Dot-Communism Is Already Here 554
thanosk sends in a story at Wired Magazine about how online culture is, in many ways, trending toward communal behavior. Sharing and collaboration have become staples of active participation on the Internet, while not necessarily incorporating a particular ideology or involving a government.
"Most people in the West, including myself, were indoctrinated with the notion that extending the power of individuals necessarily diminishes the power of the state, and vice versa. In practice, though, most polities socialize some resources and individualize others. Most free-market economies have socialized education, and even extremely socialized societies allow some private property.
Rather than viewing technological socialism as one side of a zero-sum trade-off between free-market individualism and centralized authority, it can be seen as a cultural OS that elevates both the individual and the group at once. The largely unarticulated but intuitively understood goal of communitarian technology is this: to maximize both individual autonomy and the power of people working together. Thus, digital socialism can be viewed as a third way that renders irrelevant the old debates."
The problem with Communism (Score:5, Interesting)
... is that the word no longer means communism. Now it means oppressive government, ala Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam. But these places show no sign of following the idealist philosophy people like Karl Marx set forth.
The concept of owning resources in common isn't anti-individualistic - having neighborhood parks or sharing roads and pipes and cables is just smart resource usage. Probably few people want absolutely everything to be publicly owned and managed, but most slashdotters probably like software and the internet that way.
open source/Chinese communism (Score:5, Interesting)
Once he heard about open source, and so I explained it to him, finishing off with, "so in reality America is more communist than the Chinese." He got this shocked look that quickly turned into a bitter vengeful sort of look, and said nothing.
communism? (Score:3, Interesting)
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Quote from one of the biggest Communists: Thomas Jefferson
Re:Nothing new, but encouraging (Score:5, Interesting)
Such thought processes have traditionally permeated our culture to the point where every child strives to be that hero. To save the world as it were. The results can be seen in everything from local government (simply amazing small towns built out of nothing) to the larger scale of US resolve during WWII and the later Space Race. Thus the communal aspects of working together have always been a strength for us.
As a Brazilian bombarded everyday by USA-imported-mass-enternainment-industry, I've noticed that this is true indeed. I find it very interesting that it seems important to find a 'hero' in almost every situation - for instance, in 'the most amazing videos', there was a car with something stuck in the accelerator and the car kept moving in circles over and over. Then, a policeman came, entered the car by the window, and stopped it. The thing is: when you hear what the narrator says, it seems that the policeman saved a thousand people.
I've recently read 'The Quiet American' [wikipedia.org], which further investigates this. As I read it, it seems that Graham Greene thought that Americans can't imagine how other people could want something different from what they have, and how could they think different from what they, Americans, think. I don't know if it's true, but it's a very interesting POV.
Communism doesn't fail... (Score:5, Interesting)
Communism doesn't fail, people who had power failed communism...
Every political ideology is right.... the people who have power, uses that power until they overuse it to their own profit so much that the majority of the people use their personal power ot overthrow them...
The only good thing that democracy has right now is: it's not crooked enough to have the population revolt against it.
I'm sure there will be one day that the people will wake up and know that their system is so corrupt, that the elected officials are only idiots who are popular and that the majority of the electorate refuse to vote because they know that no choice they can make will the right one, when every choice is a bad one...
Re:Communal != Communism (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not only that.
When I choose to help, it's efficient.
When forced to help, there is an inefficiency; and usually someone making a parasitic living off of doing the forcing.
Re:False opening statement (Score:4, Interesting)
Western culture has been about empowering the individual, about heroes. Conversely, communist nations such as Russia and China are less about individuals, and more about "the good of many outweighs the good of the few".
I think that's a simplification. The one thing that stands out to me about Western society is the rule of law, rather than the rule of man (I know that's a simplification as well).
Like a fortune cookie... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just add "on the Internet" to the key sentences and it all makes more sense.
... on the Internet
... on the Internet.
... on the Internet.
I wonder if these shocking cultural changes aren't as big of a deal as the Wired article makes it out to be, in that they're scoped only to the online world. The offline world may barely change in response. Then again, if everybody is more and more conducting most of their activities on the Internet, that's a different story.
