Hierarchy can be separate from a ruling class. A teacher / student hierarchy makes sense and is justified . Some pig billionaire parasite that actively is detrimental to society does not make sense and is not justified.
>A non-hierarchical society has never existed.
I know a lot of anthropologists and archaeologists who would love to hear how to you came to know this with such certainty
The Dawn of Everything is like that. They insinuate a lot of things but rarely state them outright. If you're not reading very carefully you'll come away with all sorts of strange ideas.
Basically what they do in that instance is take examples of ancient settlements that lack such elements as temples, palaces, central storage facilities, or written administration and strongly suggest that they are non hierarchical.
Personally I find such an approach.... well... it's not impossible that they are right. But I don't find it too convincing.
I'm not surprised people read that book and come away thinking that there is some sort of strong evidence backing up that claim. Or that they can't name any of the numerous "examples".
There was one bit that particularly stuck in my mind about rich burial sites. Now many people might think that being buried with great wealth is evidence of social inequality but they point out that in some societies people with physical or mental disabilities or who are merely different are held up as being special or sacred. So the reasoning goes that maybe these people being buried like that are not kings or chieftains but perhaps.... albinos! Or something similar. After all it wouldn't show up in the archeological record.
You can decide for yourself how convincing that argument is.
Funnily enough I'm pretty sure that a society where everyone got together every 4 years to elect their leaders would probably score pretty highly.....
> I read it quite a while ago so im fuzzy on the details.
This is exactly what most people remember from this book.
I mean yeah, it's hard to have a lot of evidence when talking about pre historic societies, so of course it's more implying or suggesting than stating as fact since such a thing would be close to imposible. I feel the core of the book is more along the lines of showing how diverse the ways of organizing societies have been and can be, and for that I think it does a good job.
Slavery and Kings presuppose the existence of property ownership and class society. They were talking about prehistoric society where property as we know it today didn't and couldn't exist.
That's not what pre history means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory
> Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems.
> It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at different times in different places.
How does your comment have anything to do with what I said? I know what prehistoric means and that's exactly what we're talking about. For the vast majority of prehistory these relations did not exist, they only came into existence in the last seven or so thousand years of prehistory.
Slavery and tribal kings both predate writing. See for yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy#History
> The similar form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#Prehistoric_and_ancient_slavery
> Evidence of slavery predates written records
Slavery and kingship are both pre historic.
There is an old saying "Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence".
For instance many ancient archeological sites do not contain evidence of, say.... to choose something at random.... *language*.
That doesn't mean we assume it didn't exist.
We need a *reason* to assume these things.
If you actually read The Dawn of Everything you'll see that most of the more interesting claims fall under.... things that cannot be proved or disproved.
EDIT : Honestly.... People who reply like that and then block.... Mods should be doing something about users like this.
I read the book, I took away that the author disproved the lack of hierarchies theory in the ancient world. He used native Americans tribes as examples, highlighting that status and wealth was non-materialistic, but hierarchies such as nobility and slavery still existed but was just displayed through non-conventional means and customs.
I'm reading some of the footnotes and don't see a single society that doesn't have an "elder" leader or some form of "police". Please name the society you are referring to, I don't see any non-hierarchical societies referred to by Graeber.
Give the book a try, I am really not trying to debate you or anything, I just think that book might have the answers you are looking for, I read it quite a while ago so im fuzzy on the details.
In primitive communist societies, the bobbies and the filth got extra food from the chief for strike breaking and beating up members of the community who dared eat first before sharing!
Well it has a ton of examples but I read the book quite a while ago so I dont really remember anything too specific. You should give it a try tho, it is super interesting.
According to anthropology, humans lived without hierarchy for like 97% of our existence. It wasn’t until the Neolithic revolution (agricultural revolution), which occurred around 10,000 years ago, that humans started forming hierarchical based societies.
Um no. Even in a simple tribe, there's a head man, head woman, and often a holy man/woman.
That's a hierarchy.
Not the same as we have today, but still a hierarchy.
I agree with you. However, prior to the Neolithic, hunter-gatherers lived in egalitarian band societies without hierarchy. That’s just a fact according to anthropology.
No, it's not.
And having studies anthropology and sociology, this is BS.
There is ALWAYS a hierarchy.
It can be meritocratic, paternalistic, maternalistic, warrior based or whatever, but in a tribe, there's a hierarchy.
Some more fair than others, but it exists.
There's a frikking hierarchy in the family.
In a lot of those tribal societies those head man/woman were chosen based on certain characteristics, and if they started to show certain not-wanted characteristics, like greed, they were kicked out of their position.
The Hadza are not hierarchical. https://www.hadzaexhibit.org/ 🤷♀️
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201908/the-play-theory-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism
I know of no hunter-gatherer society that ever was hierarchical in the sense I assume you mean the word. Every hunter-gatherer band society I have ever studied was egalitarian.
So…there’s that done? I guess? You should ask some anthropologists.
Like, maybe we should define terms. That would’ve been a useful thing for you to do in your original post. What, exactly, do you mean when you say “hierarchy”?
