62 réponses à ce sujet

[The Invader]

And it's usually the crooked in leadership roles that make it fall apart.

Yeah, but that could be said about any form of government.

[Beerfish]

Yeah, but that could be said about any form of government.

Correct and that was my point, any of a large number of political ideologies would work if followed to a T.  That never happens.

[General TSAR]

Communism could work perfectly well in a society, 

(Giggles) Wait...you're serious? 

 

Oh.

[SwobyJ]

I disagree, OP. I think Star Trek has a utopian bent, but its not a utopia, nor dystopia. It is just an idealistic hypothetical level of human development that has some shadows occasionally shown. 

 

Its a great example of sci fi's frequent purpose of showing us what it may be possible to achieve through science, while exploring the possible pitfalls of problems that come along with these achievements.

 

I don't know why people are talking about stuff like stock markets etc. These have only existed for hundreds of years. And the marketplace for thousands. While these have had a long history by the standards of a generation/single life, they've also been redefined and grown and shrunk depending on the times. Star Trek still has a market, but it is a largely post-scarcity (aka a largely new ingredient to economy) market which therefore redefines the role of human purpose. As such, yes, we have a quasi-communist, quasi-militaristic, quasi-etcetc 'new' system come up that will allow people to, say, work on building ships if they find purpose in building ships. This + a culture that values there being ships + replicator and related technology = more than enough people building ships.  So society continues. Just using this one example. One could just as well live on Earth picking berries because you really really really are one of the few people alive who finds their purpose in eating and distributing hand picked berries, and some people will take those berries because of an emotional connection to you or the concept of a traditional berry.

 

This isn't to say that exactly-Star-Trek will ever happen. Oh god no. But concepts and ideas from it might. It is meant to inspire in ways, and draw concern in others. It isn't a literal blueprint, unlike actual political manifestos or ideologies.

[Quarian Master Race]

Well there is Star Trek Enterprise, where they torture prisoners with depressurized airlocks (among other brutal interrogations), engage in total war and threaten to forcibly lobotomize people. Or Benjamin M Sisko and his gassing an entire planet to weed out some terrorists, and obstructing justice while acting as an accessory to murder, simply in order to get the help of space Nazis to fight his war.

I'd say humans are capable of those things.

[Draining Dragon]

Communism could work perfectly well in a society, as could capitalism or any of a wide variety of political systems. The problem is that in each of these systems people 'cheat' the system and that is when things fall apart.

Communism is an economic system founded on an inability to do math and a flawed understanding of human psychology. It could never work under any circumstances.

[AshenSugar]

Communism is an economic system founded on an inability to do math. It will never work under any circumstances.

 

 

I detect a lingering whiff of Mccarthyism here.

 

'Communism'. or at least a rudimentary form of it, worked pretty well for the Minoans of Crete, the Parthians, and early Proto-Jewish settlers. Even the Roman Empire began life in a form that might be considered communist in a contemporary sense.

 

 

All Communism really is is centeralised control of state resources and production facilities, as opposed to private control of the above.

 

In a more modern context Bolshevik nations, such as the USSR and China, which begain life under a loose Marxist doctrine that gradually morphed into oligarchism still generally 'worked', in that the economies functioned at a basic level, even if life for ordinary citizens was far from ideal.

 

We don't really have any real data available to say whether or not pure communism work work within a modern context, as there are no models for comparison, basically it's never been tried, save in heavily watered down, centre-left forms (such as Cuba, and some current Nordic political parties). All of the above still entertain private ownership of some state facilites.

 

It's dangerous to make value judgements based around communist political systems being 'wrong', and other systems being 'right', because we are all shaped by the kind of society we were born into and live in. If you were born into a ridgid monarchy, such as the ancient Egyptians, you'd likely find modern ideas about monetarism and neo-liberalism incomprehensible, doubting any such system could ever work. If you'd been born into post war Britain, with it's Keynsian economic system, you'd find monetarism equally alien.

[Draining Dragon]

All Communism really is is centeralised control of state resources and production facilities, as opposed to private control of the above.

You're right. The problem is that such a society cannot sustain itself, even under ideal conditions.

[AshenSugar]

But once again, what models do we have to base that conclusion on? It's not been tried for over two thousand years, so how can we know if it will sustain itself or not?

 

The only way we'd know would be to implement an all encompassing programme of re-nationalisation of manufacturing, public services and banking, and see what happens.  I very much doubt that any of the above will ever happen in mine or your lifetime, or beyond, and so we'll likely never know.

[Sion1138]

But once again, what models do we have to base that conclusion on? It's not been tried for over two thousand years, so how can we know if it will sustain itself or not?

 

The only way we'd know would be to implement an all encompassing programme of re-nationalisation of manufacturing, public services and banking, and see what happens.  I very much doubt that any of the above will ever happen in mine or your lifetime, or beyond, and so we'll likely never know.

 

It can't come from authority.

 

That much we can say for sure.

[Inquisitor Recon]

Yet that's the only place an attempt to implement such doomed policies could come from.

[AshenSugar]

Indeed.

 

I do know that it feels like there's something fundamental lacking within the basic human experience of the society I inhabit. I often feel that humans are not meant to live in the manner many of us do. We're basically social animals, but we live in such an isolated manner, cut off from the source of 'something or other' that's supposed to nourish us.

 

I don't think any particular political philosphies such as capitalism or communism hold the answer, all they can ever offer is the same basic top/down hierarchical patterns. All governments, be they communist, capitalist, or entrenched bureaucracies ultimately fall into aristocratic forms.. no government in history has escaped the pattern.

 

I feel there needs to be something else, something beyond all that, but then again, I'm a dreamer.

[Sion1138]

Yet that's the only place an attempt to implement such doomed policies could come from.

 

Probably.

 

Indeed.

 

I do know that it feels like there's something fundamental lacking within the basic human experience of the society I inhabit. I often feel that humans are not meant to live in the manner many of us do. We're basically social animals, but we live in such an isolated manner, cut off from the source of 'something or other' that's supposed to nourish us.

 

I don't think any particular political philosphies such as capitalism or communism hold the answer, all they can ever offer is the same basic top/down hierarchical patterns. All governments, be they communist, capitalist, or entrenched bureaucracies ultimately fall into aristocratic forms.. no government in history has escaped the pattern.

 

I feel there needs to be something else, something beyond all that, but then again, I'm a dreamer.

 

Agreed. But it's all so massively convoluted that I won't even start.

 

Not here anyways.