What was the first communist community?

[Invader Zim]

I assume it is when John Bull (i think thats his name) created his socioty in the 0900's. But im sure there must be older sociotys. Could anyone enlighten me?

[Cassius Clay]

Well if you wan't to go really petty I'm sure I could point out that 'Pure Communism' existed for a long time back in the day. I would say the Paris Commune of 1870. I'm not familar with these 'Medievil' socialist 'Experiments' so to speak. There were alot in the 18th and 19th Centurys I know. Anybody provide any details?

BTW what have you got against the Iraqi Information minister, the man's a legend who will go down in history. I've never seen such a optimist.

[Invader Zim]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 3:28 pm on April 15, 2003
Well if you wan't to go really petty I'm sure I could point out that 'Pure Communism' existed for a long time back in the day. I would say the Paris Commune of 1870. I'm not familar with these 'Medievil' socialist 'Experiments' so to speak. There were alot in the 18th and 19th Centurys I know. Anybody provide any details?

BTW what have you got against the Iraqi Information minister, the man's a legend who will go down in history. I've never seen such a optimist.


Nah the Paris commune wasafter the New Lanark and harmony experiments in the 1810-1830.

I have nothing against the Iraqi information minister the mans a comic genius.

(Edited by AK47 at 3:35 pm on April 15, 2003)

[SwedishCommie]

I think that the first communist soceity was really far back in time when we lived in tribes and everybody helped each other. You know some take care of the village and some hunt to get food for the tribe. There was no Mine and Yours.

[Severian]

Christianity originally involved its followers sharing all property in common, back in the first century. The secret of its early success.

[synthesis]

New Lanark wasn't a Marxist socialist system. Now, you may think that I am nitpicking, but the truth of the matter is that Marx wrote an entire text on why Utopian Socialism was doomed.

By the way, your title is disingenuous. There has never been a communist society. You should probably have titled it Socialist community.

[Invader Zim]

Quote: from DyerMaker on 3:58 am on April 16, 2003
New Lanark wasn't a Marxist socialist system. Now, you may think that I am nitpicking, but the truth of the matter is that Marx wrote an entire text on why Utopian Socialism was doomed.

By the way, your title is disingenuous. There has never been a communist society. You should probably have titled it Socialist community.

New Lanark wasn't a Marxist socialist system. Now, you may think that I am nitpicking

yep, your nitpicking.

However, as it happens Marx is not the be all and end all of socialism.

Marx wrote an entire text on why Utopian Socialism was doomed.

What makes Marx right? He even said himself to question his ideals. Also currently there are no Satates that Truly follow his beliefs, they may have started off following his idiology but they then digress onto other paths. This suggests that Marx's idiology cannot work, so why believe what he says about someone elses idiology if his own idiology is flawed.

By the way, your title is disingenuous. There has never been a communist society. You should probably have titled it Socialist community.

That is true you are quite right i should have called it Socilaist rather than communist.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Quote: from SwedishCommie on 7:54 pm on April 15, 2003
I think that the first communist soceity was really far back in time when we lived in tribes and everybody helped each other. You know some take care of the village and some hunt to get food for the tribe. There was no Mine and Yours.


So true.

Captalism started when society got complex.

[Anonymous]

the first communist comunitys are older than the modern human....

they began with the primitive man...

with what Marx called "primitive comunism" that was the first communist community...
and communism mainly aims for a modern restauration of that state...

yet it is alredy proved that it isnt that easy ;)



Thomas more "utopia" as also proved to be very comunist...
yet too bad it never passed from a book...



What makes Marx right? He even said himself to question his ideals. Also currently there are no Satates that Truly follow his beliefs, they may have started off following his idiology but they then digress onto other paths. This suggests that Marx's idiology cannot work, so why believe what he says about someone elses idiology if his own idiology is flawed.

denying Marx is basicly denying everything socialism aims...
denying that Marx was right is ignoring the class war...
denying Marx is denying more than a century of communist resistence and fight against the capitalist opressor...

go ahead...
quote Bakuine and other anarchist philosophers..
denying marx is basicly denying them too...

Bakunism, Marxism, Kropotnism(does that exist btw?) is pretty much the same thing..
the basic is equal, class strugle, proletarian control of the means of production, popular rule...
what changes is the fact taht some wanted the absolvition of the state sooner (to soon in my opinion) and others aimed for firstly the creation of a working class state...

mainly, denying Marx and Marxism in general is pretty much denying the Left, this including anarchists, communists, stalinists etc etc...

and what failed in those states was not marxism, no, when those states just followed pure marxism as they shold they were socialists, yet when revisionists came and started to uproot the entire marxist theorys then those states began to decay...

it was Gorbatchov that "oficially" ended the soviet union, this becuase of his revisionism...
ofcourse this came with several problems, and for some the perestroika regardless of the result was necessary...
i believe that some aspects of the perestroika like the glasnot were good and good for the people, yet the free market and the absolvation of the one party only state turned to be a serious blow on the union, what finaly resulted in the fall of one of the most needed socialist states..
thios because of the creation of western model elections..
and private enterprises...
wich i veemly opose...


mainly, it was revisionism and the adjacent uprooting of the marxist theorys that destroyed those states...

