What drives your politics?

[Comrade Samuel]

I voted economic equality because it is a very big part of it for me however overall I think for most if not all of us here it is just a combination of them all.

[Ravachol]

To rediscover the lost human community, to sing in the sun, to howl in the winds!

[bcbm]

vengeance

[Ocean Seal]

My personal reason is an understanding that conditions under capitalism are only going to get worse because of the falling rate of profit. Things are shitty enough as it is, so I personally see it as necessary to get rid of capitalism before the shit hits the hyperdrive as the cool kids say.

[robear]

I was actually a content republican/libertarian before I chose to be communist. I had just came back to the US from a study abroad in Germany when some very unfortunate things happened. This prompted me to focus my semester project/presentation on poverty, with emphasis on China's poverty. My eyes were opened to the gross inequality that exists in the world today. I would say economic equality and prosperity are the most important things to me.

[hatzel]

Doesn't this poll seem redundant? I think everyone who is a communist likes all four of those things.

I wouldn't say that, no. Not as they're presented, at least:

1) "ensuring no one is richer [...] than anyone else" - I am not unavoidably repulsed by the mere suggestion that one person may have more books than another, for example. If a fair economic system - one in which each person was fully remunerated for their labour, whilst also ensuring that those who refrain from labour are not condemned to a life of hardship - could be devised and implemented, allowing people maximum flexibility in choosing their own path, I would see no problem with one person choosing to work long days in order to afford a personal library, and another choosing to sit in the park, enjoying the sunshine, thus foregoing a personal library. I'm not exactly an advocate of Parecon, though I remember at least one of Albert and Hahnel's texts arguing that this is the very essence of economic equity, and I agree that there is nothing fundamentally unjust about the proposal. I also agree that capitalism will never be able to act as such an equitable economic system.

2) "personal freedom" - I am here reminded of an extract from Jung:

No one can flatter himself that he is immune to the spirit of his own epoch, or even that he possesses a full understanding of it. Irrespective of our conscious convictions, each one of us, without exception, being a particle of the general mass, is somewhere attached to, coloured by, or even undermined by the spirit which goes through the mass. Freedom stretches only as far as the limits of our consciousness.

Beyond simply a psychological approach - considering the influence of the unconscious mind, the Zeitgeist of each society, pervasive social mores etc. an its impact on the concept of 'personal freedom' - I also maintain that the individual is unavoidably constricted in their external actions, too, as their freedom to act is in fact more properly described as a social permission than a personal freedom, as it relies not only on the tolerance of one's neighbours, but also on the existence of a social structure which allows for the constitution of the person as a free entity. Though I am in many respects heavily influenced by so called 'individualist anarchists,' I don't actually think that individual freedom is possible - though in fact Stirner claimed that freedom was unachievable, a spook of the mind, suggesting that I needn't claim to have rebuffed the individualists, - and would therefore not be particularly comfortable claiming that my politics are driven by a demand for the illusion of personal freedom.

3) "cohesion of all people" - here my issue is with the word 'cohesion.' Perhaps I'm just being pedantic by appealing to etymology (thereby overlooking common understandings of the term, particularly in phrases like 'social cohesion'), but to co-here means simply to stick two or more things together. Co-hesion and ad-hesion, that is the root of the word. Personally I see no interest in binding individuals and groups together, forcing them to remain wholly connected to others, thus depriving them of any semblance of autonomy. I think that decentralisation and cohesion are necessarily opposed (as, in fact, are cohesion or diversity, which really gives me problems with the wording of this option! ), and think that the emancipatory project, the old ideal of federalism and local self-management, actually demands the 'unsticking' of people, groups, areas. A certain interdependence will most likely remain, but I would be far looser and more fluid than is implied by the word 'cohesion' in its stringent use.

