Self Reliance

[MKS]

Why do you think the citzenry of the Western nations have become so dependant on the government? What happened to the ideals of self-reliance and individualism? Is Communism anti-indvidualist, and is individualism anti-egalitarian?

So people be forced to particpate in a socialisation of resources, products etc.?

[Phugebrins]

"Why do you think the citzenry of the Western nations have become so dependant on the government?"
Because the most valuable thing to any business is a workforce with a sword hanging over its head.

[theraven]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 10:55 PM
"Why do you think the citzenry of the Western nations have become so dependant on the government?"
Because the most valuable thing to any business is a workforce with a sword hanging over its head.
and when the govenrmetn is providing things for you , your very worried abotu yrou family....

[Delta]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 02:23 PM
So people be forced to particpate in a socialisation of resources, products etc.?
Socialization of resources is the only morally defensible position. There is no justification for why one would desire the earth's finite resources to be monopolized by an elite few.

[MrDoom]

Is Communism anti-indvidualist, and is individualism anti-egalitarian?
Communism is for mutual aid, not cut-throat individualism.

[red team]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 12:16 AM

Is Communism anti-indvidualist, and is individualism anti-egalitarian?
Communism is for mutual aid, not cut-throat individualism.
Communism has nothing to do with "being anti-individual". It's about not being rewarded greater than your individual contribution to wealth production. Under Communism you can be as vain and individualist as you want, but you still won't get individually rewarded for more than what you've worked to produce.

Contrast this to Capitalism. You can be a no-talent dumbass who've inherited a fortune from your parents and you will be rewared for more than your efforts if you've got people working for you. Communism is about changing the situation so you have people working with you and not for you which will be made illegal.

[Phugebrins]

If we were dogmatic individualists, we'd all be hunter-gatherers. Modern society is based on co-operation. That's acheived in capitalism by wage-slavery, and the necessary disparity is maintained in part by the charade that we're all entirely independent, free little islands, and that market theory is entirely equitable to all of us. Socialists are prepared to accept the reality that none of us could eat without farmers, we'd all die much sooner without doctors, we'd have no shelter without builders, clothes without manufacturers... and that these parts of society are not severable units that can be viewed in isolation, but interdependent parts of a whole.

The only meaningful way to stand up for the rights of the individual is to recognise the problems and the needs of individuals in the context of the society in which they actually operate. It's to view that individual in terms of their contribution to the whole of society, not just to take a liberal attitude of permitting and perpetuating systematic fraud in the name of freedom. Private extortion is still extortion: putting the opportunistic greed of one individual above the needs of the victim. While liberals stand up for the right of one individual, they refuse to acknowlege those of the second.

[Orion999]

Of coarse communism sounds great in theroy, but this idea of a stateless society living in communes, with everyone being equal is an utopian dream.

First: A communist revolution occuring in the west is never going to happen. Why would the people of the most prosperous country in the world (even the poor in America are better off than most people in the third world) want to revolt and tear down the system that has led to this prosperity. A Communist revolution would require the complete breakdown of American society. The American system has thrived for over two hundred years, and there is nothing to suggest it is about to collapse.

Second: "Modern" communists claim that all past failed communist states had nothing to do with real communism. Their reasoning for this is that true communism is stateless and therefore all past communists states are not true CS.
The reason none of these states ever progressed to the stateless stage is because in every single case a dictatorship emerged with no intention of ever relinquishing power. How or Why this will be different when the next revolution comes is never explained reasonalbly. Is the risk of turning America into the next Stalin slave society worth it?

Third: If a communists revolution were to succeed in America, and the Government was then abolished; America would be invaded in no time by the rest of the world. A strong centrlaized govt. is a requirement for national security. Without a govt there would be no entity capable of mounting a defense against an invader. The idea of a Stateless society even being able to function is untrue.

