Personal property

[Redhead]

What is your own political view on personal property, such as owning land, a house, a car etc.?
I know many think that these things are obvious to have, but some might disagree. I am specially interested in those who propose common ownership over almost everything including houses and cars, and hearing arguments for this.

[ChangeAndChance]

In a communist society, personal property does not entail "owning" land or houses. The word "ownership" has inherently capitalist connotations and doesn't really apply here. Personal property deals strictly with things are being used for your use only and cannot be used to exploit other people.

The concept of "occupancy and use" is taken into account when organizing control of land or houses. For example, if your family owns a large amount of farmland which you do not occupy or happen to use in an exploitative fashion, then you are not considered to have any right to possess it personally. Houses do not fall under this category if the person in question actually lives there. However, if you owned a house in some town far away and rarely used it, that would be turned directly over to the people.

All land is officially collectively owned and decisions over what would happen to it would be held under a system of direct consensus democracy with everyone getting a say in the matter equally including you. If there was a need for land to build a new complex important for the improvement of the commune (other houses, factories, whatever) and your old house was in the way, democracy takes over. That said, if you were in the end evicted from your home for development's sake, you would be guaranteed a new home along with all of your personal possessions.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It would be quite odd if humanity were to overcome the private ownership of the means of production, and the associated problems, but retain some kind of right to personal possession, with all the problems that entails. So if someone needs to be driven to the hospital and "your" car, currently not being used, is the only one available, well tough luck. I don't think any sane society would let someone's health be seriously endangered because the car is "yours".

Socialism replaces possession with use. If you're using something, fine. If not, then someone else can use it. Things like convenience, privacy and hygiene mean that not everything will be shared, of course. If you're staying in an apartment (I think it is likely the inefficient houses of the present will be largely replaced by apartment blocks in socialism; and of course socialism means the end of the family), there's no real reason why anyone would come in and start sleeping on your couch - unless there's been some kind of disaster and a lot of people have lost the places where they sleep. But cars? I imagine that, if cars still exist, you would just pick them up from the parking lot or garage. Probably make sure no one else was planning on using them, first.

And what would owning land even mean in socialism, even if we ignore the function of land in production?

[RedWorker]

While communists concern ourselves with the private ownership of the means of production, there will probably be changes to personal property with socialist transformation of society.

Meanwhile I think 870 resorts to utopian scenarios and thinking, as well as dogmatism.


So if someone needs to be driven to the hospital and "your" car, currently not being used, is the only one available, well tough luck. I don't think any sane society would let someone's health be seriously endangered because the car is "yours".

Come on, how is this even going to take place? Are cars just going to always be completely unlocked? It'd be chaos. All you have done is produce one scenario where following your point of view looks like the most ethical action. But THAT is not the point, and the only way it helps the argument is by making someone see how it'd be justifiable.


Socialism replaces possession with use. If you're using something, fine. If not, then someone else can use it.

No... just no. This already occurs to some extent in capitalist society. But making it apply to EVERYTHING would be a dystopic nightmare. You yourself name exceptions about privacy and so on. Thus invalidating your point with this statement, the only difference with what already is prevalent in capitalist society being the extent of application.


I think it is likely the inefficient houses of the present will be largely replaced by apartment blocks in socialism

I don't think too many people are going to like that. How many proletarians have their own house? How many are willing to give it up? It clearly is and will be possible for many people to have a house. This just looks like a lazy solution regarding the question of housing in relation to the socialist transformation.


and of course socialism means the end of the family

It means the end of the family insofar as it is a coercive association and the end of the family as an economic-based unit, along with whatever other effects these may carry on the family in general.

[Cliff Paul]

Socialism replaces possession with use. If you're using something, fine. If not, then someone else can use it.

You sound like Kropotkin.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Come on, how is this even going to take place? Are cars just going to always be completely unlocked?

They probably will be unlocked most of the time.

