<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">I agree that on the book communism is a far superior social organization than capitalism. Capitalism has exploitation as a key element by design. In a way the fact that many people enjoy a modest level of benefits from capitalistic society is 1) the result of non capitalistic forces achieving rights for the individual 2) a clever form of exploitation similar to the roman emperors slogan "give them bread and entertainment and the people would be submissive". It simply makes us better consumers to be given crumbles of the big pie so we happily exploited and manipulated.<br>Of course, so far any real mass-scale communism experiment has failed mostly because has been hijacked by tyrannical figures that used communism as a cover up.<br>Communism is a very idealistic approach to society, that if maybe unpractical (at least given the level of development of
humans at this point) shares a lot with the transhumanist ideal of life.<br>Star Treck fictional world is very close to a form of ideal communism. <br>Giovanni<br><br><br>--- On <b>Thu, 9/9/10, samantha <i><sjatkins@mac.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: samantha <sjatkins@mac.com><br>Subject: Re: [ExI] don't let your guard down, not for a minute...<br>To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org><br>Date: Thursday, September 9, 2010, 5:14 PM<br><br><div id="yiv69184054">
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On 9/9/10 6:55 AM, Tim Halterman wrote:
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2"><span>Really, what do you
make of this?</span></font></div>
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No current system is perfect and everlasting, communism,
capitalism or otherwise. </div>
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Why? What makes them fail? Are some better than others? In what
ways. <br>
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<div>I don't think any system which requires people to do
something they don't wish or relies on exploiting another
being as a permanent solution. </div>
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Laissez faire capitalism requires neither.<br>
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<div>These systems are simply biding their time until technology
advances to a point that a true communism is possible.</div>
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BARF. Communism is utterly broken by design. <br>
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<div> Communism in that sense being a society where
individuals are free to do as they wish and do not require the
exploitation of others to do so. I think Marx felt this way,
although specific quotes elude me (It's been a number of years
since I read his work).<br>
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That is not communism. In communism the collective owns everything
and the individual owns nothing. "From each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs" is a common slogan of
communism at its most idealistic. That is utterly unworkable.
When everyone owns everything and nothing no one has the right to do
with anything at all what she wishes. <br>
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<div>I always looked at the Soviet Union as simply picking a
model close to a hopeful end-state. Had technology progressed
at a faster rate I'm not sure the collapse would have been
inevitable, they could have simply evolved. I see the most
technologically advanced societies the closest to achieving
true communism.<br>
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A state that killed tens of millions on its own citizens on purpose
is held up as an ideal and just before its time? This is utterly
abhorrent. <br>
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- samantha<br>
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