Why not set up your own firms in which people who enter the commune sign a deal to share property and all the other socialist values? Communal living is much more economical than living in small groups, all that is needed is a legitimate business platform with which to provide the services needed to arrange communal living. Many gated communities have similiar systems in already, so there is already a role model to learn from and use in marketting. The socialist brand is also very popular and using this to attract socialists, who tend to have large disposable incomes, also opens up more prospects, if you utilise viral marketting in socialist circles you may even garner the attention of the media on a slow news week. I certainly believe this is worth looking into for anyone with expertise in the area. Yes there are risks but you do not need to purchase property, just formulate deals needed to ensure collective ownership and build up legitimacy, contact people who might be interested, research the market to see what you must do to make this a realistic reality. Pretty leisurely stuff. Also after your first communes is a success, socialists around the world can say "we do not need to use the state to force people to be socialist".
Allow me to think aloud in abstract. Because every society must have a set rules of conduct in order for the greater number of people to live in peace and be happy. A state helps to regulate and predict human behaviour. The authority comes from the people in a socialist state, it is legitimate power, and the influence that an embodiment of authority has, will affect its ability to change behaviour. It's required to protect qualitative freedoms, normative values, and the degree of excellence. Synthetic socialism is the dictator of the proletariat (ie Castro). A socialist commune would have to have full cooperation of all participants to work at all times. Ownership and controls is managed by the public. Common land owns everything, and a lot of socialistic elemental failures have to do with property rights and how much state control has on land claims.
If socialism allows people to cooperate for mutual gain and it is really worth the investment then it should be pretty straightforward to turn it into succesful business like other investments that improve people's lives. Unions for instance pretty much formed themselves. The trouble is this has not happenned so it should be pretty obvious there is no point making people pay tax for welfare and other socialist ideas is pointless.
The trouble with socialism is the trouble with democracy. They promise to do the will of the people, but then the human element creeps into the works and perverts it to serving private interests. Good on paper though. We parade our Constitution around like the holy grail here in the US. And far too many people think it's still in effect. x
Socialism has always existed to MANAGE people and control the land they live on. It's not about helping people or any of the utopic nonsense that is peddled in the socialist magazines, many of which receive massive foundation funding. That's simply how they get you to walk into their trap. So the state and socialism have always went hand in hand, because socialism is a vehicle for the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of the state. It's MONOPOLY CAPITALISM in the hands of the state (or rather, those who control that state). The central bankers have always preferred socialism over all else because it consolidates control into their hands. This is control that can then be used to in turn enslave the population. We already have socialism today. It might not be the utopic form of socialism that most socialists envision, but it's socialism nevertheless. Norman Thomas, a six-time socialist candidate for president once said that Americans would never accept socialism, but under the name of liberalism they would. This is essentially what we have today with a managed society, where people see the government as their good shepherd. Meanwhile, that government continues to get bigger and bigger, and the control over the people becomes greater and greater. And guess what, it's all being funded with YOUR tax money! Today, most people are content watching endless amounts of garbage on TV while gorging themselves on fast food and other junk, oblivious to the emerging police state that is steamrolling ahead. People, because they have not really grown up and are essentially still children who need somebody to be dependent on, turn to the parasitic government, handing over more power and more tax money to maunfacture their own shackles. That is what socialism is. It's perpetual childhood, where big brother is the bringer of all good things and he and his buddies decide how to take care of all your problems for you. This is how people have been trained to think, and it plays right into the hands of those who are more than eager to provide.