Why would you lock a car? You would lock the doors if you have kids in the back seat, so they don't accidentally open the doors and fall our, and you would probably lock it if you were fucking in the car. These things will probably still be the case in the socialist society. But the most important reason for locking cars today is so that someone doesn't steal them. So the argument doesn't follow - personal possession will still exist, you claim, because otherwise people will be able to use objects you consider yours.


It'd be chaos.

This is the one "argument" that gets dragged out whenever someone proposes substantial social change. "You can't seriously advocate the abolition of money! No one would work on the farm! It'd be chaos!" "You can't seriously propose the abolition of the police! People would spontaneously become murderers! It'd be chaos!" As for me, I think that it's obvious people can coordinate their actions. That is why I'm a socialist - I don't think people need the gentle guidance of the bourgeoisie or the bourgeois state.


All you have done is produce one scenario where following your point of view looks like the most ethical action. But THAT is not the point, and the only way it helps the argument is by making someone see how it'd be justifiable.

Ethics has nothing to do with it. As I'm sure you are aware, there are numerous ethical theories that would claim refusing to give over "your" car is ethical. That's not the point. I don't particularly fancy dying because some git didn't want anyone else to use his car, and I imagine most people don't, either. And it's not some far-fetched scenario - it happens quite a bit in rural areas, for example. Now in socialism there would be no rural areas, but I also imagine the number of cars would dwindle, particularly with improved public transport.

And this is simply one example of the right to personal possession screwing someone over. There are others. Are there not, for example, numerous empty houses and unused land in Spain, while homelessness grows? Would you seriously propose that either the workers' government or the socialist society would leave these to their "owners"? And remember, this is not productive property.


No... just no. This already occurs to some extent in capitalist society. But making it apply to EVERYTHING would be a dystopic nightmare. You yourself name exceptions about privacy and so on. Thus invalidating your point with this statement, the only difference with what already is prevalent in capitalist society being the extent of application.

Yes, in the capitalist society the proletarian has little personal possessions. Which makes the emphasis some ostensible socialists place on the alleged right to these a bit odd. Who are they trying to reassure, here?

And yes, there are situations where it simply isn't feasible to share some things. So what? That's not an exception to what I'm saying - it's not as if someone would have the right to their toothbrush in socialism. It's just that sharing toothbrushes is far from optimal from the standpoint of hygiene. Just as I don't have an exclusive right to the computer I use at uni, but it's just not practical for many people to share it.


I don't think too many people are going to like that. How many proletarians have their own house? How many are willing to give it up? It clearly is and will be possible for many people to have a house. This just looks like a lazy solution regarding the question of housing in relation to the socialist transformation.

Except of course, it's not a solution, I'm simply pointing out that houses are horribly inefficient when it comes to storing people. A house doesn't offer any extra comfort compared to an apartment, and you can stack apartment buildings fairly high - leaving room for public spaces and functional buildings instead of high-density, low-rise sprawl. As for proletarians being willing to move out of their houses into apartments, that has happened in the past, in the Soviet Union for example, and it stands to reason it will happen in the future, particularly as apartment buildings allow for easier access to things like socialised laundries, kitchens etc.


It means the end of the family insofar as it is a coercive association and the end of the family as an economic-based unit, along with whatever other effects these may carry on the family in general.

This is absurd. "The patient isn't dead, it's just that all of the processes in his body other than decomposition have stopped." The family is an economic unit. And it's an economic unit that is crucial to capitalism but useless to communism, and one that is the source of the structural misogyny and homophobia of the capitalist society.


You sound like Kropotkin.

Nah, the problem with Kropotkin was that, much like the "socialitarian" Duhring, his "communism" had de facto, not just private possession but private ownership of the means of production, except organised on the basis of "communes". So I don't see the parallel, to be honest.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

It would be quite odd if humanity were to overcome the private ownership of the means of production, and the associated problems, but retain some kind of right to personal possession, with all the problems that entails. So if someone needs to be driven to the hospital and "your" car, currently not being used, is the only one available, well tough luck. I don't think any sane society would let someone's health be seriously endangered because the car is "yours".

