Can a society exist without religion?

Would you still think so if you were starving?

Or at least since liberal society was founded by the strong force liberating itself from the electroweak force. Right? Your statements are becoming increasingly ludicrous to the extent that I don't think you're a troll anymore; this sort of thing generally requires conviction. Oh, and the world never operated on "basic supply & demand principals" [sic]; supply and demand are always in disproportion in capitalism, which makes all of the pretty supply and demand curves of bourgeois economy useful only for the paper they're printed on (which can be used if you're having the shits due to listening to too much of bourgeois economists' hand-waving).

It's not that hard to understand. All you have to do is look at a major corporation, like Microsoft, and see how it works. The people at Microsoft who produce things do not own what they produce. The shareholders, mostly Bill Gates, own everything that comes out of Microsoft. But, the shareholders do not involve themselves in the day to day management of the company, they are only interested in receiving a portion of the profits produced by the workers. They hire managers to run the company.

Now, imagine that everybody in society owns Microsoft. They do not involve themselves in the micromanagement of the company. If an issue comes up that requires the agreement of the owners then a shareholders' meeting can be called. The shareholders can vote by proxy or by the internet.

Everything the company produces is owned by society. All of the means of production, the offices, the computers, the computer coding, the software, is owned by society instead of by private shareholders. That's socialism.

So, if everybody owns Microsoft, why would anybody want to work there, why not just sit back and receive dividends? First, the profit, the surplus value, created by the workers does not go to individual workers, it goes to society at large, which then redistributes (!) it for things such as education, health care, infrastructure, etc.

As it is now at Microsoft there is a class of people who do no work at all, produce nothing, yet are paid from the work of other people, the capitalist shareholders. That situation will no longer exist in socialism. There will no longer be anyone who owns ten million shares of Microsoft but who does no work. In the first stages of socialism people will still be required to work in order to be able to buy what they need or want.

But, where will the new inventions, the new computer systems, the new miracle drugs come from if there is no profit, no incentive? Society will collapse!!

You have been so brainwashed that you believe that human ingenuity, human discovery, human art, human science, do not exist without profit to grub after. You live to be a commodity. In fact, humans do not work to live, they live to work. That's why teenagers talk about their "passion" in life. They want their work to be their passion. They don't want to work just to collect a paycheck. It takes about 30 yrs to grind that humanity out of people.

After a couple of centuries, maybe less, the entire process of production for exchange-value, for profit, will develop into production only for use-value. Things will be produced not for sale, but for human use. In some sense we already see it happening when companies claim to be "non-profit."

Which is when we arrive at "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs." You still see humans as being paid according to their abilities and paying what they can for their needs.

I'm not a fan of John Lennon, but Imagine there are no capitalists, it's easy if you try.

The same mechanisms that were used by previous dominating classes: force, prisons. The working class will need to actively suppress the capitalist classes until they finally disappear.

For a communist the world is never perfect, it is always developing and changing.

People will live in a sane, humane society.

Put them in prisons.

A revolution is caused by class conflict. When society becomes classless, then revolution in the sense you mean will no longer be possible.

You still think in individualistic, self-centered, egoistic terms. The benefit you would get is that you and your fellow human beings will develop their full potential as humans not simply as getters and losers.

I prefer the Free Software/Open Source Software modal (which I spent a lot of time advocating for when I was younger, I was trained to hate Microsoft and still do). Where no one owns the overall product, however individuals own their contributions. There are no managers or other positions that don't do work. If someone wants to add a feature, fix a bug or write some documentation, they can. If someone wants to benefit (providing a better service, or personal satisfaction) they can. There is no board of directors that say what can be implemented, if the feature is required then its added. Imagine if we could replicate that ideal into a political ideology. This way everyone owns nothing, however innovation still occurs, which is something socialism lacks (I can give examples if needed). The other advantage of the modal, is no one dies. There is no need for a revolution or to take away human rights. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Firefox, Chrome, Linux, OpenOffice, PHP, Gcc just to name a few, are all products that have come out of the opensource model.

So why would an individual worker want to create value for nothing in return, not even personal satisfaction? The reason I ask this is because every country where socialism has been the dominate ideology for a long time, there is mass unemployment and a lot of people on welfare (and in some cases, shortage or food, health care). So something must be wrong with the model, correct?

You do realize that most of the shareholders of Microsoft are not "bourgeois" right. They are mums and dads who have put money away into an investment account of some sort. So if Microsoft earns money, those mums and dads get the rewards. In Australia we have a thing called Super where by the employer puts a percentage of your wage into a super fund. The super fund then invests that money into big businesses such as Microsoft and gives any return back to the employee.

Profit isn't the driving force of innovation. Perfect example is Wikipedia, in the first couple of years, Wikipedia was running at a lost. People now donate to Wikipedia because its a good information source. So no if there is no profit, society won't collapse. BTW Wikipedia is open source as well.

I think I just know to much and I have matured to the level or realism. I have studied this stuff for years, and have research the conservative side of politics. I am interested in learning more about how the Left view the world.

Then the cycle starts again. People needs will change, which will mean innovation must happen to society to continue. From your own admission, socialism won't be able to provide, which will mean that Capitalism II will be born, and we will be back to where we started.

So you would actually put the people who are fighting for communism (i.e your own people), in prison. Wow.
Here I was thinking revolution was a fundamental change from one system to another. I guess the wiki is wrong when it says:

and a Revolutionary meaning

Since it seems Wikipedia is wrong, should you change the wiki article or should I?

Ziggy might actually be shooting for dumbest person of the year.