The "state" has to exist. Humanity is still too immature to realize this high level of compassion for their fellow man alone. They need a shepherd. In our case, a federal government. But the same pattern is present in religion as well. Ancient empires, and any form of civilization or tribalism. There is a specific order in the delegation of power. Power is what humans understand best because of the way their minds work. It is a huge step forward in personal evolution to move beyond the notion of power, and realize we're all in this boat together. Only then can true socialism or democracy occur. We have never seen it in recorded history. It is still an idea. x
Eeek. Unions do not form themselves. It takes a shitload of work to unionize a labour force, people working on the inside, people working on the outside, non-profit organisations helping to spread the word, etc. and if you have doubts of that, just look at Wal-Mart. It is the #1 largest transnational corporation in terms of revenue on the planet, and unions don't just happen out of thin air for them. If you want to look at utopian socialism, I suggest that you look into the works of Robert Owens or Charles Fourier, because they both proposed not to seize the state by force, but to teach by example - to found small-scale communities in which productive property would be jointly owned. I however, don't consider myself to a utopian. Well, I have to disagree. Because Finland and Sweden seem to produce very happy, healthy, motivated and educated individuals within their socialistic governments. And socialism has been the least successful in precisely the countries that have been most capitalistic. I think it's important to distinguish social democracy from what you seem to be confusing as communism-fascism-totalitarianism, because they aren't the same. Social democracy offers standards of equality of opportunity, equality of result (like progressive income taxes). A socially democratic system strongly upholds equality of right (the rule of law & universal rights). It's a system where the government controls everything, but the public owns everything. The Marxist idea of class is important because it helps reveal the structure of exploitation; that some people have their power and wealth because they profit from the labour of others. It's founded on the basic principle that people are unequal, but should have the right and opportunity to become equal. Marx and Engels wanted to show not just how capitalism ought to be destroyed, but that it would destroy itself through its internal contradictions. Are you refering to their scientific socialism doctrine? Because it was their theory that the class-divided market society would, through the victory of the proletariat in the the class struggle, give way to a classless society. (Although they never actually wrote about socialism at all.) I could go on about that, but I think I see your point. There are two approaches however, in the end result for capitalism, united in Marx, that would eventually split into two mutually antagonistic movements known as socialism and communism. In most Western democracies, there is already the centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. The idea is to take measures to make the state master of the economy, able to conduct central planning. Most western societies have done this to implement heavy progressive or gradual income taxes, the centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state, the extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; bringing cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of soil in accordance with a common plan, free education for all children in public schools, and free medicine. The centralization of a national bank is a contigent to the reliability of the needs of an economic equilibrium to the state affairs and all the services that it manages. Am I rambling? I feel like am rambling.
Social democrats view socialism as an evolutionary process. The goal is to achieve power through constitutional means; accept the limited state and the rule of law. Democratic socialists advocate a mixed economy, and not a state-owned and directed economy like the way Communists view socialism. Socialism is a very complex 'Ism' that has given rise to a number of different movements, the two most important being social democracy and communism, much like what is true of liberalism. I'm rambling again. >_<
If you think communes are a good idea you should check this out. Kibbutzim drop socialism to survive About a century after they were first formed on socialist ideals, at least half of Israel's kibbutzim are leaving collective econonomics behind. Shia Levitt reports. a century later collective econonomics aren't working out so well. And rising debt has forced more than half the kibbutzim in Israel to at least partially privatize... Market Place
I'm not talking about a system of government, I'm talking about the economic benefits of shared property in a community consisting of several traditional households/flatmates living in the same building, using the same household appliances and sharing the same rooms. Of course you need the state to enforce the law, but beyond that there is no need for state bureaucracy to run a commune. First let me define some things... There are things which are at their most economic if shared to a certain magnitude. We will call them spleebs and the magnitude to which they must be shared in order to be at their most efficient is called the vorqui. Ironically equity shares are a form of collective ownership despite their heavy usage by supposedly evil capitalists. When shares are owned by people who use the property the company owns, at a discount or free of charge, as part of a business arrangement here we have a special kind of collective ownership which ought to be more accurately termed collective shareship. An example of a collective shareship would be a building society, except this does not involve communal living. What I am asking is as follows. Since there are many spleebs in our economy with a vorqui greater than that which could be shared between friends and family, why aren't businesses which set up communes and charge rent, collective shareships or other arrangements widespread?
What the hell is "spleebs" and "vorqui"? Is your question "Why aren't businesses that set up communes and charge rent with collective shareships or such widespread? ... Because people don't like communes? Maybe they prefer to own their own property within a community in which they willingly or unwillingly participate in a collective. Sounds like you are asking a kind of question like "Why do people prefer living in apartments than owning their home?" type chicken or the egg thing. Typically a shareship of a household or a home is shared between two people: a husband and wife and/or partner in Western Culture. It's not considered appropriate to live with your extended families or other family couples and thus the idea of sharing a collective housing unit does not make sense to most people. The arrangement is set up so that everybody can be self-autonomous and thus more independently happy to be able to have some sense of self-sufficiency in the lives of the community or collective.
Socialism does not need a Nation State system to function, look at Spain during the Civil war, people seized the land and began working for themselves along Socialist principles, without any say so from the embattled government at the time, it worked for a time too..Then Franco came along.