Socialism replaces possession with use. If you're using something, fine. If not, then someone else can use it. Things like convenience, privacy and hygiene mean that not everything will be shared, of course. If you're staying in an apartment (I think it is likely the inefficient houses of the present will be largely replaced by apartment blocks in socialism; and of course socialism means the end of the family), there's no real reason why anyone would come in and start sleeping on your couch - unless there's been some kind of disaster and a lot of people have lost the places where they sleep. But cars? I imagine that, if cars still exist, you would just pick them up from the parking lot or garage. Probably make sure no one else was planning on using them, first.

And what would owning land even mean in socialism, even if we ignore the function of land in production?

I find it weird that you view socialism as some kind of utilitarian society. Well, I am using a car and I lock it, because I don't want anyone to use it. Someone is dying and needs a car. Well, on principle, what if I don't give a fuck and don't unlock it? Will a socialist police come in and arrest me or what?

In general I find it weird that socialists would concern themselves with these petty details about how their utopia will be organised. "We will own cars collectively!", "No, we will have personal possession of cars!", "No, there won't be cars at all in socialism!". It's ridiculous, it's a competition about who's utopia is better, it's fundamentally a discussion about ethical principles: "is X's right to life more important than the utility/right/whatever of Y's treating a car as personal possession". It has nothing to do with socialism. Socialism is not a utopia, some mental abstraction, it's a movement to abolish capital and everything that it entails. Nothing more than that. The fact that 10 socialists can come up with 11 different ideas about what socialism might actually look like, if anything is just a confirmation of how ridiculous these discussions are.

There is nothing about socialism that says if we are to keep personal possession or if we are too base everything on use or whatever. The destruction of capital doesn't entail either of these things. So when one says "Socialism will do this or will do that", it's strikes me as rather silly.

[RedWorker]

This is the one "argument" that gets dragged out whenever someone proposes substantial social change. "You can't seriously advocate the abolition of money! No one would work on the farm! It'd be chaos!" "You can't seriously propose the abolition of the police! People would spontaneously become murderers! It'd be chaos!" As for me, I think that it's obvious people can coordinate their actions. That is why I'm a socialist - I don't think people need the gentle guidance of the bourgeoisie or the bourgeois state.

No, it would literally and directly result into chaos - the literal definition of chaos. You need to borrow someone's car, then you can't return it to the original location, then he can't find it and you can't contact him, etc. Maybe you had left an object of value, perhaps personal value in the car. So what do you do next? You take someone else's car? This whole thing gets ridiculous very quickly. Cars are produced at an extremely fast rate; it makes much more sense to just make sure everyone has a car, or to make use of advanced public transportation. Instead of borrowing someone's car just get a new one.


And this is simply one example of the right to personal possession screwing someone over. There are others. Are there not, for example, numerous empty houses and unused land in Spain, while homelessness grows? Would you seriously propose that either the workers' government or the socialist society would leave these to their "owners"? And remember, this is not productive property.

Random expropriation of, for instance, vacation houses should be avoided: it is better to focus on redistributing the houses which have been empty for a long time first, along with some other housing strategies. If that turns out to not be enough to house all people then more agressive tactics can be used.


Yes, in the capitalist society the proletarian has little personal possessions. Which makes the emphasis some ostensible socialists place on the alleged right to these a bit odd. Who are they trying to reassure, here?

The point is that in capitalist society things are still used if needed regardless of who owns them, in certain scenarios.


And yes, there are situations where it simply isn't feasible to share some things. So what? That's not an exception to what I'm saying - it's not as if someone would have the right to their toothbrush in socialism. It's just that sharing toothbrushes is far from optimal from the standpoint of hygiene. Just as I don't have an exclusive right to the computer I use at uni, but it's just not practical for many people to share it.

