Standard of Life Under Pure Communism

Under a pure communist system what will our standards of living be? Will we have TVs, radios, computers, antiques, books, automobiles, airplanes, and/or what else? What will be allowed to have and not have?

Of course we would still have all that stuff. Maybe even better!

Why wouldn't we be able to have those things?

Have whatever the fuck you want.

How creative works will be produced: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist...quest/ch9.html

Most of what you mentioned (other than books) is pretty much mass produced as it is so there is no reason why they wouldn't exist in abundance.

IMO, the phrase "a pure communist system" is misleading, because it makes it seem as though the way in which the system will be structured is the most definitive quality. I think the main characteristic is that of being genuine (the workers democratically control the means of production) or being fraudulent (the workers don't democratically control the means of production). There's no "pure" form that is essential.

Whatever gave you the idea that there would be a certain list of things that people are "allowed to have"?

The standard of living will be vastly improved compared to the way we have to survive today. That is mostly due to two things: (1) no longer being robbed to sustain a class of people who perform no productive work whatsoever but own most of the wealth, and (2) the elimination of the wastes of productive capacity, such as militarism, marketing, and other useless activities.

We can even be more efficient now thanks to digital technology. Why waste resources on shipping books and videos when everything could be available and free almost instantly!

Capitalism was once a progressive force for technology but now that it is firmly established it is as likely to hold back the potential of technology as develop it. We can digitally copy any information now, but there's no profit in it, so capitalism puts up false barriers to protect profits at the expense of the products, technology, and our own well being.

The day after the revolution, any digital book, the OED, the amazon catalogue will all be available any time to any person.

True those Kindle things are cool. A lot better than that other stuff that is used and being able to download stuff freely like movies would be great! And everything would be free.

I'd say yes to everything except automobiles, at least in their current form. I think a ration society will greatly change how we go from one place to another.

Driving is inefficient. It utilizes the time an individual could spend doing more productive or enjoyable things. Public transit is not properly developed. Even a magnetic road system where cars automatically drive at a consistently high speed would be preferable to our current system.

Human beings sharing a road causes accidents, traffic jams, and a large variety of inefficiencies. We'd all be better off if we had a more cooperative transit system. To get this, we have to stop driving cars and demand more from our politicians (ideally just have a revolution already).

Anyone who has taken a subway or other transit system will be amazed, often, at the speed in comparison to the modern vehicle. If we make it a goal of having a good public transit system, everyone will be better off.

Obviously, some people like driving. They can go race on a track or something. The roads are public space, and what happens in public space has to be decided by the public. I think they'd ultimately favor a different kind of transit. It's just far too inefficient to continue as we do with population increases.

This isn't an attempt to stop global warming, either. I just get really annoyed by how inefficient our transit system is because of the amount of cars on the road. And I hear about drunk drivers and all kinds of other ridiculous things. Easy solution. Spend some money. Improve the transit system. People should be "driven" to their destination, not driving there.

That doesn't really work for more rural areas though.

I'm rather curious about point #2 especially the words marketing and militarism. Won't artists and authors still want to advertise their works so more people can read or see it? Also for militarism there will be people opposed to the communist system who would revolt and also the remote possbility of an extraterrestrial threat (don't mock me for this but I do think even if the world was completely at peace we'd need a strong military in case of such a threat).

In addition to rural areas public transit is often inconvenient as you have walk a lot because public transit cannot stop in front of every building. This makes it inconvenient for people who can't walk well or people carrying heavy loads.

Yes. If there is a communal demand for a product it shall be met.

i dont think communism would kill the diversity of products avaliable today.

but i think certain version of socialism could lead to shortage of furniture and good, the soviet model come to mind.

but beside this i dont see nothing that would change the avaliability of goods. Even better, there wil be no artificial shortage for a lot of stuff, wich mean most of the stuff will be more offordable.

From what I've read above your making humanity into ants.

What would make things interesting for an individual under Communism--beside from fufiling your personal goals to lean how to paint in pastels? In the Capitalist world there is a definite excitememnt in selling the world YOUR shoe laces. If the world lacked people without ambition--I thing you paint a nice picture. But there are Napoleons, both great and small that need to be dealt with.

Yeah, that's a good point. The great thing about communism is individual people in their respective areas can get together and make decisions relevant to the best interests of their jurisdiction.

Public transit might not be a realistic goal for rural areas. However, investment in public transit has been rather low, historically. The developmental resources put towards developments in automobiles, I suspect, have far exceeded those put towards public transit.

I'm not sure it isn't conceivable to have a cost effective public transit system for rural areas. If it isn't, of course, cars are fine. There is nothing wrong with cars. It's just they create inefficiency in many cases.

pure communism, now with 100% more pulp!

Your right. Communism is like orange juice, it is good for you.

You aren't making Communism sexy at all.

Why should anyone join the movement? Let's ALL ride the BUS!? :D

Where's Che when you need him?

In our hearts.

It's a stupid question. There is no "pure" communism, just as there is no "pure capitalism" . . . There are pros and cons to every system and this "purity" stuff is just semantics. The two main systems of the last century - state socialism and capitalism - have both failed most people abysmally. What matters is looking for something better, and listening to criticisms along the way, and not being dogmatic about it; "pure communism" has an almost religious ring to it.

I'm just going to throw this out there:

Is the idea of "pure communism" a bit difficult? Let's say you subscribe to the basic Marxist-Leninist concept of a transitionary socialist state. I mean, in the future, will the history books say "In the year xxx, the state officially ceased to exist.", or would the transition be more gradual?