Standard of Life Under Pure Communism

[Jimmie Higgins]

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.

Did you know that US congresspeople have private Dr. Evil style pods that travel under the capital and take them from to different government buildings - I just found this out and would not have belived it if I hadn't seen the photos. Hmm, now I can't find photos of the pods, but there are pictures of the older private subway cars here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_..._Subway_System

It's hilarious that they have an underground so that politicians in the US can get from their offices to the capital to make speeches to us about how terrible spending on public projects - like subways - is. Then they hop back into their private subway to get some free government health care so they won't get sick and be prevented from making some speech about the horrors of universal government health care!

I say it's time workers get some of that socialism that congresspeople and bankers seem to enjoy!

[RGacky3]

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

Most people don't have cars.

When you ask how will things be under communism, and ask thinks like "will everyone have a TV" its kind of a rediculous question.

Its like asking in a monarchy "In a democracy will there be an army?"

Communism changes the control of resources the same way democracy changes the control of the state.

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

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.

No doubt, but who's saying that people won't be recognized for their accomplishments? I'm not opposed to the idea of recognizing clothing designers, for example, for allowing them to name the products they create... Who wants to wear Soviet Denim Model #3R87H when they could wear Proletarian Blues? Even if they are the same thing, naming shit is fun.

Then again though, there's a definite transition that will need to be made from the traditionally divided manual vs. mental labor. As it is now, there are the designers and then the folks that actually make the clothes, but we need to try and merge them and make the designing of "shoelaces" or whatever a more collective process.

[WhitemageofDOOM]

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

Anarchic, collectivist, live in cities, invented domestication, farming, slavery and war before us.

Surely you can't be trying to knock communism on such a pedigree right?

What would make things interesting for an individual under Communism--beside from fufiling your personal goals to lean how to paint in pastels?

I find that quite interesting, and for the vast vast majority this is all people have to look forward to in capitalism.

In the Capitalist world there is a definite excitement in selling the world YOUR shoe laces.

So ever sold 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.

That depends on what kind of ambition they have doesn't it?
An ambition to be a well known artist? An ambition to be a respected scientist? Constructive ambitions like that are not going to be suppressed by socialism.
An ambition to hold power over your fellow human beings? Such an ambition is dangerous, and does not deserve societies support.

Then again though, there's a definite transition that will need to be made from the traditionally divided manual vs. mental labor. As it is now, there are the designers and then the folks that actually make the clothes, but we need to try and merge them and make the designing of "shoelaces" or whatever a more collective process.

The cult of the designer is a problem even in mental vs. mental labor. As the vast bulk of mental work gets ignored because of the cult of the designer.

[Jimmie Higgins]

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?

I think workers will need to organize a "state" of sorts to figure out how to iron-out the inequalities of capitalism and, in the early years, defend against any attacks. But as workers are able to make up for capitalist inequalities worker's will be able to get rid of those state bodies because it will be unnecessary - just as immediately after the revolution, unessential jobs (like being a product marketer or advertiser) and shit-jobs will be gotten rid of (no full-time janitors, just a rotating shift for people at the work site and so on).

There won't be official announcements or anything or a single year, it will be gradual just like capitalism going from one phase to another... no one says, in year 18XX, America industrialized, instead we tend to say - such and such even signaled that a certain trend had begun or that a shift happened roughly between the years X to Y.

[Il Medico]

You aren't making Communism sexy at all.

Tom,
As you well know, the mere fact that I am a communist makes our movement sexy.*strikes a pose*

Love,
Captain Jack

[mikelepore]

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?

I describe marketing as waste because modern capitalism has an entire "industry", and it's one of its largest "industries", centered around the socially-useless goal of persuading people to switch brands back and forth. They'll spend a billion dollars to persuade people to switch from Pepsi to Coke, and spend another billion dollars to persuade people to switch from Coke to Pepsi. I put such business expenses in the same category as the military arms race - the more the other side wastes, the more this side has to waste, and vice verse. Competitors can't let themselves fall behind by seeing their competitors waste more than they do, so when the competitors increase their waste one must respond by increasing one's own waste. It's productive capacity that could have been used for something useful.

In a society without business competition, a computerized index of information about the availability and specifications of goods and services can be established with very little use of resources. But today's advertising "industry" is an enormous consumption of resources to achieve something that has an information content of virtually zero.

I mention this subject because many people think the projected standard of living in a socialist system can be estimated by imagining the capitalists' profits being redistributed to the workers. That gives a very inaccurate answer. Much, perhaps most, of the surplus value (the Marxian term for the wealth that workers produce but don't get back in the form of wages) doesn't go to the capitalists' profits. It goes to perform activities that are socially unnecessary by artificially made by capitalism to appear necessary.

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).

I think the people opposed to communism who would revolt will be a problem or about one week, since they would revolt only because the don't know what they're getting, and they will soon find out. After they are informed that they are to receive something like three times the income for one-third the workweek duration, their desire to revolt will have lost its purpose.

If the extraterrestrials are so advanced that they can travel across interstellar space, human weapons would probably be useless. The extraterrestrial technology probably wouldn't be a few hundred years ahead of our, but millions of years ahead of ours.

[Bud Struggle]

Tom,
As you well know, the mere fact that I am a communist makes our movement sexy.*strikes a pose*

Love,
Captain Jack

I stand corrected.

[Green Dragon]

I think workers will need to organize a "state" of sorts to figure out how to iron-out the inequalities of capitalism and, in the early years, defend against any attacks.

OK, now you have justified and explained the founding and decisions made by the USSR...

But as workers are able to make up for capitalist inequalities

Which requires proofs and explanations...

worker's will be able to get rid of those state bodies because it will be unnecessary

Why?

- just as immediately after the revolution, unessential jobs (like being a product marketer or advertiser) and shit-jobs will be gotten rid of (no full-time janitors, just a rotating shift for people at the work site and so on).

Why would the revolution seek to bar experienced janitors from plying their trade? Why would they seek to place inexperienced barbers in their place? How does that benefit the community?

There won't be official announcements or anything or a single year, it will be gradual just like capitalism going from one phase to another... no one says, in year 18XX, America industrialized, instead we tend to say - such and such even signaled that a certain trend had begun or that a shift happened roughly between the years X to Y.

[/QUOTE]

So now we are back to the vagueness of communism. In other words, "we don't know when rotating janitors will reveal itself to been the first step in the great transformation, but deep down inside, we know it will be... someday."