Sure, the law enforcing personal property may disappear with time. But I don't think that it would be a very good step for a workers' state to immediately abolish it.


Except of course, it's not a solution, I'm simply pointing out that houses are horribly inefficient when it comes to storing people.

The point is that human needs should not be fulfilled by the principle "the least expensive solution which fulfils basic human needs". No, humans have more needs and wants than that. Socialism should go for the maximum human satisfaction.

[Rafiq]

The problems with the scenarios described here with regard to personal property is that they are nothing short of abstractions of conditions unique to our own society. We cannot make pretenses to knowing the specifialities because the societal, social, and behavioral changes which would be consequential of a transformation of our relationships of power to the foundations of survival are so great, that they are presently unfathomable in the absence of a political force which would represent the predisposition to that transformation. Which means that we, quite simply, can't even articulate the scope of how much things would change in approximation to hypothesizing about what we "should" and "shouldn't" do in those scenarios. Durruti said that in our hearts we carry the new world - the truth is that in our hearts we carry an unknowable abyss beyond any of our imagination. The so-called "horror" of Stalinism (within liberal discourse) is only a horror conceivable as a result of the dislocation of Stalinism through the very narrow lense of our ideological edifice, i.e. we couldn't think of it in the way we do now if we actually lived in it, devoid of our present ideological standards and so on. Nothing is more hilarious than the kids on the internet who pale in the horror of not having the privilege of having Iphones, as though our way of life is an intrinsic condition of human nature which everyone puts their standard of desire to. Stalinism was more horrifying than we can ever know, not because it was "worse" under our qualifications for worse, but because it was born under a standard for freedom well beyond that of our own society, and it failed to live up to it.

One of the problems with, for example, the parecon-esque is that for them socialism is nothing more than an abstraction, a creative re-organization of the specifialities capitalist society as is. We ought not to be talking about how, for example, specific "consumer goods" are going to be distributed and produced, because we know as well as any that in each social epoch the very standards of want are changed, and the same applies for cars.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I find it weird that you view socialism as some kind of utilitarian society.

I don't think socialism is utilitarian. But the socialist society is a consciously organised and planned society. The fact of the matter is, most people would prefer to have their needs fulfilled, even if this infringes on someone's imagined right to personal possession. This is already the case in capitalism, and it will be even more the case in socialism, when possession will serve no social function.


Well, I am using a car and I lock it, because I don't want anyone to use it. Someone is dying and needs a car. Well, on principle, what if I don't give a fuck and don't unlock it? Will a socialist police come in and arrest me or what?

Obviously not. But you've got it backwards, I think - what requires police or quasi-police action is not the sharing of products and services, but the defense of the exclusive right to these things, the defense of possession. So what would probably happen is that someone would open the door and drive off.


In general I find it weird that socialists would concern themselves with these petty details about how their utopia will be organised. "We will own cars collectively!", "No, we will have personal possession of cars!", "No, there won't be cars at all in socialism!". It's ridiculous, it's a competition about who's utopia is better, it's fundamentally a discussion about ethical principles: "is X's right to life more important than the utility/right/whatever of Y's treating a car as personal possession". It has nothing to do with socialism. Socialism is not a utopia, some mental abstraction, it's a movement to abolish capital and everything that it entails. Nothing more than that. The fact that 10 socialists can come up with 11 different ideas about what socialism might actually look like, if anything is just a confirmation of how ridiculous these discussions are.

There is nothing about socialism that says if we are to keep personal possession or if we are too base everything on use or whatever. The destruction of capital doesn't entail either of these things. So when one says "Socialism will do this or will do that", it's strikes me as rather silly.

The point is that the abolition of capital is not simply an empty placeholder term for whatever strikes our fancy. It has a very concrete meaning, and some things are true of socialism, as a consequence of that. For example, socialism does away with the state. Furthermore, socialism is not simply the abolition of capital - it is the result of the progressive movement of the proletariat against capitalism. So socialism is not some great unknown; there are things that can be said with some certainty about socialism.

