how would you assign menial work? Factory work? Garbage duty? You can't simply share all the menial work for the same reason as the first. There would be no incentive to work hard to avoid these menial jobs! How would you decide who got education in what? Standardized testing? You of all people must know how laughable basing futures off of standardized testing is.

The third problem is moral. Why would you limit humans? You are creating equilibrium between all humans which as good as it sounds is a BAD thing. You may be bringing the quality of living up for the poor, but you're also bringing the quality of living DOWN for those who are working hard and can take advantage of their surroundings!

I knew that there was no system you could propose, and neither can I. There is simply no system that can control such complex human beings. But expecting them all to put into everyone's common interest is naive. It's not human.

Socialism does have a shared flaw with capitalism, the possibility of tyrannical governments. Your form of Socialism because of the power vacuum created by the lack of any leader, and capitalism because of the need to regulate human rights in order to establish a fair free market. While I think capitalism would last much longer before needing one, and is a fairer system, I think that regular revolutions would be required to avoid tyranny in both cases.

-------------------------------------------------

Just by reading a lot of the things on this forum, I can see that most of you guys are far more well read than I. With that being said, could one of you maybe find the time to help me formulate a solid response to this ass-hat? This debate has lasted for almost a week now, and I am very tired of it. I just want to tell him something that will once and for all prove him wrong, and prove to all of the spectators that socialism is the only way to go, and that capitalism is fucking the world, and the working class over.

In solidarity.

I would suggest saving yourself some time and frustration and just end the conversation, it's unlikely that you'll change his mind since it doesn't actually sound like he has all that great of a grasp of his own side in the argument. I mean, hes using dogs to explain 'natural' human hierarchies. He's clueless and just spouting a weird combination of neo-liberal and libertarian talking points.

Anyway, If you're interested in what Marx has to say about human nature I would start with wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_human_nature and then maybe work your way through one of the marx for beginners reading lists that are posted all over the place here if you're looking for more.

[Gio]

Thank you so much for the help. I truly appreciate it. Though I am sorry that this guy does not know how to speak proper English.

I would also like to tell you that this kid used to go to high school everyday wearing a suit, and instead of using a bag for his books and whatnot, he would carry around a briefcase. Everyone called him "suit-kid" :lol:

This will probably be the last time that I engage him in an argument. We've been at each others necks for years, and I cannot withstand anymore of his reactionary bullshit. Ethics Gradient, I think that you are right by suggesting that he won't change his mind. He's already decided who he wants to be and will ignorantly defend his image at all costs. But I have to put him in his place one final time... For the motherland >:)

[Rafiq]

Humans are different than non-human animals. We have social skills with which we can manipulate social groups to bring down the alpha male.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081003122549.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways
http://libcom.org/history/origins-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism-christopher-boehm


All primates possess the capability to "bring down the alpha male". The point is that humans were the first to, for whatever spontaneous or coincidental reason, destroy the cycle of the alpha male. Even after the neolithic revolution the cycle remains dead as far as human relations go. A capitalist is not an alpha male. The only instances from which we can see an "alpha male" are completely individual, i.e. certain households, a gang, and so on. What differentiates humans from animals is precisely that we organize into mode(s) of production.

Morons speak of how the alpha male cycle still lives on, only the alpha male = an oppressive regime, categorizing governments, bodies of legal authority as a single "alpha male". According to them, revolutions are self defeating, because in the end "another alpha male takes place". But this misses the point of what a revolution actually is. If revolutions didn't change anything, I wouldn't be communicating with anyone right now over this computer, capitalism would have never existed and the very state-legalist system which allows me to convey this information would have never existed. This is why hegelian dialectics is essential for us communists, we must recognize history, and life is not a circle, but a spiral.

[Red HalfGuard]

You do realize that sociobiology is psuedoscience, right OP? Just give him some Stephen Jay Gould.