Fourth: Under Communism how is it decided who performs jobs of manual labor (such as farm work, construction, sewage maintance, and many others) and who is allowed to spend years studying medecine to become a doctor or who is educated in engineering improve society. No one is going to volunteer for sewage maintance, 95% are going to want to be involved in a highly educated profession. So who gets stuck cleaning the seweres? Ridiculous explanations include: automating these tasks as if there are superrobots capable of this, Everyone sharing the undesirable labor equally as if a doctor is going to do neurosurgery one day and the next day go clean the sewers. Ultimately a majority of the people will want to work in a handful of desirable jobs and nobody is going to want to go toil in the fields raising the crops.

Fifth: they incessantly claim that American workers are slaves of the elite with no control over their lives. As if people from poor and middle class families are incapable of attending college and earning a degree and then recieving a job that provides a great lifestyle. It happens all the time. Anyone in America wiht a strong work ethic and some brains can obtain a high position in society. In Communism they tell you what you to do and and the betterment of your situation is impossible.

Granted: Capitalism is far from perfect. 1% of the population controlling 40% of the wealth is an abhorrent fact. And the rich wield way to much power in our society. Some sort of redistribution of wealth should occur, but I hav yet to see a good way of doing this. But, revolting and overthrowing the govt., installing a supposedly benign dictatorship to oversee the transition to stateless society who will then freely surrender this power (when has this ever happened), and then going off to live comunes is definitely not the answer.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

You can be a no-talent dumbass who've inherited a fortune from your parents and you will be rewared for more than your efforts if you've got people working for you.

And how often does that happen???

[RedCommieBear]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 11:09 PM
and when the govenrmetn is providing things for you , your very worried abotu yrou family....

Yes. You are worried about your family, because they are your family. Just because the most basic of resources are given to you (housing, food, etc.), doesn't mean you stop caring about your family.


And how often does that happen???

Do you really want any of us to answer that?

[ZeroPain]

And how often does that happen???

http://www.celebritycrunch.com/art/paris-hilton-nip-slip.jpg

[red team]

Originally posted by Capitalist [email protected] 7 2006, 03:37 PM

You can be a no-talent dumbass who've inherited a fortune from your parents and you will be rewared for more than your efforts if you've got people working for you.

And how often does that happen???
You're asking that question only because you're viewing things from the perspective of a middle class professional.

For unskilled workers the strategy to pursue for Capitalists who want to improve efficiency is to simply have less unskilled workers produce more output while driving down wages.

For the skilled workers they pursue a different strategy of hiring workers who have the most abundant skill sets thus increasing efficiency by having the workers perform more job functions without needing to give out an extra paycheck for more workers who specialize in just one area. Note, the key word here is more efficient in terms of labour costs to output which may not necessarily mean "better" whatever that means. Hiring a lot of different people with a lot of different specialized skills may actually improve output quantity in absolute terms, but that's not the most important factor for Capitalists. Investors don't judge a company as a worthwhile operation to invest in from the size of it's revenue, but by the difference in surplus from costs (profits). Absolute output size as measured by the revenue amount is irrelevant. It could be a tiny company, but very profitable which is all that matters. The vanity of middle class professionals for relatively scarce talents and higher pay as compared to the general working population is blinding them from accepting the fact that they are also indeed being exploited or are used as a wedge against other less privileged workers to prevent them from fighting for their own common interests which is diametrically opposed to Capital.

Case and point. A person I know who is professionally trained to work in the technology field was once warned by the hiring manager that he is expendable by showing him a stack of job applications from people who are equally if not more qualified than him. Why this warning and intimidation by the management staff? He kept his job, but you can be damn sure that he'll work long hours do whatever the boss says without complaint no matter how unfair the deal is.

What you fail to see is that if you're in the position of deciding who you can hire and fire and there is an abundance of human resources beyond what can be reasonably absorbed by profit making operations, you're in the position of having the luxury of picking and choosing talented people based on efficiency of gaining you profit, but not absolute output amount and you could be no more or perhaps far less talented than the workers you hire. Talent for producing output quantity (and quality) has nothing to do with the hiring or firing decisions of Capital.