This, I think, is one of them, as the progressive abolition of capital means a society oriented toward human need - not as some ethical principle, but as a matter of the conscious organisation of society by its members.


No, it would literally and directly result into chaos - the literal definition of chaos. You need to borrow someone's car, then you can't return it to the original location, then he can't find it and you can't contact him, etc. Maybe you had left an object of value, perhaps personal value in the car. So what do you do next? You take someone else's car? This whole thing gets ridiculous very quickly. Cars are produced at an extremely fast rate; it makes much more sense to just make sure everyone has a car, or to make use of advanced public transportation. Instead of borrowing someone's car just get a new one.

It's not borrowing if no one has possession of the car, is it now? The "just get a new one" approach is fairly unappealing, surely - who would agree to society dedicating time and resources to produce more cars so that everyone and their dog can have a car which spends most of its time parked? Not to mention the effect this would have on traffic, public spaces etc.

And why do you assume there would be no communication and no organisation between people? I mean, this is the same kind of rhetorical sleight of hand that market "socialists" use - the notion that without price signals people are going to be starving in the streets because we're all too damn stupid to grow food unless some toff threatens us with starvation otherwise. I imagine people will coordinate these things between themselves.


Random expropriation of, for instance, vacation houses should be avoided: it is better to focus on redistributing the houses which have been empty for a long time first, along with some other housing strategies. If that turns out to not be enough to house all people then more agressive tactics can be used.

But you're still taking someone's personal possessions. Vacation houses are used, although there probably is going to be some consolidation even in this sector. But generally, there is nothing really objectionable about people using vacation houses. Most workers, I imagine, would find a lot that is objectionable about houses standing empty - and so the workers are going to take these for their own use. Even though they are someone else's possession.


The point is that in capitalist society things are still used if needed regardless of who owns them, in certain scenarios.

In certain very limited scenarios, and usually only if the owners are not part of the bourgeoisie. So what? I mean, this is like saying that capitalist enterprises plan their operations to a degree, so there is no point in pointing out that socialism means scientifically planned production.


Sure, the law enforcing personal property may disappear with time. But I don't think that it would be a very good step for a workers' state to immediately abolish it.

The workers' state abolishes it de facto. Or do you think the organised class-for-itself will turn its guns against those workers who are hungry and who will take from the bourgeoisie the food they need? Workers who have lost their place to live and who are occupying the palaces of the bourgeoisie? Perhaps the Soviet government should have kindly returned Smolny and Tauride Palace.


The point is that human needs should not be fulfilled by the principle "the least expensive solution which fulfils basic human needs". No, humans have more needs and wants than that. Socialism should go for the maximum human satisfaction.

And if you had read the rest of the sentence, you would have noticed I was talking about more than basic human needs. Or do you think a sprawl of low-rise buildings fulfills some human need? And that things like parks, libraries, garages, building laundries etc. do not?

[Rafiq]

Obviously not. But you've got it backwards, I think - what requires police or quasi-police action is not the sharing of products and services, but the defense of the exclusive right to these things, the defense of possession. So what would probably happen is that someone would open the door and drive off.


This is true, but this still fails to address the point: The point is that our "individualist" consumerist ethical framework wouldn't persist with mere changes in this or that policy. The whole ethical edifice of what one would do or not would be transformed, wherein it would most likely take a lot of conscious effort to not help someone under the circumstances derived. Even today, there is an implicit violence in the very social edifice of our society which would allow for such egotism to be justified - let's not here be cynical, let's recognize that even these stupid pretenses to "self-interest" are themselves illusions which are contingent upon the violence of relations of private property. Self interest is axiomatic - the minute one starts to talk about it, consciously justify it to themselves, it becomes anything but "self interest". Each social epoch is not reducible to mere laws, or even explicit rules. On the contrary, they are sustained by those implicit rules which aren't up for negotiation by merit of being inconceivable as having a relative existence.

