Unions

wrote

It is pathetic when a person makes a good union wage, yet cannot last more than a couple of weeks off work. On our last strike, we were offered a package with no health benefits. It was voted in! When I went back to work and asked the guys, they said they voted for it because they needed to get back to work for the money.

So, what's so great about a union and union wages if the members can't even afford to save and stash enough to sit out a strike where the outcome is that they give up their health benefits?

Not much in my eyes.

But then, they all didn't want to get down on their payments on "stuff" they didn't need anyway. Like the big bubba truck for $500 a month plus gas and insurance. It seems whether you make $800 or $8000 a month, that's what it costs you to live. Most people, anyway.

Steve

That's not communism, it's dictatorship.

Communism is where essentially all property is communally owned and there are no class divisions, people are basically equal. For example, factories and office buildings wouldn't be owned by individuals or corporations, but by society at large. What Russia, China and North Korea have had is a dictatorship which gives lip service to communist ideals but replaces "society" as the owner of all capital with "the ruling class." It's essentially the opposite of communism: the masses own nothing and a tiny minority own everything. That's exactly what Marx was against.

There are few small communities scattered throughout the world which actually live in accordance with what Marx was getting at. They thrive because it's a more efficient way to run than competition; however, it takes a *very* rare kind of person to let go of the idea of personal property and work for the common good, which is why communism has never been attempted on a large scale. Even if the original leaders of the USSR, red China and N. Korea were sincere and altruistic (and I'm not saying they were, by any means, but even IF they were) they had to force people to live by communist principles, which is the first step away from those principles because it sets up a class system.

Essentially, Marx's complaint was that the rich get richer while not actually contributing anything to society, the people who make society great by doing all the chores like making things and providing services live in poverty, and there seems to be no way out of the cycle. Why not make everyone do their share of the work, and give everyone an equal share of the profit? It sounds like a good idea, but turned out that it's impossible to implement on anything other than a tiny scale because of the rise of the middle class. 99.99% of people would rather own their own property and have the chance to get rich than have to get an equal share as everyone else. In addition, if you always get paid the same whether you do a good job, a piss-poor job or no job at all, what's your motive to work? Improving society sounds nice, but why bother putting my droplet into the vast ocean when I can live a life of ease without any noticible difference in the result--but when the majority of people start thinking this way, eveything goes to crap.

Yep, we're saying the same thing, except that what you're calling communist societies are actually dictatorships. It might be that dictatorship is supposed to be the first step in a series of steps toward true communism, but it doesn't work on a large scale because people are greedy and want to "get agead" as you call it by gaining lots of personal property--so one never gets past the first step--as soon as the dictatorship starts to ease up, people start reverting to capitalism again. Not saying there's anything wrong with that, it's just how people are and it's why you can't force communism on anyone.

Actual communist societies not only survive, they thrive. Twin Oaks and East Wind in the US are two examples. They produce way more than they consume. However their membership numbers leveled off in the 1970s at around 60 to 100, because that's about how many people out of the two to three hundred million in the US who actually want to live the way Marx was talking about. They rule by a set of by-laws which can be changed by a two-thirds majority vote. In other words, these "communist" societies are also true democracies in which the majority (in this case, two-thirds rather than +50%) actually rules, unlike any nation on earth!

Maybe some communistic societies thrive, but not all of them. I visited " The Farm " in Tennessee. They were existing, but not thriving. The reason seemed to be that those that joined had no skills or education. With a low standard of living , there was not much incentive for someone that knew a trade to join. But there was an incentive for those that were more or less homeless to join. They were consuming everything that was produced and more. When one joined one had to contribute all of ones savings. Well actually more like all that one had inherited.

The Farm is still in existance and has a web site. Apparently they reorganized in 1983 which is after I had visited. So it is no longer communistic.

Dan

I believe part of The Farm's problem may have been a lack of organization. Looking at their web site, I'd say that's still an issue there, to some degree--the site's layout and design is, plainly speaking, horrible. I spent quite a while there just trying to find out what The Farm *is* before I gave up and sent to Wikipedia. Twin Oaks and East Wind have an excellent system of labor distribution which has worked for decades, and that spirit of organization shows on their sites:

Realistically, there's no need for anyone in one of these societies to know a trade in order for them to survive. If you have ten people all working for minimum wage and sharing living expenses, you can have a pretty decent standard of living and build up a savings to boot. As the society gains wealth and increases its standard of living, more people with skills will be attracted to living there, which will improve efficiency to an even greater degree. However, there are *SO FEW* people who actually want to give up ownership of personal property, these communities will stay very small. I think this is at least in part the other issue that The Farm faced--which makes sense as their population has increased since they switched to a more capitalistic system.

You need to go back and read more on " The Farm ' website. As I read it, they had something like 1200 people there at one point before they switched.

Dan

No, I read that. After they switched, their membership went up to four thousand. Also, The Farm is a different sort of case--its main purpose is not, and never was, to set up a society based on the principles that Marx was talking about. A lot of people who *didn't* want to live that way at all joined up anyway because they were so attracted to the main objectives of The Farm, which haven't changed, and are primarily environmental in nature. In addition, The Farm suffered from poor leadership. When I visited Twin Oaks in 1985, they had around 70 members and had just finished building an enormous redwood deck for outdoor parties and were in the process of building several other structures at a combined cost of several million dollars, none of which was borrowed. I got the feeling that these expenditures were a relative drop in the bucket.

Twin Oaks had pioneered the manufacture of several products made from polypropylene rope and were making lots of money off their sales. Their partner commune, East Wind, made the same products and also had a factory which produced nut, seed and legume butters such as sesame butter, almond butter, cashew butter and of course peanut butter. It was entirely owned and operated by the commune.

Twin Oaks required 49 hours of work per week from its members and East Wind

1. That might seem like a lot, but there's virtually no commute time, and cooking/dishwashing counted toward the total. Because breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided, you never had to spend time cooking for yourself if you didn't want to; making the 48 and 49 hour requirements seem even less daunting. Finally, you could choose what work you did for the most part (though everyone had to take turns with the jobs nobody wanted, like washing dishes) and your hours, so much of the time it didn't even seem like work.

I was a visitor at Twin Oaks for three weeks and I think I was at East Wind for three weeks also. The level of organization, efficiency and freedom in these communities amazed me and still amazes me. I'd join one of them, but I like owning my own stuff too much. :-)