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How many of you live in communes?
What the title says. How many of you, that describe yourselves as communists share your resources freely with a closed group of people. Families don't count
I'm asking, because I have come to believe that political means are a poor way to spread an ideology and it's far more productive to lead by example, because people really respond to that and you partially get the benefits of your ideology before the wider public accepts it.
Communism doesn't mean living in communes (which, judging by the statements of some of the commune-enthusiasts, would amount to shutting everyone up in a monastery) but the social control of the means of production on a global scale. Local communes, cooperative, etc. aren't elements of the communist society.
No, I know that communism should be global etc, but if a country turned sorta commie tomorrow, by banning private property & money, wouldn't you rejoice? If yes, then moving towards communism on a smaller scale should be a good idea, therefore communes would be an acceptable means to an end, no?
But that's the problem - there is no "sort of communism", no half-communism, quarter-communism or five-sevenths communism. The communist society either exists, or it doesn't. Those that hold that communism will be preceded by a transitional period would welcome the overthrow of bourgeois property relations and the establishment of transitional social arrangements. But again, these are social arrangements - they function on the scale of the modern nation-state, at best (I mean, that's the smallest scale where they might conceivably function). Capitalist property relations can't be overthrown in one family or municipality.
They can be overthrown for the people inside the community. The community would still probably need to trade with outsiders, but it wouldn't be restricted by those horrible property titles on the inside. Isn't abolishing some private property better than abolishing no private property? You could still be politically active and support real communism, and now you would even have practical proof that abolishing private property is beneficial to society. I see no downside to doing this at all.
Not really. As long as one group exercises exclusive ownership of the means of production, private property hasn't been abolish. At best it has been rearranged. But we aren't interested in rearranging private property, whether on the social-democratic or monastic-communalist model.
I live in a house with another CWI member, a Kurdish immigrant who used to be part of the PKK and another independent socialist. We jokingly call it 'the commune' and share some of our meals, share chores and help each other out when needed etc but, fundamentally, it isn't communism. We won't have achieved communism until capitalism as a system is over.
Real communes, the type where you get out into nature and live self-sustaining lives, are actually bad for the movement, in my opinion. Extracting yourself from the every day workers' experiences might be enjoyable but you're distancing yourself from any opportunities to actually organise with your fellow proletariat. Plus it's fundamentally impossible to achieve: what happens if you get sick? How do you work the land without state officials coming to remove you unless you own it in capitalist law? While we live in capitalism, we cannot extract ourselves from it except through revolution.
Modern democracy is nothing but the freedom to preach whatever is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie - Lenin
So if the whole world except one person would agree on private property being wrong and let's say for the sake of the argument, that the one person is well enough armed that the small piece of land he claims can't be removed from him, you would continue to use money with everyone else, because it wouldn't be real communism anyway?
What about my other arguments, wouldn't healthy and functioning communes provide a good role model for society, and wouldn't you personally be better off, since those communes would internally have a better system of production?
That person much be armed quite well indeed. Most likely they would be ignored. But yes, if islands of private property still exist, and if there are market mechanisms, the communist society hasn't been achieved (of course, the most sensible response to this state of affairs is to remove the still-existing private property and market mechanisms etc.).
They wouldn't - again, you don't seem to appreciate the scale of the global economy. A commune that tried to be self sufficient would - in addition to being merely another form of private property - be able to attain a much lower material level than surrounding areas that participate in the global exchange of goods. Obviously. A commune that traded with surrounding areas would simply expose the backwardness of small-scale "cooperative" (really artisanal) production.Originally Posted by ThatGuy
There is no socialism in one municipality.
Well the point of Communist Ideology is that it washes clean the entirety of an existence within a society fueled by the need for a ruling class or any type of idea of property ownership at all if there is even one holdout as you say then the idea can't have achieved full reality even living in a commune as you say there would still be the need for someone to hold a land deed of some sort so that the outside world of capitalism couldn't touch them and someone would still be paying land taxes for the protection and ownership of that land. Communism is more than just politics it is a complete and global revolution of human thinking.
The thought is quite simple people living together and working together not because they need to and not because they want any type of material gain but simply because the whole of the human race should be more concerned with the progression of the species its a society supporting itself without trade, without greed, without conflict and without borders one nation one purpose and that purpose is unity.
so actually to close yourself off from the rest of the world and to hide within the protection of a commune would be detrimental to the progression of the Communist cause, just running and hiding from a problem does not correct that problem and Capitalism is a problem an error in human progress that must be wiped out and corrected.
While on one hand I find the general sentiment of other posters in this thread more-or-less agreeable, I have lived in intentional collective spaces, some specifically political, for essentially the entirety of my (short) adult life (I'm about a month shy of 28).