So to deal with what is already a pointless hypothetical abstraction, we can deduce that such a scenario would be rather exceptional, and that Socialists don't make pretenses to solving all problems inherent to life. If it were to become a widespread problem, then it would fall upon the organs of power to make it systemically preventable so that such a situation could be avoided in the first place...

This is the point of a self-conscious society. Not that it will have no problems, but that on the contrary, it will have more problems, the difference being that we can consciously recognize them as problems as such and logically then, solve them. The bourgeois ecology fetishism, only the superstitious metaphysics of capitalist society impose upon us barriers on what we can and cannot do, what can be changed and what cannot as an irrevocable consequence of life - only the masters make pretenses to vanity. To perceive a limitation, or a problem, is to already be beyond it. Even something like Mao's four pests campaign was a greater act of freedom than "leaving nature be", even if it ended as a disastrous monstrosity, because the very nature of the campaign equips us with the mechanisms of pointing what exactly went wrong - recognizing that the problem is not "violating" the natural balance as such, but not knowing enough about it insofar as it can be manipulated. This goes for the whole of 20th century Communism as a violation of the ecology of productive forces, inherent to the very failure is a success, because the scope of this failure could never have been imagined by the minds of those who preached hesitance, ultimately proving the malleable nature of the ecology to the ferocity of human will...

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Obviously not. But you've got it backwards, I think - what requires police or quasi-police action is not the sharing of products and services, but the defense of the exclusive right to these things, the defense of possession. So what would probably happen is that someone would open the door and drive off.

I would have got it backwards if I made an argument about the origins of police or whatever, but will all fairness to myself, I wasn't. I was merely saying that if I don't act as you say one should act in socialist society, i.e. if I don't act according to what socialism is, then there would be nobody to prevent me from doing so, even more so, if majority acts this way.


The point is that the abolition of capital is not simply an empty placeholder term for whatever strikes our fancy. It has a very concrete meaning, and some things are true of socialism, as a consequence of that. For example, socialism does away with the state. Furthermore, socialism is not simply the abolition of capital - it is the result of the progressive movement of the proletariat against capitalism. So socialism is not some great unknown; there are things that can be said with some certainty about socialism.

This, I think, is one of them, as the progressive abolition of capital means a society oriented toward human need - not as some ethical principle, but as a matter of the conscious organisation of society by its members.

I think we are talking past each other here. It's not that I agree or disagree with you about how socialism might look like, I am merely saying that trying to conceptualise it from the current standpoint is rather ridiculous and can be nothing but some sort of weird competition about useless abstractions. I think communism implies much more than reformation of society on the current ideological standards, but reformation of ideology itself, of our conception of needs, desires, ethics etc. In that sense I think it is useless to try to conceptualise the specificities of communism: how cars will be shared if at all, how houses will be reorganised etc...

The point is that even based on the currently existing knowledge, standards of reason, ideology etc. you still can have many different conceptions of what a society organised towards human need would look like (hence your discussion with Redworker) and that's the point.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I would have got it backwards if I made an argument about the origins of police or whatever, but will all fairness to myself, I wasn't. I was merely saying that if I don't act as you say one should act in socialist society, i.e. if I don't act according to what socialism is, then there would be nobody to prevent me from doing so, even more so, if majority acts this way.

My point wasn't about the origins of the police, though, but about the relation between property and coercive force. It seems that people on RevLeft think that the abolition of possession would mean members of society being forced to share (the old liberal nightmare). But sharing can be done with no coercion - one comes across an unused car, opens said car and drives off. What requires coercion is possession. You have to keep people from using your things.

So the question is not how people are going to force you to act in a certain way. The question is how are you going to force people to respect "your" possessions. And I mean, you could conceivably hit them or something if they try to enter "your" car. What you would then face is members of society who object to being randomly hit, and would probably be constrained in some way.