Re:False opening statement (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone is paying to distribute electronic files. It may not be the open source developers but to say that there are no distribution costs is plain wrong. Tons of people work every day to maintain the infrastructure that sends data. These people are paid one way or another.
Don't get me wrong I agree with the idea of your comments but I think that the confusion about why open source is free needs to be cleared up. Even open source can generate revenues that help pay distribution costs or pass distribution costs to the consumer by asking them to seed torrents. Open source is free because many see it as a better solution than what is available for money and are willing to contribute one way or another to the open source cause(code or money). Open source does not exist due to distribution costs.
Re:The problem with Communism (Score:3, Interesting)
three simple examples of 'communism' come to mind.
1) the communal lives of monk and nuns ( from various faiths in many cultures).
2) the communal lives of certain religious communities ( ex: Amish)
3) neighborhood contracts, condominium boards.
all three have worked. It is interesting that the 3rd works the least well from what I've seen.
If people are acting in common because they want to believe it is of value to do so , communism works well. If people are sharing and acting in common because they are forced to by a contract or a government , it doesn't seem to work as well.
My guess would be because it is too hard to actually enforce a sufficient set of rules so that things run smoothly when people don't police themselves.
Re:Nothing new, but encouraging (Score:3, Interesting)
Who wizzed in your cereal when you were a kid?
Superman was never "ends justify means" superhero, he was always trying to save the innocent and would take the hard road if it meant more lives saved (hard as in much harder to do, harder on him, etc.).
Batman was a millionaire by birth and by being an intelligent businessman... he didn't "steal food from the mouths of poor and oppressed", he made his money and used it. I will admit that he was very much 'outside the law' and a vigilante, more concerned with taking out the bad guy vs saving the innocent.
It really seems like you have a twisted view of the superhero genera, and the ideology of the USA (though I will admit that the ideology of recent times is pitiful in comparison to the ideology that this country was founded on).
Re:Nothing new, but encouraging (Score:5, Interesting)
That all sounds very rah rah, but please do contrast your caped and cloaked "superheroes" with philosophers, who try to lay out the biggest problems people face, and the most significant of whom come from outside the US. (I'm not going to try to explain manga here).
US dominance in technology and business comes from the ashes of WW II, where the rest of the world was in ruins, particularly Russia after losing millions to Germany.
This is not an anti US tirade, just trying to bring some balance...
Danish Socialism: free health, free education = :D (Score:2, Interesting)
Communism/socialism, on the other hand, demands forced collaboration.
Yes, and I think it's a real shame I'm not in financial ruin from my five years of tuition (no fees) and my summer vacation spent in the hospital plus ongoing check-ups (no fees).
What especially worries me is that the doctors who treated me---even though they're great doctors, really smart people, if their parents weren't rich enough to put them (and their siblings) through college, is it really right for me to accept their treatment?
And should I ever leave the safety of the university and get a Real Job, I can look forward to paying it all back on the taxes, so that I can only afford a big (not huge) house with a big (not huge) lawn and a fast (not flying) car.
Really. We don't have flying cars in Denmark. But we do have free education, free health care, free public libraries, free telephony (50 texts and 50 minutes per month, cheaper than US rates if you go beyond), only a few of the ISPs are evil (not mine), and we're a socialist country:
Our constitution, our frigging constitution, says the state will support you if you can't do it yourself (in exchange for you fulfilling the responsibilities that go along with it, i.e. a state-appointed job).
Re:no. (Score:2, Interesting)
Socialism is state control. What we have on the web is anarchy. Fun, friendly anarchy.
I think you need to take a look at An Anarchist FAQ [pageabode.com] :)
Anarchism is a rich branch of the socialist tradition, and socialism is certainly not "state control" (contrary to what Cold War and current recession propaganda would have you believe).
Re:Communism doesn't fail... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, interesting that you said that, because I am quite tired of black/white view of ideologies. Most of people don't want to know and don't care, but even smartest ones gets into ugly flamewars which leads nowhere.
