Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I have never been arguing for "nurturing Goddess culture" although the druid priestesses seem to have been skilled in herbal medicine.

I'm responding to a feminist fantasy, that earlier humans were somehow more peaceful, and that it was due to some matriarchal, matrilineal society, that "women's voices were heard" in some way that was overrun by later more militarized and more male dominated civilizations.

This is a fantasy much loved in some quarters -- but it just isn't in the data.

Hunter gatherer societies that we can observe are _highly_ sex dominated, and roles are not nearly so generous to women as some imagine. Bear in mind, in a world without specialization, the differences in physical strength between men and women are far more salient than they are later, when a Queen can have her own "muscle" -- soldiers who answer her command.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Queen Boudica demonstrates what happened when you pissed off a Celtic woman. .

Note that Boadicea -- if she existed-- is the widow of a King of a romanized tribe. Her Iceni were Roman clients, not hunter gatherers-- they could speak Latin (at least some of them) and conducted business with the Romans. The Iceni were minting coins as of the 1st century, so we know they existed, and we know that they weren't remotely hunter gatherers; they were minting coins, with Latin writing)

So she was "Celtic", but by the time of her "revolt" - what did that mean in terms of cultural distinction? They were religiously and culturally different from Romans -- perhaps as Vietnamese soldiers were from Americans-- but they weren't technologically different, if you judge by the claim of her arrival on the battlefield in a chariot. (and we do know that the Celts had chariots, there are plenty of remains of them).

I would add, what we know of her comes exclusively from Roman historians, Tacitus and Cassius Dio-- who tell a tale which is plainly partly invented, a good story, but dubious in many parts.

-- So its not at all clear the Boudicca actually existed, or whether she's just another instance of a familiar "myth of the Amazon warrior queen". Even her name, which we're told means "Victory" is suspicious, seeming rather convenient. European history is filled with stories of foreign rulers who're invented, in whole or in part, to satisfy some taste for the exotic. "Vengeful Women who kill" has always been a good story . . but it may be just a story (though the revolt of the Iceni clearly did happen)


So to loop back to the thread, and the point I'm making. Communists -- and other utopians of other stripes, including feminists-- like to imagine that before material goods created economic disparity, there was some more "nurturing" civilization, one which was matrlineal and "heard women's voices".

In this story, this civilization was later overrun by a testosterone poisoned patriarchy. That's how the spin goes, but there's just one problem

There's just no evidence for that at all.

All the evidence we can see is that early humankind was just as sexist -- and indeed moreso-- than what came later. Go back in time -- or travel to hunter gatherers who survive today, in the Andaman Sea or the Amazon-- and you're unlikely to find some "matriarchy" that "listens to women's voices". There are plenty of traditions with shamanesses, just as Rome had its Vestal Virgins, that doesn't make the society some ungendered Montessori school.

Similarly, the communist utopian fantasy of a "new communist man" who will live peacefully with his neighbors once civilization's masculinizing fetish for property is thrown off -- that's part of European fantasies of "the noble savage", it just ain't in the data.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Brecht

I don't know if I've provided a good example but the point remains that both sides did things they probably wouldn't under non-hostile circumstances but the worst of them cannot be excused or even justified. However, there's no point in making accusations from a strictly moral point of view and that's where xyzde69 made a mistake.

Karl Marx mainly based his writtings on a moral point of view.
In Capitalism, workers are not paid for what they have produced. They are stolen.

[bowlinggreen]

Comrade xyzde69, you're back!

I thought Kim Jong Un or Xi Jinping had you locked up somewhere.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

Comrade xyzde69, you're back!

I thought Kim Jong Un or Xi Jinping had you locked up somewhere.

Brother Bowlinggreen, what a warm welcome !

I spent several weeks to think, if I had to disconnect myself even more from the system... and I did it. I've adopted, after a professional clash I provoked myself, the "frugalism" way of life...

I've reduced at almost nothing... my incomes to live until the end of my life.

I'm 98% sure that the system will collapse during the next two decades.
I've prepared my deck chair to observe if I'm correct or not.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

I'm 98% sure that the system will collapse during the next two decades.
I've prepared my deck chair to observe if I'm correct or not.

I would be betting on collapse in Las Vegas or with the London bookies except that it is as unlikely that I will survive to age 90 years as it is that the current world order will endure the ongoing Sixth Extinction Event. Our voters are choosing leaders committed to denial, which can only hasten the reckoning.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I would be betting on collapse in Las Vegas or with the London bookies except that it is as unlikely that I will survive to age 90 years as it is that the current world order will endure the ongoing Sixth Extinction Event. Our voters are choosing leaders committed to denial, which can only hasten the reckoning.

Too many political leaders don't get a correct analysis about the biodiversity.
Just remember a speech of Donald Trump, when he was blaming other politicians not having being able to build the "wall":

Donald Trump:

"15 years ago they want to build a wall. You know why they didn't build it ?
They couldn't get an environmental impact statement approved. It's true. They couldn't because there were snakes, toads, rodents, all sorts of crap right in the way.
They couldn't. Can you believe it ?"

Speech here:
Trump about biodiversity: all sorts of crap right in the way

And he was applauded by his followers.

But here in my area, politicians are not better. They only think about : "Economic growth".
No matter the impact on nature and biodiversity.

[bowlinggreen]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

I've reduced at almost nothing... my incomes to live until the end of my life.

Well, just make sure you don't run out of food money before "the end".

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

I'm 98% sure that the system will collapse during the next two decades.
I've prepared my deck chair to observe if I'm correct or not.

And what accounts for the %2 uncertainty?

FWIW, forecasting the imminent "collapse of capitalism" and "achieving socialism" was a favorite topic of learned discussion in the Soviet Union. Marxists were [are] always certain that capitalism is in its "final crisis"

But what happened?

Capitalism didn't collapse, but the Soviet Union did . . .

See "The Theory of the Collapse of Capitalism" -- from 1934
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pan...4/collapse.htm

[bowlinggreen]

xyz thinks the environment itself is going to collapse, which will as a side effect kill capitalism.

He may well be right, but I think it will take longer than he thinks. Still, we'll get there, if we don't stop breeding like mad.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

And what accounts for the %2 uncertainty?

FWIW, forecasting the imminent "collapse of capitalism" and "achieving socialism" was a favorite topic of learned discussion in the Soviet Union. Marxists were [are] always certain that capitalism is in its "final crisis"

But what happened?

Capitalism didn't collapse, but the Soviet Union did . . .

See "The Theory of the Collapse of Capitalism" -- from 1934
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pan...4/collapse.htm

I am sure that you are mathematically skilled enough to realize that the current outsized returns to capital and the finance sector are unsustainable. We don't know how things will change and what will follow, only that change is inevitable and you can't get blood out of turnips.

In all likelihood the Egyptians thought the pharaohs would rule forever, Romans thought their empire was permanent, and medieval barons believed that God had ordained the feudal order.

The radical socialists and communists of the 19th and 20th centuries were overly optimistic about the demise of capitalism. It is the phenomena known as "believing your own bullshit." This should be a warning to all those who believe that the capitalist ordering of society is the last word in human development.

Well, it might be if reckless environmental exploitation leads to an abrupt collapse and human extinction.