[Le Socialiste]

TL; DR

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

SoR, if you don't have anything worthwhile to say I have a simple solution for you: don't say it at all. Moreover, this is Learning - trollish posts and dismissive one-liners like the one above are not acceptable here. In line with the new rules about posting in Learning, I'll have to infract you for this post.

Please refrain from making posts like this in the future.

[argeiphontes]

The other posters are right, the biggest part of his argument succumbs to the naturalistic fallacy and the is-ought problem. But it also begs the question: capitalism isn't a natural system. He's asking you to assume that it is. The "natural hierarchy" among people (which actually could just be differences in gregariousness or whatever) doesn't extend to artificial institutions like an economic system that's created and managed by artificial rules.

He's also begging the question as to which system is based on self-interest and which is a pie-in-the-sky utopia based on altruism. His capitalist utopia could never work. Bank of America loves the government, they just want it for themselves and not for the people. Anarcho-capitalism would just have crisis after crisis.

In fact, he fails to mention any of the other ways that capitalism is an unreal utopia based on unrealistic incentives. Not all human needs can be met through commodity fetishism or reification of the economic. Sounds like he needs to read Fromm's "Marx's Concept of Man.

(Speaking of psychoanalysis, if he's wearing a suit to high school it sounds like he has personal problems and is looking for a way to differentiate himself as the alpha male in response to not feeling valuable. ;)1 Seems like it's always capitalists that are comparing people to a bunch of dogs or monkeys. If you're not the lead dog all you see is ass, right?)

Just one more thing, about the garbage pickup, since it's a good illustration of a social-reproductive task: It's the lack of garbage that justifies garbage collection, not anything else. Garbage collection isn't a threat (negative incentive or whatever) like going to hell, and it's not something that a socialist or communist society would do out of "altruism". Garbage pickup is in my self-interest and in his self-interest. Just because he thinks he's beneath doing it doesn't mean we won't make him do it after the revolution ;)1

[Alan OldStudent]

Greetings commrades :). I've been a lurker on here for a very long time, and have just now decided to make an account and join the family.
Welcome aboard, Comrade Gio.

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I am currently locked into a massive debate with a guy who I used to go to high school with.
Perhaps what you need to do is ask yourself a few questions.



Are you friends with this guy, or is it that you're "frenemies"?
Do you think the two of you can learn something from each other?

I have friends who are pretty far to the right of me, and we sometimes talk. I feel we can learn something from each other. What I get out of it is a deeper understanding of where the friend is coming from, the uncertainties and fears that make so many American workers so conservative (I live in the United States).

Every time I talk with him, I understand more of how my friend sees the world. So-called American "conservatives" often feel a haunting and gnawing anxiety in this world, a sense of degeneration and gloom all around them. The extreme right wing feel a certain sense of hopelessness, of desperation. That's what's behind so much of the fear, the paranoia, the delusional conspiracy theories of the most reactionary elements of the American right. I feel I can make some headway talking to my friend about the kookiness of the extreme reactionaries.

But there are other acquaintances of mine I do not talk politics with at all. That's because they are more interested in engaging in pissing contests than having an exchange of views. Their interest is in attempting to see who can prove the other guy is wrong. It's more a sport, a contest, or even a defense of all they hold dear, which is a simplistic vision of what once was during some mythical golden age, of a make-believe gentle era where everyone was "middle class," had decent values, and got along.

So I only discuss politics with folks if I think they will listen to what I say and consider it seriously and honestly, and in turn, I listen to them seriously and honestly. The only exception is if I am in a public debate or discourse, hoping to sway an audience.

Thus my first question to you, Comrade Gio, is this: Are you more interested in putting your friend down or do you think you can influence him in some way?

The thing is that you can't do both, you know. We leftists need to remember that.

It sounds to me like you're much more willing to listen to him and think about what he says seriously than he may be willing to hear you. You seem to be willing to listen to others and evaluate what they say critically and with an open mind.