Said that, most interesting thing is to research weakneses of Communism as real ideology behind society. Again, junk science and capitalism woodoos says that Communism doesn't work because of human nature. Fail. It does, but it does in *microscale*. Problems arises when you scale it for larger society. People who usually want capitalism at all cost ar "broken goods" - e.g. people who parents have been poor, people who thing they will prove the world that they are the best, etc. They are not even slightly interested in common good. It is good or bad - it is not a point.
Another point that there are two rather different movements who can be called Socialist or Communist. First of all, it is Bolshevists which represents hardcore, taking-no-prisoners attitude towards change in society. They believed that harsh regime should be implemented between capitalism and socialism. Of course, such attitude demotivated most of their supporting base in matter of months (for example, there were Bolshevist rulling for half a year in part of my country. Before they came into power people were kinda very positive towards Communism. When shootings, looting and baseless killings began, everyone understood that they just crooks with different label) and they fell into policy state regime.
More or less there are another wing which represents more classic Communism ideology - that when capitalism will reach it's tipping point and maximum effectivity, then Communism will come naturally.
Of course, all of this is theoretical "bla bla bla", BUT it gives me food of thought and you can see similar patterns in our society. For example - open source - it is capitalism, but in same time - it is Communism at micro scale. Everyone get what they want and what they need (of course it is absolute, it is not possible 100%, but anyway...).
Also I don't like people avoiding to critize capitalism and feeling uneasy to do that. Yes, this system gives me job and posibility to do stuff, but I don't feel obliged to avoid criticism. Because capitalism can be better. People can be better.
Re:The problem with Communism (Score:3, Interesting)
all three have worked. It is interesting that the 3rd works the least well from what I've seen.
If people are acting in common because they want to believe it is of value to do so , communism works well. If people are sharing and acting in common because they are forced to by a contract or a government , it doesn't seem to work as well.
A good fourth example is the US military, of which I was a part of in the early 90s. It's all teamwork, everyone shares, no one owns the hummvee (although is gets weird where one individual signed responsibility for it, yet does not "own it"). This is by no means my unique idea, I heard it all the time when I was in the military, the irony that our military forces exist to save us from the commies but ironically here we are with our military as the only really successful communist society....
A pretty good summary of basic training was converting attitudes and outlooks via mild brainwashing techniques (sleep deprivation, stress, excessive enforced exercise, etc) from your second example "forced by contract" to your first example "believe it is of value to do so".
I would interpret that as the only stable communistic societies would be either medieval theocratic (from your other examples) or modern militaristic, and I have little respect for either in general for all to live under (although I personally enjoyed my "time in green")
Re:The problem with Communism (Score:2, Interesting)
A cow can be easily owned, as can a jacket or a pile of money - but how about a mountain, or a forest, or a plot of land?
From whence does the right for any man to own such things spring?
One idea of communism is for a suitably* appointed organ, or state, to see that these kinds of resources, sprung not from the hands and backs of man, but rather from nature herself, be used in a manner that benefit not only those with power or gold to take it, but for them to benefit all, worker and patron alike.
It takes nothing from the individual that is theirs - rather only those things that were not something to be owned, in the first place.
*The appointment, now, is a problem - given the power required to put into action their intended tasks, a corrupt or incompetent organ could easily mean disaster, as seen in many of the attempts at communism through history.
I would see democracy - while far from perfect, but still likely the fairest system for appointment we have found - applied not in opposition to communism, but in support and loving closeness with it. The enforcers of the common, appointed through the processes of democracy, and kept in check and balance by a number of independent organs, might see a society where the resources are indeed used for the common good, without any excess regulations or rights deposited unto the individual.
Re:Communal DOES == Communism (Score:3, Interesting)
More correct to say, it has historically broken down at different scales in different times and places, and has never successfully been implemented on a national scale.
Technology has changed the size and structure of informal, voluntary communities and made them stronger and more productive. Based on that observation alone, I don't think you can definitively say there are ideas for society that are universally bad or universally good - ideas depend on their implementation and their suitability for the (changing) situation.