By and large, these spaces have been incredibly useful, in terms of providing a web of financial, and emotional support, physical space for developing projects, an on-hand group of people to engage in activity, etc. The capacity that can be (not necessarily is) developed out of a close-knit group of organizers with a shared space and vision is incredibly powerful. For example, the ability to organize a picket, prepare materials, and gather persons without even needing to leave one's living room can be incredibly advantageous when something needs to come together on short notice. Obviously, expanding capacity beyond the walls of one's living room is important, but none the less . . . and for that matter, it can help with that too. I remember a particular instance of organizing a large scale neighbourhood BBQ. Our capacity as a house became an important key to breaking our immediate isolation - something we likely couldn't have pulled off if we'd been organizers living alone.
My experience does suggest that "communes" are a useful tool in struggle (much like a union, a mutual aid society, an office, a newspaper, or whatever else). I think, however, that mistaking "communes" (or any of these other things) for the struggle in-and-of-itself is dangerous.
*Shrug*
The life we have conferred upon these objects confronts us as something hostile and alien.
Formerly Virgin Molotov Cocktail (11/10/2004 - 21/08/2013)
Guys, guys...Commune inhabitant = Commun'-ist. It just makes sense!1!!!1
That's how you be a Commun'-ist innit.
i was flirting with the idea, for a while, of a communist society arising out of a network of self-supporting communes. basically, utopianism. my wife and i actually went to live in a commune for a spell and the notion that this can be done was quickly dispelled.
"Communes" as we think of them today are more of a return to the feudal mode of production - with taxes on land by the state substituting for taxes on land by the aristocracy - than any sort of isolated advance towards the socialist mode of production.
"to become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly"
Why, what went wrong?
so, a pre-requisite for communism is that there is abundance of goods. basically, post-scarcity. we are not yet at that stage in production, but this commune was acting like it. people weren't pulling enough labor for the commune to be truly self-sufficient. apparently, it had a golden period a couple decades ago but has been in slow decline since the founders of the commune are beginning to die. it was too heavily centered on being a fuck-around and drama camp for young folks rather than being an actual community, when we got there.
communism cannot arise from conditions like that, and other communes basically fail for the same reasons as this one is currently doing. it doesn't represent an attempt to overthrow the existing social order. just trying to survive under it in what are essentially artificial surroundings.
Of course this is just a theoretical example, but if you can ignore one person and live your lives happily, why wouldn't you be able to ignore how other people live their lives and live your own lives according to your views peacefully? This whole "Communism must be global!" thing really sounds like an excuse not to live out your beliefs.
I never said you should try to be self sufficient. The commune could trade with the outside world just like you are probably already trading with the outside world yourself, what you would get rid of is market relationships between those inside the commune. Also, since you probably consider markets inefficient(I'm guessing here, correct me if you don't), all of the people in the commune would be materially better off, which would give outsiders an incentive to join and would be a good way of introducing people to communism. I think.
Because there's quite the difference between one isolated person who wants to be bourgeois, and who would probably be played by Clint Eastwood in the movie adaptation, and the entire global society? It's not a very difficult concept to grasp. Republicans had no problem with Emperor Norton I of the United States, but they had quite the problem with Emperor Napoleon III of the French.
That communism must be global is fairly elementary; if you follow the Marxist analysis of society, it can't be anything but global. "Our beliefs" include the global socialisation of the means of production; that's not something that can be "lived out" in the capitalist society, just as the goal of the great bourgeois revolutions, a nation-state on the basis of the private ownership of the means of production, wage-labour by workers free from feudal obligations, and formal democracy, couldn't be "lived out" in the feudal society.Originally Posted by ThatGuy
Markets are inefficient compared to a rationally planned, global economy. They are efficient compared to the feudal system of distribution etc. In any case, the market isn't abolished when a commune is formed, just as it isn't abolished when a joint-stock company is formed.Originally Posted by ThatGuy
I would kinda agree with that actually. I think property rights become redundant once things are no longer scarce. Just like with air today, it's not scarce, therefore nobody is really trying to claim ownership over it, except to prevent pollution. The common joke is that you can inhale all the air you want, just don't exhale it
But I really don't think that post scarcity can be achieved in all goods, because it would pretty much mean, that anything could be obtained instantly at no cost. As I understand that, people wouldn't need to die anymore in a post scarcity world, because there would be a free cure every disease they would have would have, including aging. Really, rit all comes down to resources being finite and desires infinite.
I really don't get what's feudal about people sharing their stuff in a not world-spanning organization. I know a commune doesn't abolish the market. One swallow does not a summer make, got it. I'm not saying here's how you bring on communism, I'm saying I don't understand why living in a world of fewer market relations isn't preferable to you.
Maybe commune isn't the right word for it. You could live your life exactly as you do now, only you would connect with people, that share your views and share all your belongings with one-another. So if a member of your group came along and took some tools from you or something, he wouldn't need to pay you, but all his services and possessions would also be freely available to you. If private property is immoral, you're actually immoral for not doing that.
