It is significantly easier to establish communism in a small community, where you can see the people daily that you consider part of your tribe, than a national communism where the work you put in benefits someone on the far side of the country that you’ve never met, and may consider them as part of your “tribe” on an intellectual level, but not much beyond that.
You already put in work that benefits someone that you’ve never met, in this case it’s a billionaire. I’d rather pay for someone’s lunch than another yacht ykwim
Sure but you’d also rather benefit a nobody in exchange for money than you would in exchange of “trust me bro”. As you say, you’re working to benefit somebody else in both ways, but only one gives you immediate positive feedback. In enormous societies such as modern countries are you need a strong stimulus to work, money provides that but benefits don’t - you would see much more people happy to pay taxes otherwise.
Not that I wouldn’t love living in a Star Trek federation like communist society, but we ain’t there yet
I believe you would. But it wouldn’t happen, you’d be still paying for the rich. Instead of lying about trickle down economy they’d sell you lies about everyone being equal.
We had the Soviet version of “communism” when those fuckers occupied us. Never again.
Yeah, that’s why we need a transition period of Socialism.
That period has to be generations long however and on a multinational scale to set the stage for eliminating money and the state so we’ll probably never see Communism on a national scale in our lifetime. Socialism’s good enough though tbh
Communism only in the sense that the need for mobility/a nomadic lifestyle means that private property exists only insofar as you can carry it with you. It doesn’t work in settled agricultural societies because once a person becomes attached to a specific piece of land as is necessary in agriculture, other types of private property become possible and personal incentives begin to diverge such that the only way to achieve or maintain communism ends up being through coercion.
Communism has existed
It is significantly easier to establish communism in a small community, where you can see the people daily that you consider part of your tribe, than a national communism where the work you put in benefits someone on the far side of the country that you’ve never met, and may consider them as part of your “tribe” on an intellectual level, but not much beyond that.
You already put in work that benefits someone that you’ve never met, in this case it’s a billionaire. I’d rather pay for someone’s lunch than another yacht ykwim
Sure but you’d also rather benefit a nobody in exchange for money than you would in exchange of “trust me bro”. As you say, you’re working to benefit somebody else in both ways, but only one gives you immediate positive feedback. In enormous societies such as modern countries are you need a strong stimulus to work, money provides that but benefits don’t - you would see much more people happy to pay taxes otherwise.
Not that I wouldn’t love living in a Star Trek federation like communist society, but we ain’t there yet
I believe you would. But it wouldn’t happen, you’d be still paying for the rich. Instead of lying about trickle down economy they’d sell you lies about everyone being equal.
We had the Soviet version of “communism” when those fuckers occupied us. Never again.
Yeah, that’s why we need a transition period of Socialism.
That period has to be generations long however and on a multinational scale to set the stage for eliminating money and the state so we’ll probably never see Communism on a national scale in our lifetime. Socialism’s good enough though tbh
Mechanical solidarity
Kind of relevant, minus the religion and customs.
Communism only in the sense that the need for mobility/a nomadic lifestyle means that private property exists only insofar as you can carry it with you. It doesn’t work in settled agricultural societies because once a person becomes attached to a specific piece of land as is necessary in agriculture, other types of private property become possible and personal incentives begin to diverge such that the only way to achieve or maintain communism ends up being through coercion.
We don’t farm enough anymore.