Re:Nothing new, but encouraging (Score:3, Interesting)
They're certainly not uniquely American. American superheroes dominate
Re:open source/Chinese communism (Score:2, Interesting)
Encouraging? (Score:3, Interesting)
"I'm not quite sure where the author got that idea. The US has always been based on the idea that the individual is paramount. In our popular culture, we have always derived our strength from the individual and his willingness to help others."
Those ideas are being smothered and weeded out of society today. Seat belt laws came about because big brother (primarily insurance companies) knows better than the individual. The "proper" use of Personal Protection Equipment isn't an individual choice (either for the individual worker, or the individual company) instead being mandated by both law and insurance policies. Individual choice is being assaulted when it comes to health/life insurance in general - laws are being authored that REQUIRE an individual to have insurance, along with minimum requirements for that insurance. An individual cannot decide to save a few dollars on an automobile purchase by dropping the 6 airbags, shock absorbers in the bumpers, shatterproof glass, and all the other innovations designed to save lives.
Individual choice in education is limited in this day and age - the government mandates the curriculum to a large extent, and local schoolboards have little choice in the matter.
I AM an individualist, and I am keenly aware of the restrictions placed on me by society. Any time I do the "unexpected", thus standing out from the crowd, there is a policeman nearby to question me.
No, the US is definitely moving toward collectivism, there is no denying that. The law of the land is "Conform, or be rehabilitated."
No longer do people take pride in local culture - instead, one homogenous people from sea to shining sea watches the same drivel that Hollywood calls "entertainment", eats the same pablum pushed by McDonald's and other corporate food chains, and puts themselves in debt trying to keep up with role models held out by Corporate America.
Need an example of the loss of individualism? Go down to any street corner in the cities. Watch the white boys who are trying to look/sound black. Watch the black and the latin ladies who are trying to look/sound white.
Individuals are looking at extinction in the not-so-distant future. It ain't cool to be black, or white, or Mexican. It ain't cool to be Southern, Northern, or Mid-Western. It certainly ain't cool to be proud of your German ancestry, your Polish ancestry, or whichever land our grandparents came from. It is very UNCOOL to proclaim your religious background with your dress, actions, or words - you will be accused of some kind of intolerance.
"It takes a village to raise an idiot" is the wisdom today....... and they aren't far from wrong.
Re:Nothing new, but encouraging (Score:4, Interesting)
In the early Superman issues, the major bad guys were bankers and lobbyists who wanted to get the USA involved in WW2. Superman had no qualms threatening to electrocute lobbyists and drop them from buildings if they didn't spill the beans on who they were working for so Superman could go crack their skulls. At least he was educational about it "Don't worry, we can touch this powerline safely, there's no path for the current to flow through if you aren't touching the ground. Or another wire. Oops, that was close, almost touched two there!"
With all the miracle cures Batman comes up with for villain-made diseases and chemicals, you'd think he could cure normal ones too, but no. That's reading between the lines of course. But Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, he really does invent these things! Lots of his riches come not from selling inventions, but by accepting money to bury them! He cured the common cold but takes monthly payments from big pharma to keep it a secret. I think he invented cold fusion, and takes big payments to keep it in the basement. Modern Marvel had a good narrative reason for all this dickishness. Basically, they thought it was a deficiency that superhero inventors never invented anything useful for anything besides crime fighting. They figured Mr. Fantastic would invent all kinds of useful shit, being the smartest guy on Earth and all. So rather than ignore it, they decided that yes, he DOES cure diseases in his spare time. The trouble is, if he cures all disease, solves world hunger, solves pollution issues thanks to miniaturized cold fusion power, then he moves the entire world very rapidly towards a Utopian Star Trek setting. How can Marvel make hamfisted analogies to current geopolitical issues by having George W. Bush waterboard Captain America, and herd all superheros into concentration camps? They can't! Thus, out of necessity, Reed Richards must take a "Prime Directive" approach to the world, and be very very careful to change nothing outside the scope of stopping the assorted doomsday plots that directly involve him. "THE STATUS MUST BE QUO", etc.
