[ExI] don't let your guard down, not for a minute...

[samantha]

 On 9/9/10 6:55 AM, Tim Halterman wrote:
>
>     Really, what do you make of this?
>
>
> No current system is perfect and everlasting, communism, capitalism or
> otherwise. 

Why? What makes them fail?  Are some better than others?  In what ways.

> 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. 
Laissez faire capitalism requires neither.

> These systems are simply biding their time until technology advances
> to a point that a true communism is possible.
BARF. Communism is utterly broken by design.  

>    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).
>
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. 


> 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.
>
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.

- samantha

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