4) "prosperity" - as I said in my post above, prosperity in this sense seems to refer specifically to material gain. 'Access to quality goods' suggests one is here talking about having nice cars and TVs and other such products, and there is an implication that wealth and a high standard of living come hand in hand. Perhaps I'm calling for a transformation of understanding, and a reassessment of the implications of these terms. My dictionary, for instance, says that 'to prosper' means to be fortunate. 'Fortunate,' however, is a term with very obvious implications of wealth, of having a fortune. Compare this with a synonym for 'fortune,' namely 'luck,' which is etymologically related to various Germanic words meaning 'happiness.' If prosperity is the maximisation of fortune-as-wealth, then I'm not interested, and I would consider it an extension of pre-socialistic ways of thinking. If, however, prosperity is the maximisation of fortune-as-happiness, fortune-as-wellbeing...well, then I'm willing to throw my weight behind it, though it should also be acknowledged that these two types of prosperity, these two types of fortune - as wealth and as wellbeing - are potentially conflicting ideals, and I would sooner sacrifice the former in service of the latter. If there is a choice between everybody sitting in a field all day playing with sticks and enjoying life on the one hand, and everybody sitting in a factory building HDTVs all day so that we can watch them for a few hours in the evening to escape the misery of the day job...well, I'd go for the first option. And yes I know that's shameless hyperbole and there is absolutely no possibility of that scenario ever happening, because there would be faaaaar too many TVs, I was just making a point by going overboard, sheesh...

So basically what I'm trying to say is that I disagree with all four. Okay, maybe not disagree, but I have serious concerns about them as they stand, and don't see any reason to make these demands. But that's mainly just because I want to be all different and buck the trend and say something weird for the sake of argument and furthering the discussion or something. That isn't to say I don't agree with what I just wrote, though as with all my posts that's a very real possibility...

[Lilith]

Reverence for G-d drives my politics.

[Ele'ill]

I'd have to say 1,2,3, and 4.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Universal equality, simply put.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Not only are those four things not at odds with each other, they're impossible without each other.

[Bostana]

To know that the bourgeoisie assholes are gone and will not come back will help me sleep at night

[The Jay]

Not only are those four things not at odds with each other, they're impossible without each other.

That's very true, but one can favor one aspect over another while recognizing that they are all inter-related.

[honest john's firing squad]

Personal self-interest. I want a better world for myself, and also to have a better understanding of the world, the forces that drive it, and the direction it may ultimately take as a result of the class struggle in our epoch. I hold no eternal moral principles such as "equality" or "liberty" sacred in regards to my politics; I only support the real interests of my class in its movement towards the destruction of the presently existing social order, which are an extension of my own personal interests.

[Pretty Flaco]

What drives my politics?
hormones. i'm in it to meet women.

[The Intransigent Faction]

There's something to be said for each of those four poll options, and as someone else said they're pretty much tied together.
Forgive my vagueness, but I'd say I'm driven partly by compassion, and partly by rationality. We need to replace an irrational and socially destructive socioeconomic system with one that actually gives everyone the opportunity to be the best person they can be.
Speaking from my own experiences/what I've seen, capitalism is at the root of many of the discriminatory, backward attitudes in our world today, and it's long overdue for us to advance beyond all of that stuff.

[The Intransigent Faction]

To know that the bourgeoisie assholes are gone and will not come back will help me sleep at night

That too. I often wonder how people I know can so easily go to sleep or go about their daily routines knowing so many people are starving to death or are in otherwise terrible conditions and being treated like slaves.

I guess in short I was raised by liberal parents who taught me to value fairness, equality, compassion, and the payoff of developing your own work ethic, but then I looked around at the disconnect between those values and reality and knew something was wrong.

[Ose]

For craic. But really, no one of the options given is more important than any other, as they are all inextricably linked. With regard to communism, you can't have one without the rest.

What I want and what I feel does not drive my politics. My materialist knowledge of the fact that the producers of the world should own the world instead of those who steal from their labor does.

Pronouncements involving 'should' in this sense aren't materialist. That is by no means a criticism btw (materialism contains no intrinsic goodness), just an observation that immediately sprang to mind.

[Princess Luna]

Personal self interest. I do not own property, I'm never likely to own property therefore it is in my best interests to abolish it.

How very Objectivist of you

[Ned Kelly]

Material conditions..

[Renegade Saint]

Class interest drives my politics. I'm am a member of the proletariat. All my political questions come down to "what's in the best interest of the proletariat?"