Can you tell somebody got me a "philosophy of comic books" book last Christmas? lol
Re:Nothing new, but encouraging (Score:4, Interesting)
It's the good old navel-gazing which is the default in any culture and common amongst those that never lived in another culture: all that they know about, all that they care about and all their references are what they see and what happens in their cultural group (often a nation, but not always).
The US shows more of this than other countries because:
a) It's big, reasonably wealthy and culturally very uniform (the cultural differences between most people in California and most people in Virginia are a lot fewer than those between most people in Norway and most people in Turkey - an equivalent distance)
b) It produces and exports most of modern media, thus while other people are frequently exposed to US culture as encoded in movies and TV series, most Americans are rarely exposed to non-US culture.
c) The US political system strongly pushes blind, uncritical patriotism as a form of mass manipulation. Typically this boils down to "we're great because we live in a great nation" with the implicit "anybody that criticizes our nation criticizes it's greatness and thus criticizes us all". The side effect of this is to make Americans (and similarly, those people raised in nations where patriotism is overemphasized) exceptionally blind to their own social and cultural issues and closed to accept other people's social and cultural views.
If you don't believe me, just ask any born and bred US citizen which has lived a year or more in any other country (exception being made for those that live in a-little-piece-of-the-US-in-another-land environments, such as military bases).
Re:What makes Marxist socialism Marxist (Score:3, Interesting)
Absurd, Marx was a "hit" well before any revolution happened. And there were lots of other "revolutionaries" in the XIX century that nobody care about now. Marx is relevant because the amazingly sharp analysis of capitalism.
Re:Communal != Communism (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll volunteer to do tasks(helping people move, working in a soup kitchen) that I wouldn't choose to do for minimum wage(or even a reasonable amount).
Gratitude seems to be worth around 2X my usual hourly rate.
Where's the philosophical/political context? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Wired article is pretty bad, which I expect, but the
Re:Karl Marx's Dream (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with your interpretation: one thing Marx criticized was treating economics as an entirely separate sphere from society and politics. In some ways, a non-statist (in the national sense) version of socialism is when your local neighborhood meeting also addresses economic issues as well as transportation and education ones - and markets become ways that neighborhoods and the people in them exchange goods and services.
Re:Communism doesn't fail... (Score:1, Interesting)
Communism doesn't fail, people who had power failed communism
First "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money" -- Margaret Thatcher
Secondly communism works so long as EVERYONE plays along. But lets say I make loafs of bread for the group being the baker. If I make 1 less loaf of bread and no one bitches about it everything is good. Lets say I decide to make half of what I did yesterday. I only have to work half as hard. Its good for me. Yet everyone else 'only' has to wait in line for an extra 3-4 hours while I bake it up on demand. That time adds up and ripples across all activities as instead of doing something such as paving roads they are waiting to eat. All it takes is 1 douchebag to mess it up for everyone else.
It doesnt take those in power to fail. All it takes is one of the 'cogs' to fail. I have seen this many times in open source. Where a negative personality enters the fray. Others drop out because the 'fun' is gone. As instead of cranking code they are busy arguing and getting pissed off at the 'newbies'. So they go do something else that is 'fun'.
With communism (at least practiced by the USSR when it existed) they backed up 'you will make 20 loafs a day' with a gun. So he makes his exact quota. No more no less. Why should he? Yet others still wait for bread. He has no incentive to make 25 loafs other than someone showing up and forcing him to. Or even any incentive to figure out how to make 50 loafs a day for cheaper/less time. That is not his job. His job is to make 20 loafs a day.
Thru mediocrity is why communism fails. Not because the plan failed.
Many are not made for greatness. Some can not even comprehend it, or are capable of it. Or as my dad put it 'get good grades get a good job do better, as guess what the world can use another guy to get the fries out of the vat'. What I am saying is many people are quite mediocre. Some can become more. But if there is no incentive to do so they probably will not. That incentive may be fame but in a group that pushes the group over individuals fame is meaningless.