Do you think he's as willing to listen to you?
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Let's assume your friend wants to have an intelligent exchange. He sums up your argument like this:


A nice steamy pile of naive utopian dreaming.That's a rather unappetizing visual, a steamy pile of excrement that is a naïve utopian dream. He seems to be saying that your view of human nature is unrealistic, as opposed to his hard-headed and realistic view of human nature—a view of human nature that says evolution hard-wired us to be greedy, self-centered, contentious, grasping, violent, ill-tempered beasts. And he bases his whole argument on this unchanging view of human nature.

It strikes me that this dismal and doleful theory is nothing more a secular version of the Christian dogma of original sin. Is your friend a Christian? If not, he certainly seems to have accepted the original theory dogma as scientific fact.

To support this lugubrious and rigid point of view, he compares humans to dogs, who are pack animals. Apparently, you called him on that and yet he still defends it, saying that it is in human nature for someone to always be jockeying for the alpha position.

I would say his definition of human nature is quite rigid and dogmatic. This bit of conventional wisdom is quite popular in our culture, but it is also quite unscientific. To question it is (to use the current term favored by so many reactionaries) not "politically correct."

However, the facts of evolutionary biology contradict the human-nature-is-dog-nature theory for reasons that other comrades point out here and in similar threads. After all, we humans have spent most of our history in hunter-gatherer societies. The neolithic revolution (start of fixed settlements, agriculture, civilization, writing, etc) only started about 10,000 years ago, and our species, homo sapiens sapiens, is about 180,000 to 200,000 years old.

That means we spent about 95% of our history as in hunter-gatherers.

Hunter-gatherer societies cannot function unless there is a level of cooperation and sharing. There was a division of labor, with men doing the hunting and women doing the gathering. Hunting could not be relied upon exclusively and depended on the availability of big game. The women did the gathering which was much more reliable. They maintained the fires, raised the children, developed basic technologies such as weaving, cooking, leather tanning, shelter maintenance. They learned about the herbs, fruits, vegetables, cooking acorns into mush, healing, and story telling, and they gave the children the gift of language. When the men came back from the hunt, the women cooked the game, as well as the insects they caught, small game they captured, and fruits and vegetables they scavenged. All shared the food all around, whether hunted or gathered. Life was like that for around 95% of the time humanity has walked on the face of our planet. Think about that for a few moments! That should give us a sense of respect and even a sense of humility.

Of course, the whole "noble savage" thing is a romantic myth. The hunter-gatherer phase was not heaven on earth. Nevertheless, we do know from historical and archeological evidence that human nature is not a rigid, unchanging characteristic. How we organize ourselves to survive in this world has always required a certain level of cooperation. History and evolution make our human nature. We create history, and history creates us in a kind of dynamic balance. The ways we organize ourselves to be able to feed ourselves, to house ourselves, to clothe ourselves, to care for our children, to protect ourselves from the wild beasts, to live on our mother the earth, is what our history is. And for the last 10,000 years, it has been class dynamics, class interactions, and class struggle that have been the motor of our human history, the mother of our human character, and the sculptor of our human nature.

Many decades ago, I read an interesting book on our prehistory, and you may find some useful information on it. When I read it, I found it quite enlightening, well written, and even entertaining.

The name of the book is Man Makes Himself by V. Gordon Childe. Check it out.


Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates

[Tim Cornelis]

After a good night sleep, round 2.


G
Now that we've established that human hierarchy is natural, I would like to talk about your assertion that all workers are doomed to a factory job, and will never be able to acquire their own stakes in the world.

First, let's talk about small business. Most our outlets. They don't make, or harvest the goods they sell. Hardware stores, restaurants, etc. But, there are some that do. For instance farms. Farms are small businesses that produce everything they have from seed, whether it's seed they bought or seed from last season it's still seed. Also, just because there are big businesses harvesting a lot of resources, it does not make it automatically impossible for one person to start a corporation. You act like everything has been monopolized. That it's impossible to start a restaurant because McDonald's is around. It's impossible to start a steel mill because of Geneva steel. It's not, or else there would be no small business left. In fact, small businesses can create capital due to the fact that they are not big corporations, there is a huge market for that, and that is part of the capitalist system. By that I mean, people can regulate the market without a government. No one is telling you that you absolutely must use the biggest corporation's product.

