West
“Christianity is the father and mother of communism”

It is nice that someone remembers what this thread was actually about – I really think if this conversation is to continue someone should start a new thread something like Communism/Socialism vs Capitalism/Private Ownership. Personally I am not that interested in it as I agree with TRTL that it is a theoretical argument (at the moment anyway) though I thought theoretical arguments were what we were doing here.

Yabby
“I actually think the Americans made a big
mistake. If they had not boycotted Cuba, old Fidel would have been
shot long ago, by one of his countrymen.”

That sounds suspiciously like moral support for assassination to me. [Is that the
sensation of my blood running cold?]. What kind of condition do you think the Australian economy would be in if America placed the same sort of embargoes on us that they put on Cuba? Do you think we would last as long? I think not.

“There are all sorts of rules, protecting consumers and workers.”
Agreed, but apparently still not enough – for a recent reference look at Fincorp. Of course any system will have people trying to subvert it. And in any system that will probably happen (if history be the judge) my argument is basically that it is government’s job to govern, they are in the best position to act across the board and they should be the most easily accountable and transparent to the people who elect them. Private companies, notwithstanding scrutiny by ASIC etc, need to operate in a much more protected and private way to ensure their good business practices are not divulged to their competitors. This privacy however also operates to make it easier for them to hide their less than good practices. Governments are not entitled to this sort of privacy because their position is not vulnerable the way the position of a private company is.

“Unlike you, I have no desire to be rich, but just to be comfortable
and happy.”

To me being comfortable would be ‘being rich’.

TurnRightThenLeft
“Rob - reread my post…The 'Actually no' refers to the fact that you say this is everyone's problem with socialism.”

Re-read my post, I didn’t say it was ‘everyone’s problem’, I said ‘the major obstacle seems to be’. Exaggerating a point of view to an extreme and then criticizing it because it is too extreme is a cheap trick since very few, if any, extremes are valid.

‘nobody can tell me how they would introduce it to Australia.’
Probably the same way it is introduced in other countries - by electing socialist governments

Ludwig,

What is a “better brand of democracy”?

How can “capitalism be kept under control”?

Why do governments feel “profit at all-costs pressures” from big business and economic growthists?

How will “profit-motive take on a longer term vision”?

If the political significance of social-imperatives (which presumably will come from ordinary people) will rise up and compete with profit, why should ordinary people (i.e. those who don’t make “profit”) who see social-imperatives as more important than profit, allow those whose “profit at all-costs” behaviour has caused many of the problems to retain their “profit at all-costs” mechanisms?

The social and economic-upheavals you predict are actually coming – and they are as you say, caused by the profit motive. There is some saying (I can’t remember it exactly) which is that a problem cannot be solved using the same level of thinking as that which created the problem in the first place. If the profit-motive and capitalists cause the problems, why would we think that capitalists will be able to solve them within their own level of thinking? And why should we limit our own thinking to that level?

The massive upheavals which are coming are precisely those which will expose the limitations of bourgeois ideology and society and bring about a resurgence in Marxist thinking.

“I can’t see how a Marxist revolution or any other political structure/strategy can speed up the effort towards sustainability.”

For one thing, a socialist revolution would ultimately result in all wealth, resources and human knowledge being in the hands of ordinary people who want to solve the problem of “sustainability” in a truly democratic fashion. We could then use it to make a concerted effort to come up with solutions instead of having to scrounge for the crumbs in competition with massive subsidies for coal, oil and nuclear companies. We could make human and environmental needs a priority, which is the only way to solve the problem.

I should also add, because I didn't make it clear in my last post to Shorbe, that Marxists believe that ordinary people are intelligent enough to run things themselves.

Tao

“Workers do ALL of the work and create ALL of the wealth. There is no rational reason why they shouldn’t enjoy the ALL of benefits of their work – good housing, medical care, education etc. There is no reason why they can’t run it ALL themselves.”

There are plenty of reasons why they can’t run it all themselves.

Firstly, I presume that you define workers as being primary producers and secondary workers: value-adders. That is; those who actually create wealth. And that you exclude tertiary workers: those who provide services but not goods and hence are not actually creating wealth.

Obviously any society needs a services sector, which draws off the primary wealth base. This includes government and law-enforcement and all sorts of things. Without this, you would simply have anarchy. We would have a situation where the more aggressive organised themselves well and suppressed the rest. Massive inequality would prevail.

It seems to be completely contradictory to talk about good services; “medical care, education, etc”, when the workers who provide these services are not wealth generators!

.
This is a fascinating discussion. But at the risk of being seen to try and hijack this debate, the thing that REALLY matters is how on earth we adapt our system of governance so that we can quickly come to live within our means, and avoid the looming catastrophic economic, social and environmental collapse.

Would anyone care to build on the theme presented in my posts of 4 April?

Ugh! I keep forgetting to refresh the thread before I post. I didn’t see your last post before I put mine up |;>\

Back to the topic were the apostles communist? The apostles are literature characters but to indulge in the fantasy of text were those characters communist. The answer is a definite yes because they gave up their individuality to serve their adopted community. They sacrificed their families and material possessions to be as on community. Communists!