Communism usually fails to realize that most people are lazy and mediocre and actually expects the exact opposite out of people. There are outliers in all groups. But eventually the mediocre ones can kill a altruistic program faster than any lack of planing can.
Democracy can suffer from the same issues. However the one practiced in the US has a built in shame mechanism (also a powerful motivator) to root out the big ones. The trick is to make sure it is used.
The Capitalist View tends to be Two-Faced (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether you work for a small startup or a megacorp there's always an emphasis on the importance of teamwork, cooperation and selflessness -- but only within the organization. Those attitudes seem to be great as long as they serve one business, but somehow they become evil when they aren't helping one business compete against another. The business world's combination of cooperation and competition has produced great things, but it doesn't always. For example, competition is paramount even in the face of a superior product. Better products often disappear because of bad marketing, lack of advertising money, or because of short-term price pressure introduced artificially by competitors with deeper pockets who want to keep their own inferior products on the market. The competitive spirit of capitalism can certainly show a lot of gumption and drive, but there's a peeing-in-the-pool aspect to it that just doesn't appeal to me. I think the reason it usually wins over cooperation is that it dangles the carrot of fabulous wealth in front of people's faces, like a Golden Ticket, and more people are drawn to that particular carrot than the wouldn't-this-be-cool carrot.
Re:Infrastructure! (Don't fall for Communism Smear (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing new, but encouraging (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong [nizkor.org] and wrong [nizkor.org].
I would wager that you could replace the noun "Christian" with almost any other noun describing a large population of people and you'd get a very similar percentage of people who resist seeing other's POV. What you may have observed in people claiming to be Christian is likely attributed to human nature rather than being Christian (or whatever noun you wish to lob an Ad Hominem [nizkor.org] attack on).
Re:Nothing new, but encouraging (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to disagree with you here, the reason to fight back at this point was to make the risk/reward assumption of hijacking not worth the effort. When the people on the plane don't fight they are putting their lives and well being in the hands of people who have already shown a disregard for those people. And "everyone survives" is not true, granted the majority tend to, but this didn't stop the hijackers from killing people. Additionally, this demonstrates to potential hijackers that this is a viable method of extortion and encourages more hijackings.
By comparision, with the current "fight back" mentality, hijacking is much harder and not as useful as a tool for extortion. We have had plenty of stories of people doing stupid stuff on planes not accomplishing much because the passengers weren't going to be victims anymore.
As for having guns fired in a crowded pressurized cylinder at 20,000 feet, I don't see that as that as particularly scary. First and foremost, this myth of lawful gun owners firing willy-nilly and shooting bystanders just doesn't happen. It's a bullshit canard used by anti-gun activists. The data just doesn't support it. Seriously, go try and find stories of lawful permit holders shooting bystanders while stopping a crime in progress. I'll wait.
Second, a bullet hole in a passenger plane at 20,000 feet (or higher even) is not really a cause for concern. Despite what Hollywood tells you, the plane will not fall out of the air, it will not explosively decompress, in fact it's decompression will be rather slow. At worst, the pilot will get a light on his console telling him that there is a loss of pressure, he will put his mask on, descend below 10,000 feet, declare an emergency and land at the nearest airfield which will handle his aircraft. And the passengers might have to put their masks on too. Even a dozen bullet holes are not going to cause a problem. Here, read about Aloha Flight 243 [wikipedia.org] and consider for a moment that the aircraft involved lost the entirety of it's roof, actually did suffer explosive decompression, and the pilot still landed the airplane. The only loss of life was one flight attendant who was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As a free citizen, you are the first response to a crime as it happens. You have the choice to get involved and stop it, or you can sit by and encourage criminals by making it seem like they won't face resistance. That choice has been around a lot longer than the last 8 years. It's sad that the US Government seems to prefer encouraging criminals, but we the citizens need to realize that it's not helping anyone to stand idly by and let criminals take over our society. And the government is certainly doing us no favors by trying to take away from us the tools to do so.
Re:The Inviasible Gun (Score:3, Interesting)
Marx states that only a temporal all powerful all seeing state can crush away the minority of those few greedy individuals that control society by means of capital and use their power to perpetuate such 'statu quo'. Once the goal acomplished, such powerful state machinery would dismantle itself and vanish.