Not everyone possesses the skills, intelligence, and competences to start and run their own business. A person with an IQ of 80 will never become a CEO of a corporation. Ironically, it's the right-wing that's naive and idealistic and utopian as they imply "anyone can make" irrespective of the position a person is born in. Moreover, you, in essence, advance a petitio principii in the sense that you presuppose the formation of businesses. Why should it be necessary to risk one's livelihood to start a business in the first place? Surely, the answer to slavery is not becoming a slave owner, and the answer to dictators is not becoming a dictator. That one has to start a business to liberate himself from the authority of his boss should not be necessary in the first place.


Now that we're on the subject, let's talk about the free market. Certainly, at some level there must be government intervention in the market, but indirectly. No one should monitor business or prevent growth.Businesses should not be bailed out, should be allowed to die etc. The only thing the government should monitor in the free market is monopoly, and human rights. What I mean is the government should regulate at what point a person becomes a slave, and they've kind-of done this by instituting minimum wage, the response was the send labor overseas, which is an effective work around that could be nullified. However, in all honesty we're helping the people over seas who are happy to be making their $5 a week. We could also be helping them, and giving them charity, but that is not something that should be controlled by the state. No one should be REQUIRED to give away money they worked for.

You again assume the initial point by presupposing the existence of capitalism. By living in it, you have been conditioned to do so. Why should workers have to be contempt with making so little for so hard work?


As for the commonwealth proposal, you fail to recognize a simple constant. Human beings always push. They poke, and prod, and figure out HOW MUCH THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH. Commonwealth will never, ever work Gia! It's a utopian concept It's unrealistic! Even if you could get everyone on Earth to agree to that kind of system, and no one abused it, what about their children? And their children? You said yourself no one wants to obey, we're all rebellious. You cannot rely on people's good will in economics!

A socialist commonwealth is feasible. Combine the following elements of the following real-world examples.
Take the popular assemblies of the town of Marinaleda (has full employment against 30% in the province Andalusia, no deficit), participatory democracy works. Take the size of participatory democracy of the Landless Workers' Movement, 1,500,000 work and life in a freely associated egalitarian structure. Take the moneyless aspect of the Chinese town of Nanjie.


I can almost see your response now, something about how the government could limit how much is taken. Well there are three problems with this. First of all, people would have zero inventive to work. If you were going to reward people with living even if they did not work, or did not work very hard they would not have incentive to do anything.

If incentives are a problem, we could ration consumer goods on the basis of work points and labour credits, remunerated according to contribution.


The second problem is how would you assign menial work? Factory work? Garbage duty? You can't simply share all the menial work for the same reason as the first. There would be no incentive to work hard to avoid these menial jobs! How would you decide who got education in what? Standardized testing? You of all people must know how laughable basing futures off of standardized testing is.

Surely most households do this, cleaning up, etc., unpaid. Everyone would adopt the work they wish to do on the basis that they have the capability of doing it. A few jobs would remain unchosen, e.g. janitor. This is not problematic. This work can be shared. In a neighbourhood of 200 adults, it would mean you would only have to collect garbage of the community once or twice a year, hardly something many would object to. And if they did, people could even decide to not pick up their garbage. Reciprocity and mutuality.

In a household you clean your toilet because otherwise it gets dirty. In a workplace workers would clean their toilet because otherwise it would get dirty. Cleaning toilets wouldn't be a full time job anymore.


The third problem is moral. Why would you limit humans? You are creating equilibrium between all humans which as good as it sounds is a BAD thing. You may be bringing the quality of living up for the poor,

This is sufficient reason to do so.


but you're also bringing the quality of living DOWN for those who are working hard and can take advantage of their surroundings!