REVISIONISM
NOT the marxist theorys


(Edited by the anarchist at 2:08 am on April 17, 2003)

[synthesis]

The problem here, AK47, is that I don't think you really grasp the massive difference between Utopian Socialism and Marxist (Scientific) Socialism.

Utopian Socialism strove to change nothing - it was merely an attempt to instill a sense of responsibility for the workers to the boss. It aimed to change nothing about class hierarchies or wage exploitation.

Marx analyzed this Utopian Socialism and realized that it simply had not taken the concept far enough. Marx argued that the boss must be abolished entirely. Without the total elimination of the overseer class, there will be no stateless society, there will be no end to wage exploitation, and no end to the class hierarchy.

There is a debate which has been raging for quite some time as to whether charity or welfare would be better means of feeding the poor. Charity will only benefit the starving when those capitalists decide it is necessary to placate them in order to avoid revolt.

Welfare, on the other hand, ensures that everyone will have bread on their plates.

I am sure you can complete this analogy yourself, AK47. Utopian Socialism is, of course, utterly naive in its attempt to heal the working class.

Not to mention the fact that New Lanark was one of about two Utopian Socialist experiments that actually succeeded - out of dozens across Europe.

yep, your nitpicking.

No, I ain't.

;)

[Guest1]

No one's denying anything. All he said was marx is not god. I agree. Just because these communes were not perfectly marxist doesn't mean they weren't at all socialist. Alot of them came before marx was well known, this was experimentation.

EDIT

Wait, there's more. It really pisses me off that you equate communism with marxism and say that to deny marx is to deny everything, not just marxism.

HE IS ONE MAN

This is very dangerous rhetoric, dangerous to the cause of socialism and dangerous to the human nature of any society. Debate is the heart of change and change is the heart of socialism. An ever improving, ever evolving society that is organic in nature. Once one man or one ideology is declared unquestionable, you kill all of that.

(Edited by Che y Marijuana at 9:40 pm on April 16, 2003)

[synthesis]

Just because these communes were not perfectly marxist doesn't mean they weren't at all socialist.

Was that directed at me?

If so, I think you misunderstood me. I don't think that Marx ought to be followed just because he's Karl Marx, the most influential man of the last two hundred years.

I think Marx had one crucial concept that must be put into action by any means necessary.

This concept, of course, is democratic control by the workers of all the means of production of a society. This is a massive theory that transcends the coal mine, the harbor, and the textile factory. Marx was, quite simply, the first man to happen upon this Enlightened idea.

Economic democracy, I believe, is as basic a human right as freedom of speech, thought, and assembly.

Therefore, I do not consider New Lanark to be a successful socialist experiment, because rather than giving the workers direct access to the fruits of their labor, it was simply a side project of one proletarian-turned-bourgeois which failed, to my knowledge, in every single other one of its incarnations.

The boss was still the boss and the proletarians were still the under-class.

[Anonymous]

Marxism is not a Man nor simply a theory...

it is a way of study..
a scientific and decent aproach of the world and what surrounds us...

Being marxist isnt blindly following what marx said..
it is following his scientific method os study...

materialism is the one and only theory aproach...
or you wish to prossigue with the theist theorys with almost no scientific bases?

by Marxism i mean the scientific method..
not only the theorys.

denying Marxism IS denying all...

i do not mean that the denial of some Marx´s point of views are a crime.. yet i say taht denying Marx in general is pure stupidity and blind theism...

[Invader Zim]

Quote: from DyerMaker on 2:25 am on April 17, 2003
The problem here, AK47, is that I don't think you really grasp the massive difference between Utopian Socialism and Marxist (Scientific) Socialism.

Utopian Socialism strove to change nothing - it was merely an attempt to instill a sense of responsibility for the workers to the boss. It aimed to change nothing about class hierarchies or wage exploitation.

Marx analyzed this Utopian Socialism and realized that it simply had not taken the concept far enough. Marx argued that the boss must be abolished entirely. Without the total elimination of the overseer class, there will be no stateless society, there will be no end to wage exploitation, and no end to the class hierarchy.

There is a debate which has been raging for quite some time as to whether charity or welfare would be better means of feeding the poor. Charity will only benefit the starving when those capitalists decide it is necessary to placate them in order to avoid revolt.

Welfare, on the other hand, ensures that everyone will have bread on their plates.

I am sure you can complete this analogy yourself, AK47. Utopian Socialism is, of course, utterly naive in its attempt to heal the working class.

Not to mention the fact that New Lanark was one of about two Utopian Socialist experiments that actually succeeded - out of dozens across Europe.

yep, your nitpicking.

No, I ain't.

;)


Utopian Socialism strove to change nothing - it was merely an attempt to instill a sense of responsibility for the workers to the boss. It aimed to change nothing about class hierarchies or wage exploitation.

I am unsure even what utopian socialism is, if it is the beliefs laid down by Robert Owen, then this statment Utopian Socialism strove to change nothing - it was merely an attempt to instill a sense of responsibility for the workers to the boss. shows a basic lack of understanding of Owens theorys.