Yeah, that worked out great for Russia now didn't it. Those crazy people holding the power of the state machinery just said, "Okay, we've crushed everyone now let's just sprinkle this power all around to them to make them feel better."
Re:This is Free Market economics, not communism (Score:3, Interesting)
No, Marx' claim was that increased productivity would lead to the working class overtaking the production. Marx considered himself a scientist just as much as a philosopher. He noted that Capitalism in which the burgoese owns the means of production was more efficient than if the feudal lords owned it. Wage slavery was better than indentured service. In the US, the tension between the feudal system represented by the slave-based south states economy and the capitalistic north states lead to the civil war.
Britain became a super power in the 19th century for the same reason. Because they were the first to adopt capitalism and therefore could produce stuff more efficiently than with the countries it competed with.
Marx also postulated that there is another economic system, that was more efficient than capitalism, would overtake it someday. That system would be based on communal ownership of resources.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:3, Interesting)
The maxim "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" is precisely what's going on when you're helping your neighbor move out without charging him a fee or putting a similar condition on your act. Up until comparatively recently, market behavior was understood to be the precise opposite of "community," and was not welcome in it.
Re:This is Free Market economics, not communism (Score:5, Interesting)
Your post is only true if you pretend subjective opinions are objective truths.
Who is being compelled against their will to contribute? While each individual may contribute to their ability, it is on a voluntary basis. "Each according to their need" is ONLY being met as market demands and individuals consider it in their best interest to meet that demand.
You're defining communism as requiring forced contribution, while overlooking the fact that people are forced to contribute in capitalism. The difference isn't compulsion per se, it's the nature of the compulsion.
In a capitalist society, you have to contribute, starve, or rely on the charity of others. Under communism it's exactly the same. The main difference is you generally have more choice under capitalism because more of the economic decisions are distributed, while the economic decisions are more centralized under communism.
But in neither system can you generally expect to skate by without contributing.
Just because the exchange can not be measured in per unit monetary compensation does not make the contribution "selfless".
Only if you define away "selfless" to meaninglessness. By your definition, it's essentially impossible to be selfless. Take the most selfless person you can think of--a parent, a teacher, a soldier, a nun, a disaster recovery volunteer, whatever you want, and every single one of these people derives some benefit from their sacrifice.
Selfless, is more about voluntarily giving up some good or service at a loss without concern about making up those losses down the road. For example, MS giving away Windows to schools isn't selfless, it's self-serving. On the other hand, someone not set to benefit from MS Windows adoption anonymously giving away the same number of Windows licenses to the same schools is selfless, even if they get warm-fuzzies in return.
Karl Marx would have called for government to come in and heavily regulate software. Designate a central authority to manage the development of software, public schools train a specific number of necessary software developers, outlaw the possession, development, or use of "rogue" compilers to help protect people from poor quality software that wasn't approved by the state, and possibly imprison people for unauthorized forking of projects arguing that such action "steals" the necessary resources of the state and impedes progress.
You're thinking of Stalin and Lenin.
James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both said that with no natural right to real property ownership, there is no imaginable justification for natural rights over an idea (Jefferson Letters). Does that make THEM Communists?
No one is cut from whole cloth. The most capitalist person in the world has some communism in them, and vice versa.
Further, just because everyone wins does not make it collectivism. Collectivism asks for self sacrifice, that you as an individual is not as important as the many. Really? That is why people develop software? Hackers don't have really huge egos when it comes to their accomplishments? Gee, guess I had it all wrong.
Capitalism asks for self-sacrifice. Or is somehow the classes I've had to take to learn subjects I'm not interested in to spend time working in a place I'd rather not be doing things I'd rather not do not self-sacrifice, while taking classes to learn about people around me I don't generally care about and paying taxes or volunteering to help homeless people I don't know is self-sacrifice?
Both collectivism and capitalism demand self-sacrifice. But as mentioned above, it's more a difference in style and choice than anything else.