This, of course, supposes that other people are capable of organising in pursuit of their interest. This is, really, the crucial assumption here. If humans turn out to be too inept and stupid for their own good, something I find increasingly plausible, then fine. We die out. I don't really think that would be a bad thing - obviously, we would have tried, and failed. Such is life. But I still think that people can organise, without class society, which is why I still consider myself a socialist.


I think we are talking past each other here. It's not that I agree or disagree with you about how socialism might look like, I am merely saying that trying to conceptualise it from the current standpoint is rather ridiculous and can be nothing but some sort of weird competition about useless abstractions. I think communism implies much more than reformation of society on the current ideological standards, but reformation of ideology itself, of our conception of needs, desires, ethics etc. In that sense I think it is useless to try to conceptualise the specificities of communism: how cars will be shared if at all, how houses will be reorganised etc...

And that's the crux of the issue. I don't think communism entails a reformation of ideology but its destruction. Does this mean certain needs are going to disappear? Of course. Other needs are going to become more prominent. But this is not some great unknown region of history, thousands of years in the future. Socialism is possible at the present moment - it's not the Kingdom of Heaven.


The point is that even based on the currently existing knowledge, standards of reason, ideology etc. you still can have many different conceptions of what a society organised towards human need would look like (hence your discussion with Redworker) and that's the point.

Disagreement doesn't mean that both sides are right, though.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

My point wasn't about the origins of the police, though, but about the relation between property and coercive force. It seems that people on RevLeft think that the abolition of possession would mean members of society being forced to share (the old liberal nightmare). But sharing can be done with no coercion - one comes across an unused car, opens said car and drives off. What requires coercion is possession. You have to keep people from using your things.

So the question is not how people are going to force you to act in a certain way. The question is how are you going to force people to respect "your" possessions. And I mean, you could conceivably hit them or something if they try to enter "your" car. What you would then face is members of society who object to being randomly hit, and would probably be constrained in some way.

This, of course, supposes that other people are capable of organising in pursuit of their interest. This is, really, the crucial assumption here. If humans turn out to be too inept and stupid for their own good, something I find increasingly plausible, then fine. We die out. I don't really think that would be a bad thing - obviously, we would have tried, and failed. Such is life. But I still think that people can organise, without class society, which is why I still consider myself a socialist.

Argh, I agree with all of this - this is beyond dispute (as far as police/force is concerned). My point was more simple than that - it was about some people being able to not act according to your assumptions as to how people are supposed to act in socialism.


And that's the crux of the issue. I don't think communism entails a reformation of ideology but its destruction. Does this mean certain needs are going to disappear? Of course. Other needs are going to become more prominent. But this is not some great unknown region of history, thousands of years in the future. Socialism is possible at the present moment - it's not the Kingdom of Heaven.

Yes, but how can you conceive of what it means to think without ideology? We can't be beyond ideology and social forces that sustain it. In the same way as we can't be beyond racism, sexism etc. Of course we are anti-racist, anti-sexist etc., but any attempt to conceptualise how people might think or organise who don't even have such a social category as race or gender can't be made. Or more precisely, it can be made, but only in the context of race and sex existing as social categories, as real social forces in our society. People under communism won't be exposed to poverty, wars, ideology, exploitation, sexism, racism etc., how could it be so trivial for you to conceptualise how these people will think, let alone organise in the community? To an extent that we can, our conceptualisation is reliant on currently existing social forces etc., which means that our conceptualisation is necessarily flawed. We are talking about people whose life experience is fundamentally different, who have different social categories and the ones that we will possible share will be fundamentally altered.