My point stands. If you're in the position of having enough accumulated wealth to base your hiring and firing decisions on the criteria of yet more accumulated wealth (profits), you can be a no-talent dumbass, but hire people who aren't.

[Herman]

Of coarse communism sounds great in theroy, but this idea of a stateless society living in communes, with everyone being equal is an utopian dream.

First: A communist revolution occuring in the west is never going to happen. Why would the people of the most prosperous country in the world (even the poor in America are better off than most people in the third world) want to revolt and tear down the system that has led to this prosperity. A Communist revolution would require the complete breakdown of American society. The American system has thrived for over two hundred years, and there is nothing to suggest it is about to collapse.

It would indeed require the complete breakdown of the American capitalist system. This prosperity that you talk of is the prosperity of the bourgeoisie, not the working class. They are content in their roles because they've been fed with "information hamburguers" for a long time, making them non-interested in politics. You're quite right that it is hard that any revolution should happen in the USA, but that means that all efforts to make it happen must increase and expand.


Second: "Modern" communists claim that all past failed communist states had nothing to do with real communism. Their reasoning for this is that true communism is stateless and therefore all past communists states are not true CS.
The reason none of these states ever progressed to the stateless stage is because in every single case a dictatorship emerged with no intention of ever relinquishing power. How or Why this will be different when the next revolution comes is never explained reasonalbly. Is the risk of turning America into the next Stalin slave society worth it?

A revolution is done by the working class, with the help of the most advanced section of this class, that being us the communists. You must also understand that communism is not achieved in two days. It can take hundreds of years. Feudalism, as well as capitalism did not come about in just two or three years. It was the result of a long process.


Third: If a communists revolution were to succeed in America, and the Government was then abolished; America would be invaded in no time by the rest of the world. A strong centrlaized govt. is a requirement for national security. Without a govt there would be no entity capable of mounting a defense against an invader. The idea of a Stateless society even being able to function is untrue.

It's not about destroying the state. It's about taking over the state and using it against the enemies of the revolution. You're right though; a strong centralized working class government is necessary in order to crush counter-revolution. Note that this is the phase we call as 'socialism'. Also, you must know that a revolution in only one place cannot survive for long either. This is why we communists talk about international revolution.

[Matty_UK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 09:23 PM
Why do you think the citzenry of the Western nations have become so dependant on the government? What happened to the ideals of self-reliance and individualism? Is Communism anti-indvidualist, and is individualism anti-egalitarian?

So people be forced to particpate in a socialisation of resources, products etc.?
This is perhaps the most important criticism of communism yet; no matter what you guys say self-reliance is important and we should be thinking of a way of transforming communism to have a larger degree of self reliance. I sound like a right winger here but if no-one is self-reliant it WILL lead to social stagnation and a lack of progress, something akin to Nietzche's "last man" idea. I comfort myself with the thought that competition will always be around because of the need to impress the opposite sex as reproduction is the core driving force behind all competition (even surviving is essentially only surviving so you can reproduce, really...) but then....who knows. Perhaps, under anarcho-communism, some kind of non-capitalist free market would emerge alongside social control of production. That would be ideal in my opinion.

[colonelguppy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 05:55 PM
"Why do you think the citzenry of the Western nations have become so dependant on the government?"
Because the most valuable thing to any business is a workforce with a sword hanging over its head.
no i'd say competent workers are much more valuable, workers doing enough to not get fired isn't all that great.

[MKS]

no i'd say competent workers are much more valuable, workers doing enough to not get fired isn't all that great.

The "workers" are not afraid of the government or even of management, they are afraid of being broke. In the Us many if not most workers hold a dependence on the government, they "know" that if they are fired or laid off the gov. will provide for them i.e. Unemployment benefits etc.

Hurricane Katrinea is a good example; the people expect the gov. to help them. When have they ever helped them? Why woulld they start now? Come on. Wake up and take some intiative, the gov't has never and will never help poor working people.