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Rincewind
4th August 2005, 04:55
I've only had a cursory glance of your posts and have allowed my opinions to be swayed by a few but...

Why does it seem to me that a lot of you think that communism is some kind of ideal? It's not. It's real, and it's upon us.

Two things to say, if 1 bores you, go on to 2.

1. A Website, essentially google maps but for individuals. You register your personal details (including your address), skills you offer, skills you want, goods you offer and goods you want.
When you log on everyone is displayed on a map then you can select a skill (or goods) that you offer (or want) and all users who want (or offer) this is displayed on the map (there are more details about the map which you can ask me about). When it's so easy to find groups and individuals you could work with, why would anyone sell their soul to a company director?

2.All we need is one working farm. A centre of excellence where we simply give away all our excess food to surrounding people (when we've got excess). Welcome anyone we can and especially invite those with the specific skills we need (like computer networking, we'd only need one person on the farm who would know how to do that and he could teach others how as the network expanded). Eventually, we could send our spare skilled people out to the neighbouring towns for free, for donations of items we need and so on. They would take gifts of food with them and often we would hold feasts in these towns. No? I said two things there, possessing a useful skill should make it your duty to pass it on - every one a student and every one a teacher, at all times, and secondly, give it away! If we don't then there will always be fatcats because communism is simply so much more efficient than capitalism.

Alejandro
4th August 2005, 05:56
that would be a great thing if it could be set up

anomaly
4th August 2005, 06:16
Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 10:55 PM
I've only had a cursory glance of your posts and have allowed my opinions to be swayed by a few but...

Why does it seem to me that a lot of you think that communism is some kind of ideal? It's not. It's real, and it's upon us.

Two things to say, if 1 bores you, go on to 2.

1. A Website, essentially google maps but for individuals. You register your personal details (including your address), skills you offer, skills you want, goods you offer and goods you want.
When you log on everyone is displayed on a map then you can select a skill (or goods) that you offer (or want) and all users who want (or offer) this is displayed on the map (there are more details about the map which you can ask me about). When it's so easy to find groups and individuals you could work with, why would anyone sell their soul to a company director?

2.All we need is one working farm. A centre of excellence where we simply give away all our excess food to surrounding people (when we've got excess). Welcome anyone we can and especially invite those with the specific skills we need (like computer networking, we'd only need one person on the farm who would know how to do that and he could teach others how as the network expanded). Eventually, we could send our spare skilled people out to the neighbouring towns for free, for donations of items we need and so on. They would take gifts of food with them and often we would hold feasts in these towns. No? I said two things there, possessing a useful skill should make it your duty to pass it on - every one a student and every one a teacher, at all times, and secondly, give it away! If we don't then there will always be fatcats because communism is simply so much more efficient than capitalism.
I don't know if you've come across my posts, but I've thought about such a concept. It sounds, actually, like a very workable idea. I really don't know why such an idea is not being discussed more among communists. My basic idea was to simply purchase some farmland and on it construct some sort of commune. I never really got further than that; you have greatly outdone me, comrade! The website idea seems particularly workable, especially if the site was run from the farm-commune itself so as to attract more members. The only problem here is that eventually we'd have to expand, and as we got bigger, the government would surely begin to take keen interest in our little farm-commune.

Have you thought about actually embarking on this, or is it still just an idea of yours?

Clarksist
4th August 2005, 06:19
I've had an idea similar to the number 1 idea where we live off a gift economy. But alas, I have no Perl, CSS, XML, or anything but HTML training to make a website.

anomaly
4th August 2005, 07:07
I think number one could be used to sustain number two...we use the website to gain new members of the farm-commune.

Seeker
4th August 2005, 10:00
It was done in the 60's. Those that survived and are still operating and founding new communities today seem to have come to terms with the fact that to get anything done in a capitalist society you need capital. Building materials, transportation, medical care, and a host of other needs require that some sort of business be established. Some sell what they farm, some offer classes in permaculture that can count as University credits, and others sell hammocks, sandals, and chairs.

I know of one group of "commutarians" that were so good at what they did, the Canadian government practically banned them from buying land. Originally from Germany, Hutterites moved to Canada around the time of WW1. They had significant capital and began a large, communal, income-sharing farm with modern mechanized farming equipment. They sold their excess food, split the profits between everyone in the community equally, and once they had 100 people living on the farm, they would take 8-15 million dollars out of the communal pot and buy a new farm, complete with uber-expensive gear, and 50 people would move in. The income-sharing between all previously established communes made the process so efficient that agribusiness corporations sued them for unfair competition and got their ability to buy land restricted by the Canadian government (the restrictions have since been lifted).

I would not endorse the religious, sexist, spartan Hutterite model, but they provide an example of what can be done.

The bylaws of a more liberal community can be found here:
http://thefec.org/sns/archive/bylaws-revised-to-a1.html

The membership adverts:
http://thefec.org/


A list of many types of communities, everything from privately owned cooperative housing to full-blown income sharing socialist communes to people who have recently bought land with the intention of building a patch of forest into a communal farm from scratch and are looking for bodies to help with the work, can be found here:

http://directory.ic.org/geo/




Perhaps this idea can be the rural counterpart to the industrial Unions movement? Could you imagine a communal farm feeding a Union of factory workers (without overpaid and underworked CEO's and 'consultants' around to drain millions)? It would beat the Capitalists at their own game and cause an economic revolution. Since the people with the gold get to make the rules, and the most successful capitalists would be federations of worker-owned cooperatives, power can be seized without a shot being fired.

I think it is an interesting take on "change from within." Rather than engaging in the hopeless endeavor of using political and diplomatic means to bring about economic and political equity, the weaknesses inherent to the system are exploited to bring about economic and political dominance by the working class - a dictatorship of the proletariat (minus the dictator).

Rincewind
4th August 2005, 20:52
Yeah, absolutely, the next stage would be to feed a local factory workforce. How we would go about securing (releasing really, rather than securing, but keeping safe from the money grabbers) the products of that factory without angering the authorities I'm not quite sure. What the best choice for a first factory to buy out (assuming that's how we do it) would be, I don't know.

We could do things like buy loads and loads of kit cars, fit them with diesel engines and run them off converted vegetable oil, well, it's limitless what we could do, anything.

To answer the question about whether I've embarked on this... I have pretty much learnt HTML since this idea occured to me and am studying various DHTML languages but don't even know which would be best for building this hotmap. The progress is slow to be honest. I know a guy who's just graduated in IT but he's from Russia so I have to be careful when talking about Communism, although when I just talk about it without labels he seems quite keen. He didn't really do much about website design tho, although he knows slightly more than me. That 'find a coder' site would be tempting but in my current financial circumstances it would really be just to find out how big the mountain is I have to climb (that is, how much cash I need to find). The problem would be that if I don't have the skills to build it I probably won't have the skills to maintain it, and I might as well get some personal gain (ie by learning those skills) whilst motivated by this, like, huge, global goal.

I'm gonna look at that diresctory of places to get involved...

Rincewind
4th August 2005, 22:41
Oh and about laws and bylaws, I think there should be a new, world-wide constitution which is this long

"Be excellent to each other"

Every court looks directly to that and at the case in point, and that's it.

Seeker
9th August 2005, 09:02
Chavez (http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/127603/index.php) weighs in.



The Venezuelan government aspires to supply 20 percent of the nation’s vegetables through urban agricultural collectives.