In the same way as bourgeois revolution wasn't some reorganisation of society on the same principles, on the same grounds, so communism won't be either. I mean, for people living in feudalism, under the veil of religious ideology, it was inconceivable how society under Liberalism would look like. With the bourgeois revolution existing social categories were fundamentally altered and new ones were established. Of course, for us, superimposing our understanding, looking back at history, it seems like a trivial matter, but for them, i.e. for the masses of people who lived under feudalism, the life was fundamentally altered - they couldn't conceptualise the force of this change beforehand, because the very language to do so wasn't present at that time.

So for all intents and purposes, I do think that communism is the Kingdom of Heaven. Not in a sense of its believability, but in its force of change.

Isn't there a reason why Marx et al. didn't write so much about Communism as a future society?


Disagreement doesn't mean that both sides are right, though.

Sure, but it also doesn't mean that either one of them is right, which is sort of my point.

[cyu]

"Property" is mainly about using force to prevent someone from having access to something. Much of law and policy deals with how society reacts to "negative behavior" (and who gets to determine what is and isn't "negative behavior"). Seems there are two main legal and policy approaches towards negative behavior - on the immediate end: what actions are justified in stopping any particular instance of "negative behavior"; on the underlying end: how can society remove the motivations for the behavior before it occurs.

When it comes to material suffering, communism aims for the underlying cause of "theft" by going after the deprivation motive for property "crime". However, even if nobody is motivated to "steal" due to biological suffering, you might still imagine someone "steal" your favorite family photo - maybe just to spite you. Obviously this has nothing to do with employer/employee relationships, yet still has property implications. One might imagine laws that determine what actions are justified in stopping this kind of behavior. However, just because laws exist, won't prevent such things from happening.

While family photographs isn't specifically about capitalism, one might ask a similar question - what would motivate someone to "steal" a family photo? Perhaps the solution would require more emphasis on social skills and developing the ability of people to live in society - without which, one might expect more hostility and abuse on the individual end, and more warfare and state terrorism on the national end. It may be that the lack of empathic development also leads back to more exploitive relationships within a society.

[Rafiq]

And that's the crux of the issue. I don't think communism entails a reformation of ideology but its destruction. Does this mean certain needs are going to disappear? Of course. Other needs are going to become more prominent. But this is not some great unknown region of history, thousands of years in the future. Socialism is possible at the present moment - it's not the Kingdom of Heaven.


By definition ideology cannot disappear. It is integral, and consequential of the mere existence of language and the symbolic order. The point is there will not be more than one ideological force, and that the malleability of ideology is in approximation to the commons of society, not social antagonisms.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

By definition ideology cannot disappear. It is integral, and consequential of the mere existence of language and the symbolic order. The point is there will not be more than one ideological force, and that the malleability of ideology is in approximation to the commons of society, not social antagonisms.

I think the problem is, though, that you simple have different definitions, different conceptions of what ideology is.

[Comrade #138672]

I find it weird that you view socialism as some kind of utilitarian society. Well, I am using a car and I lock it, because I don't want anyone to use it. Someone is dying and needs a car. Well, on principle, what if I don't give a fuck and don't unlock it? Will a socialist police come in and arrest me or what?This sounds a lot like a right-wing libertarianism. "What about my freedom to be an asshole?"

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

why would a car have a lock in a society which is logically speaking post-theft?

[ckaihatsu]

Regarding who-possesses-which-cars under socialism, I would think there would be a mass-social / societal interest that rises to the fore under such collectivized conditions, to motivate a singular approach / treatment / solution to the whole comprehensive social question of transport.

(Consider the contemporary festering issue of the social need for a centralized-administration single-payer health care program. We could validly extend this structural shortcoming to any *other* social issue, all of which are too juicy with potential for private schisms and profit-making to be appropriately centralized, for the *public's* best interests.)

For a socialized transport, I've considered offhand that it may not be that logistically or energy-intensive to just have expansive, wide-ranging routes of always-running *conveyer belts* that would be basically reliable, if not particularly inventive. Something along these lines might be a suitable way to enable a consistently universal approach, in the interests of eliminating any and all politics from that particular social issue, forever.