While 'fundamental' seems to be the point - a conscious change is hardly going to be able to depart from communism - obviously the way that one would use the word in a theoretically informed sense and the sense in which one might use it in a place of avowed theoretical ignorance like Wikipedia is distinct. The way that they were using the term is in all likelihood related to their understanding of history and its processes, which would perhaps be closely allied to communism itself, in which sense they needn't bother to edit such articles because they are making no claim of neutrality which would invalidate their view, as indeed they may well not.

One of the most popular arguments against atheism, which comes from the amoral, fear-driven, reactionary camps, is that God is necessary for morality to sustain itself or have any meaning. Without God, morality would cease to exist, they say.

Essentially, they believe that moral sentiments derive from obedience to a rigid moral code; that in order to be moral, one must first be subordinate. We are expected to act like children, obedient to our space parents who tell us what we can and can't do.

This isn't morality at all. This is vacuous obsequiousness, which is primarily driven by fear, rather than empathy and concern.


However, moral sentiments exist independently of submission to authority. They are in fact, improved by the absence of subordination and authoritarianism. Human beings can act co-operatively and morally without being chained by superstition and fear. To think otherwise is an insult to dignity and to humanity.

So yes, of course society can exist without religion. If we want a free humanity, it is necessary to abolish religion.

Its a close race.

Can you tell me how the Communist Revolution fits outside that definition?

No. The reactionaries are the capitalist classes who oppose communism and who want to return to capitalism, i.e. they are reactionaries, they want to go backwards. They go to prison.

A revolution certainly results in a fundamental change. The cause of a political revolution is class conflict which has developed beyond the point where society can contain it.

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They don't "go to prison". They go to the wall.

The product is owned by society, or the bureaucracy or the worker dictatorship. The working individuals own their contributions as wages. The value added by the workers is owned collectively and is distributed for reinvestment, health care, education. etc. Much later are the concepts wages, owner, individual contribution done away with.

All of which sounds like socialism to me.

Socialism is a very new social, political and economic system. It has extremely powerful enemies who will commit any crime to destroy it. Is it really hard to see why socialism is advancing so slowly? There is a recent case in which an extremely poor, third world, technologically backward socialist country defeated the most powerful military in history, Vietnam and the US. The US used extreme barbaric and savage brutality against the Vietnamese people, killing about 5 million. And yet Vietnam survived as a socialist state. Also, China is now a world power possessing nuclear weapons and can defend itself against any attack by Western capitalism. Pretty good model for surviving in a world of bloodthirsty war criminals trying to destroy you.

They are petit-bourgeois who have absolutely zero influence on what that company does.


It has been for the past 400 years of capitalism. Any capitalist would be proud to tell you that.

Wikipedia looks pretty socialist to me. Otherwise they would never have released all the wikidocuments.

No, in the communist revolution, once it succeeds, there is no going back. Capitalism is over for good. Innovation will happen because people are curious and inventive, not because they have to profit for their work. Society will receive from the inventors their ability produce new inventions; and the benefits from the inventions will go to those in need.

Yet in this socialism, no one gets killed or starve to death, everyone has free speech and everyone wins. Everyone is Liberal.
The real thing that has slowed socialism, is the wars, deaths that have come due to solely socialism.
China is moving away from socialism through privatisation of the health care system and property ownership, and other industries. Its going back to capitalism.

You should research the Kibbutz, as to why I don't think that is the case. It is the closest we have ever got to communism/socialism without killing people. Very interesting.

Israel itself is a socialist state: all land is owned by the state; free health care, education; major industries owned by the state; strong unions; etc., etc. However it is also a nationalist socialist state based partly on the racial repression of the Palestinians. Whether it will survive is still a question.

[QUOTE=ziggyfish;2861008]Yet in this socialism, no one gets killed or starve to death, everyone has free speech and everyone wins. Everyone is Liberal.And capitalist exploitation is not allowed to exist.

It is the reactionary fascism of the Capitalists which has caused the wars and deaths in its attempt to eradicate socialism.

China has been going back to capitalism now for the past 25 yrs but it seems never to quite get there. And during that time the Chinese Communist Party through centralized planning has created the largest economy in the world. In one generation China has gone from a third world country to a world power.

Regardless of what one thinks about the socialist or communist nature of China one thing is crystal clear: China did not get where it is today by reintroducing capitalism. If anything, what it has reintroduced is a form of Leninist socialism: control of the commanding heights of the economy and leaving the rest to private companies and once a company gets large enough to begin to distort the economy the government takes it over.

Foxconn is an example of what you get when you allow capitalism to return in the form of privatization: suicides, 12 hr work days, 6 day weeks, labor exploitation, etc. The Chinese govt. doesn't say much about FoxConn.

ROFL. And I thought Ziggy was fucking stupid. Are you fucking serious? Israel, socialist????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????

This reminds me on an onion article.

Not quite,

Economic reforms introducing market principles began in 1978 and were carried out in two stages. The first stage, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, involved the decollectivization of agriculture, the opening up of the country to foreign investment, and permission for entrepreneurs to start businesses. However, most industry remained state-owned. The second stage of reform, in the late 1980s and 1990s, involved the privatization and contracting out of much state-owned industry and the lifting of price controls, protectionist policies, and regulations, although state monopolies in sectors such as banking and petroleum remained. The private sector grew remarkably, accounting for as much as 70 percent of China gross domestic product by 2005.[5] From 1978 until 2013, unprecedented growth occurred, with the economy increasing by 9.5% a year. The conservative Hu-Wen Administration more heavily regulated and controlled the economy after 2005, reversing some reforms.[6]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...52-2005gdp.gif