I don't see why that's necessarily bad. IT would, incidentally, also take their stress levels down. Are you really willing to let millions die annually of malnourishment so that the rich can have their villas, which many of them did not earn (a substantial part of the rich inherit their wealth, or part of their wealth), and those that did were able to do so because of external factors over which they had no control (environmental factors and genetics determining intelligence, social position of parents, well connected because of background, high education because of rich parents, etc.).

Poverty is unnecessary. There are plenty of resources capable of supplying the entire population with sufficient food, housing, sanitary facilities, and even modest luxuries. Yet, millions die because they lack many of these basic goods. They lack it because the profit-motive impairs the full cultivation of the resources to abolish poverty. Hence the need for a for-needs system of production, a planned economy from below that uses the self-identified needs of all into account.


I knew that there was no system you could propose, and neither can I. There is simply no system that can control such complex human beings. But expecting them all to put into everyone's common interest is naive. It's not human.

Only having to work 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, in a society without unemployment, based on freely associated labour (no obnoxious boss or mangers), debt, or poverty is in the self-interest of workers. A communist commonwealth does not presuppose altruism and self-sacrifice. Rather capitalism does, workers self-sacrifice their well being so the capitalists can live well at their expense.
Stress would no longer be a structural and everpresent feature of human existence (this does not mean it will not exist at all).


Socialism does have a shared flaw with capitalism, the possibility of tyrannical governments. Your form of Socialism because of the power vacuum created by the lack of any leader, and capitalism because of the need to regulate human rights in order to establish a fair free market. While I think capitalism would last much longer before needing one, and is a fairer system, I think that regular revolutions would be required to avoid tyranny in both cases.

I think the decades lasting egalitarianism of the Zapatistas and the Landless Workers' Movement proves that this is not the case. The essence of socialism is that deputies, delegates, are subject to a mandate and recallable, so that they are directly accountable by those he represents. This is a mechanism that prevents the rise of tyrants.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah I agree - debating one on one with someone like this probably won't get you very far if only because their "evidence" is reverse-logic: there is hierarchy, so hierarchy must be natural.

If the debates are happening on facebook or at lunch or some other area where other - more open or sympathetic - might be influenced one way or another, then maybe it's worth it to shut this person's arguments down.

Other people have made more in-depth arguments, but I'll just highlight what I see as the major pressure points:

1) Sociobiology is pseudoscience, as was said, and doesn't hold up to any close historical examination. There is evidence that for most of human history no structureal or meaningful hierarchy existed - even in societies with some basic class differences, hierarchy was not pronnounced and there's pleanty of direct sources of interactions between people from modern societies and band societies that shows that in Africa, North and South America, band societies were vastly more egalitarian and really had little means to enforce a ridged hierarchy even if they wanted to. When Jesuits tried to teach native americans how to be monogomous, for example, they said, "How there are more women than men so women will be lonely and won't like that".

As a connected argument, this person conflates hierarchical systems with interpresonal issues. Someone could be an asshole alpha-male in interpersonal relationships and yet have absolutely no hierarchical power in capitalist society. So these are two different things (though I think hierarchy in society ends up being reflected in interpersonal relationships because if society is organized around competition for jobs and whatnot, then that sort of competition is also going to extend to other aspects of society).

2) Furthermore hierarchy in production is not exactly the same as hierarchy in reproduction as with some animals. Humans have frequently changed the relations of both (marriage is historically "new" and connected to the development of class societies) and the terms of our material production have also changed and been reorganized in various ways. Dogs have never consiously changed how they associate or how they reproduce. Human biology is also slightly different than even our close primates because women do not go into "heat" and neither men or women display seasonal mating readiness - which implies that human sexual intercourse happens by choice naturally, not some biological schedule. Some animals can only reproduce certain times whereas any human who has reached puberity can reproduce anytime in their lives until they get too old.

But mostly I'd argue that their whole conception of the world is apologetic - their arguments are geared towards not understanding existing inequalities and conditions, but in explaining them away as "natural" and inevitable which any understanding of how much things have changed in history pokes some major holes into that kind of reasoning.