Not to mention the fact that New Lanark was one of about two Utopian Socialist experiments that actually succeeded - out of dozens across Europe.


Well thats 2 more successes than Marxs theorys.

(Edited by AK47 at 3:23 pm on April 17, 2003)

[synthesis]

I am unsure even what utopian socialism is

It is exactly what I said it is. Here's Marx's analyzation of the ideology.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...-utop/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm)

if it is the beliefs laid down by Robert Owen, then this statment ... shows a basic lack of understanding of Owens theorys.

Is that so? Enlighten me.

Keep in mind, though, that I am not faulting Owen. I have great admiration for the man because he was one of the first capitalists to publicly display a loyalty to his workers. It is merely a simple truth that he did not have the insight nor the resolve that Marx did in solving the problems of the proletariat.

Well thats 2 more successes than Marxs theorys.

Again - do you really believe that? I hope I am not extraneously repeating myself when I say, again, that you ought to read more Marx.

If anything, you ought to know that every socialist dictator, from Stalin to Mao to Ceausescu, has always been Leninist by definition. Marx believed that the workers should control the government and the means of production. Lenin believed that an elite vanguard should control the workers, the government, and the means of production. The idea that this vanguard was corruptible was foreign to him.

I actually have no idea if Utopian Socialism's successes extended anywhere beyond New Lanark; to my knowledge, it hasn't. Regardless, we can look at the Paris Commune and Republican Spain and claim them Marxist victories. The means of production were controlled by the workers - not by the vanguard. So mark that two to one, my friend - Marx wins.

[SwedishCommie]

Quote: from CCCP on 2:34 pm on April 16, 2003

Quote: from SwedishCommie on 7:54 pm on April 15, 2003
I think that the first communist soceity was really far back in time when we lived in tribes and everybody helped each other. You know some take care of the village and some hunt to get food for the tribe. There was no Mine and Yours.


So true.

Captalism started when society got complex.


Exactly!

[Invader Zim]

Quote: from DyerMaker on 3:25 am on April 18, 2003
I am unsure even what utopian socialism is

It is exactly what I said it is. Here's Marx's analyzation of the ideology.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...-utop/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm)

if it is the beliefs laid down by Robert Owen, then this statment ... shows a basic lack of understanding of Owens theorys.

Is that so? Enlighten me.

Keep in mind, though, that I am not faulting Owen. I have great admiration for the man because he was one of the first capitalists to publicly display a loyalty to his workers. It is merely a simple truth that he did not have the insight nor the resolve that Marx did in solving the problems of the proletariat.

Well thats 2 more successes than Marxs theorys.

Again - do you really believe that? I hope I am not extraneously repeating myself when I say, again, that you ought to read more Marx.

If anything, you ought to know that every socialist dictator, from Stalin to Mao to Ceausescu, has always been Leninist by definition. Marx believed that the workers should control the government and the means of production. Lenin believed that an elite vanguard should control the workers, the government, and the means of production. The idea that this vanguard was corruptible was foreign to him.

I actually have no idea if Utopian Socialism's successes extended anywhere beyond New Lanark; to my knowledge, it hasn't. Regardless, we can look at the Paris Commune and Republican Spain and claim them Marxist victories. The means of production were controlled by the workers - not by the vanguard. So mark that two to one, my friend - Marx wins.


Interesting web page, a great insite into how Marx and Engles thought about utopian socialism, shame they got it wrong. They calim that utopian socialism does not have the views of the workers at heart. At the time the interests of the workers were where they would get food, income and shelter from. Utopean socialism solves that, well at least from the perspective of Owen. The members of his community got the best living conditions, payment and working conditions available to any worker in the world at the time.

" Children at this time were admitted into cotton, wool, flax and silk mills, at six and sometimes even five years of age. The time of working, winter and summer were unlimited by law, but usually it was fourteen hours per day - in some fifteen, and even, by the most inhuman and avaricious, sixteen hours." Robert Owen


Are you telling me that changing that is not in the best interests of the workers?

Engles main critism of the Utopian socialist movement was that it attempted to liberate every class of humanity at the same time. Tell me is this not a noble effort? He then claims that to have any form of successful socialism a revolution must take place. As utopian socialism attempt to liberate all classes then no-revolutin can take place. As it would be blocked by the joining of the Middle and upperclasses. However tyhis we know not to be incorrect, as with the formation of democracy socialism can come about because the public (including upper and middle classes) voting for a socialist party. Also the two main utopian socialist leaders are specifically against violance between the working classes and ruling classes.

[synthesis]

You're exactly right, AK47. Utopian Socialism was motivated by perfectly humanitarian intentions. Its main postulation, however, is that the working class ought to gain its emancipation by cooperating with the bourgeoisie.

The bourgeois will never allow the concessions necessary to free the proletariat. Utopian Socialism is much like (and intrinsically linked to) bourgeois democracy in that it is speciously attractive to any Enlightened person.

The scientific examination of history presented by Marx, which you really ought to consider reading, asserts otherwise.

:)

[Invader Zim]

I have read quite a few shorter versions. I was going to read that one as well, but after spending ages reading about Utopian socialism, my eyes were burning. So... i didnt.