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To each according to his needs .....
Quick question here ....
I'm aware that in a communist society citizens will be conscious enough not to want unreasonable needs for his/her life, but does that mean that certain items that would be deemed of better luxury and a higher value would not be produced or built, say for instance, mansions for living in or Rolls Royce vehicles for driving in ?
I'm assuming that such possessions wont be consigned to the past, so when would it be deemed possible that these items could be needed and distributed ?
depends if you run the country or not, from what iv always seen.
Exactly, so shouldn't the people rule the country democratically?
i meant the leaders get the mansions and cars. the people get the bread and water.
Luxury items get their value simply because not everyone can afford them. The need of an expensive car is simply the want to have something that most people can't have. So no, there won't be any luxuries in communism by definition. That doesn't mean you can't drive a high performance car if you're interested in racing or whatever. The fact that cars will be shared instead of lying much of the day in a garage will make them available to anyone who wants them.
So what your saying is that those who have the abilities and skills to make something superior and of better quality wont be able to specialise in these fields. ? sounds like a rut to me.
Technological advance would surely see a better quality of product. If something of better and higher quality is produced, what happens to it, is it kept in storage until their is abundance ?
Who said that?
It's obvious that can't have was written as in can't afford it.
Common, how hard is this to get?
i collect shot glasses as i travel around the country, if "the people" declare i have too many shot glasses are they going to come confiscate most of mine?
You will of course freely donate your shot glasses to the People's Museum where all the comrades can enjoy them.
Apologies if I picked you up wrong. at present there is the ability to produce and build items that would be deemed luxurious and of top quality. Why all of a sudden would there be a cease of such production ? of course a Rolls Royce manufactured in a communist society wouldn't be labelled as a Rolls Royce, but if there is the ability to make these types of possessions (realistically in small batches), who would decide how they would be distributed ?
In communism you can work on whatever you want. If some people are willing to build a Rolls Royce then they can do whatever they want with it. Of course, it's not their property so they can't sell or rent it. However, if building such a car takes much more labor, I doubt people would work that much just to show it off. Hopefully, the consumerist indoctrination of today will vanish and people will actually enjoy life instead of working all day to build shit they don't need.
One thing I dislike about answering these questions is that we are hypothesizing about a situation deep into the future. However, I can almost with certainty answer that I nor anyone else need such possessions. Nor do I think that their want is anything more than a reflection of the current system and rather irrational. What I mean by irrational is that someone would want a Rolls Royce not for the material benefit that it offers, but because of other concerns. A Rolls Royce is more difficult to make, its nicer looking, and it might drive faster than your average Toyota, but this doesn't justify the price difference. In a perfectly logical world no one would desire a Rolls Royce at its current price. To begin many expensive cars have a low fuel economy and are difficult to maintain. They tend to transport less people and look rather uncomfortable. The reason that we make such a choice is merely because our media and society tells us that it is good. After such reactionary norms are eliminated I guarantee no one would honestly say that they needed a Rolls Royce.
Mansions on the other hand do offer the material benefit of more space, but aren't necessary nor are they convenient because they are more difficult to clean and maintain. The mansion offers many benefits when things are privatized such as the ability to have a pool within your home or to have a large study space and a place to store things, but if this is all available to the public then the want for a mansion would also be irrational.
Also I would like to reassert that communism is classless and non-hierarchical (everyone from Lenin to Bakunin believes this) and thus the people run the government so no to the statements that say if you're running it.
“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” Charles Bukowski, Factotum
"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped." MLK
-fka Redbrother
If you honestly, have SOOOO MANY shot glasses that other people don't have the opportunity to take shots, then yeah. But for that to happen you'd have to have warehouses full of shot glasses. So no, its not gonna be a problem, but damn your a typical tourist
These type of questions are rediculous, because its so unlikely its not worth talking about.
Of course there's a line somewhere. I mean, I could probably build a 'car' single-handedly within a few days. Of course it wouldn't be much more than a wooden box with wheels borrowed from a wheel-barrow, but it would be a car, nonetheless. Just a very slow car with terrible steering. It would be downright dangerous, actually. And we don't want that. So if some kind of transport solution is needed, we have to rely on a natural human altruistic system whereby those who manufacture cars meet some minimum requirements. Or, put more than just the absolute minimum effort in. Which might be verging on the utopian. So maybe we'll just have to hope the baker doesn't let me, as a provider of complete deathtraps, get any bread until I up my game or change my vocation
Of course there's a line somewhere. I mean, I could probably build a 'car' single-handedly within a few days. Of course it wouldn't be much more than a wooden box with wheels borrowed from a wheel-barrow, but it would be a car, nonetheless. Just a very slow car with terrible steering. It would be downright dangerous, actually. And we don't want that. So if some kind of transport solution is needed, we have to rely on a natural human altruistic system whereby those who manufacture cars meet some minimum requirements. Or, put more than just the absolute minimum effort in. Which might be verging on the utopian. So maybe we'll just have to hope the baker doesn't let me, as a provider of complete deathtraps, get any bread until I up my game or change my vocation
What about approved production made to appoved order- i.e. when someone needs a car for example, an team come together with the tools etc and it is produced? Future technology will probably allow us to do away with a lot of heavy industrial production anyway.
-www.revleft.org-
Economic Left/Right: -6.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
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We can't 'bank' on what we don't currently have.
"whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams"
http://youtu.be/g-PwIDYbDqI
No, I don't think that collecting things such as shot glasses would become a problem as more can always be produced- while at the same time the old relics would remain a 'collector's hobby' and would be appreciated because there are few left. (from say the 1950's or whenever)
If there was a concentration of wealth and resources that equated to power or leverage (such as we see now) regarding the shot glasses at any stage of production we might see problems- this is not inherent though as manufacturing can operate in a collectivized fashion and whatnot.
"whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams"
http://youtu.be/g-PwIDYbDqI
Of course there's a line somewhere. I mean, I could probably build a 'car' single-handedly within a few days. Of course it wouldn't be much more than a wooden box with wheels borrowed from a wheel-barrow, but it would be a car, nonetheless. Just a very slow car with terrible steering. It would be downright dangerous, actually. And we don't want that. So if some kind of transport solution is needed, we have to rely on a natural human altruistic system whereby those who manufacture cars meet some minimum requirements. Or, put more than just the absolute minimum effort in. Which might be verging on the utopian. So maybe we'll just have to hope the baker doesn't let me, as a provider of complete deathtraps, get any bread until I up my game or change my vocation
You're moralizing here ("altruistic"), then mixing together a moralistic framework with a strictly material one ("minimum effort"), and then dismissing the material framework as being too far-fetched ("utopian").
I think even the furthest-right Marxist would agree that people are generically capable of forming larger groups for the purpose of completing a project in common -- the main factor underlying *how great* a scale of labor can be organized is determined by the society's overall political composition.
Last edited by ckaihatsu; 23rd October 2010 at 23:19. Reason: one-word fix
Don't remember saying people couldn't form larger groups for the purpose of completing a project in common...just pointing out that an individual could easily get a bit vigilante (
And then of course the capitalists amongst us would probably point out that, without a financial incentive for building a better car, one would probably build the worst possible car, expending as little effort as possible (as one expects to be paid for ones effort), which would be my wooden box example. Irrespective of anything else, I think we can agree that such an attitude would probably prevail in the immediate aftermath of any such social change, at least amongst some people, until they are used to the system and see the advantages. So the theoretical question above would really only apply to the early stages, right after the change, when people are still in the mindset of the old system. Simple!
