From: Alejandro Dubrovsky (s335984@student.uq.edu.au)
Date: Thu Dec 10 1998 - 12:17:00 MST
On Thu, 10 Dec 1998 mark@unicorn.com wrote:
> Alejandro Dubrovsky [s335984@student.uq.edu.au] wrote:
> >To dismiss this as blatant nonsense is to dismiss
> >communism as blatant nonsense.
>
> Yes. And your point is?
My point was that there is no need for anyone to rationally defend
socialism since he already dismisses the whole thing as blatant nonsense.
There is no system which can stand anywhere if you just dismiss its
assumptions without any arguments.
>
> >I think it just
> >means that needs should be met, but does not say anything about the size
> >of these needs.
>
> And who decides what my needs are? And who decides what my abilities are?
> This is why communism is blatant nonsense; most people's needs are much,
> much greater than their abilities, and hence no-state communism rapidly
> degenerates into bureaucrats fighting over scraps. The only way communism
> can work is in small voluntary communities or groups with a massive
> productive surplus; it cannot work on a large scale.
>
I disagree with claim that most people's needs are greater than their
abilities. If that would be the case, we would all be dead, unless the
remaining minority's abilities were much, much greater than their needs.
I do agree that most people's wants are much greater than their abilities
Who gets to decide what your abilities and your needs are depends on what
branch of collectivist thought you were bashing just then.
> (At this point someone will mention the 'glorious nanotech future without
> material limits, comrade', but that's as implausible as any other commie
> dream.)
>
> >I don't know of any country which defined
> >itself as a communist state.
>
> I certainly noticed that when the USSR collapsed my commie friends suddenly
> started claiming it was "state capitalist", not communist. No, no, communism
> didn't fail, if it failed it must be capitalism, because communist ideology
> tells us that capitalism must fail and communism must succeed.
>
I wasn't claiming that it was a capitalist state, just that it didn't
see itself as having reached communism, only socialism. Communism, AIUI,
is the final stage where the state withers away (people suitably
brainwashed/advanced by then supposedly)
chau
Alejandro Dubrovsky
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