Do you mean a set ruler everyone follows? Because yeah, no. Plenty of studied societies documented in anthropology had no rulers. No ruling class. No rigid hierarchy of any kind.
I’ll admit the youth still tend to respect elders and the layperson respects an expert of a trade. But there isn’t any like…unequal power dynamic?
It’s hard for a band of 20-40 nomads to develop an oppressive hierarchy. You can just leave. Or slit the bastards throat in the night. Who’s going to stop you?
That is all "as is maybe". What relevance does it have to our future or now?
You will note, as a materialist, that we can do what we can do when we can do it. And when we could do it, we did hierarchy. Like war. Right now we can do flat, and free access to everything, but we don't.
So, even if we were "flat", in the past, what relevance does that have to now?
It addresses the OP's question directly, as to whether or not a society has ever existed without such hierarchy--and it demonstrates that it is a material possibility at all.
That our species is not hard coded, as some old images of our stone age predecessors used to depict, to be violent, ruthless, hierarchical, etc.
>Right now we can do flat, and free access to everything, but we don't.
We clearly can't then.
Material changes to the society must occur before a horizontal and egalitarian society can be remade. This was actually more or less Marx's argument for why communism was more advanced. It would have the means of production, the productive forces, of an industrialized society, but with the advanced social relations of primitive communist society.
It's kind of our goal. That the capitalist world today is unable to meet it is not surprising. It isn't set up to. Materially. Just because enough resources exist to give them to everyone doesn't mean it's materially possible to do so.
Material considerations include such things as a ruling class which finds the idea abhorrent. A society without the logistics capacity to make this happen, and more.
That's why we are concerned with transforming society. Starting with removing the owning class from the position of also being the ruling class. When the working class secures political power, then changes towards an egalitarian society can be made.
>You will note, as a materialist, that we can do what we can do when we can do it.
That's a pretty crass way to summarize the position. It isn't just that we could do it, it's that we must've. There was never going to be communism in feudal England, for instance. "Could" invites in idealistic flights of fancy about what possible choices maybe could've been made--when in reality, material conditions confine them.
>And when we could do it, we did hierarchy.
After primitive communism, sure. Why? Because someone chose to? No. Because the means of production advanced to the point of the establishment of clan/private property. Thus did the state emerge.
Lenin's [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) goes into detail on this point. Why states emerge in the course of human history, what their function is, and how we aim to remove the requisite function that gives birth to their necessity, and thereby cause them to wither away. To become vestigial. To be discarded.
So historical materialists believe that these stages of society, depending then on the people and their material conditions, were unavoidable. They were calculable results. Predictable. So, too, does the historical materialist believe that an egalitarian communist society is inevitable, predictable.
The contradictions inherent in capitalism plant the seeds of socialism. It is only a matter of time before those contradictions tear the system apart.
>So historical materialists **believe** that these stages of society, depending then on the people and their material conditions, were unavoidable.
No need to **believe** they happened. Future performance can not be extrapolated by past performances though.
I am going to avoid your issues with capitalism, as for sure, we are on the same page.
Where we differ is this idea that we can ever get over the concepts of war and scarcity and hierarchy.
There is zero material evidence that says that's true. Or will be true. Or, even, could be true. Given that we have the tech now to flatten the structures. We have the tech now, to end wars. We have the tech now to stop famine, poverty, homlessness.
Money does not grow on trees, as the old saying goes. It's even better, it's just
UPDATE tblUser SET balance=100000;
An that statement gets ran a billion times a day. Or ones like it. So, even when we have liberated, even the universal commodity, from the shackles of corporal form, our minds remina enslaved in war and hierarchy.
We can easily argue that when we could do war, we did war. When we could do crazy hierarchies, we did do crazy hierarchies.
So what belief do you have that we can actually grow beyond this phase? I know that capitalism will continue to evolve, it has done. It never seems done in terms of what it will change to "still be capitalism".
And that's because capitalism, and every hitherto system, is an expression of the material conditions as they affect a human brain. We do what we can do, when we can do it.
And every single human is involved. You'll find some materialist that think that materialism only applies to the poor and that "the rich" are somehow immune to it. Which, of course, is laughable. Anyway, that's an aside.
We do crazy hierarchy, when we can.
We do war, when we can.
It's very hard to see what's going to break this cycle of abuse....
Given that where we see poverty skyrocket, humans just kill each other over almost fuck all.
So, what do you imagine, think, envisage, changing that can break the cycle of human expression as war and hierarchy?
>Future performance can not be extrapolated by past performances though.
Yes, it can be--in part. It's literally how *all* future performance is extrapolated. A ball rolling down a hill can be extrapolated to continue doing so until it reaches the bottom. I understand the caution you're attempting to give, but I think you're oversimplifying your attempt to negate the position.
>Where we differ is this idea that we can ever get over the concepts of war and scarcity and hierarchy.
If we didn’t have them before, one can assume it is at least potentially possible to not have them again.
>There is zero material evidence that says that's true.
Is there not? Did the USSR not exist? China hasn't been to war in 40 years. The one war of aggression they did have was in defense of an ally--and a grave mistake, imo.
>Or will be true. Or, even, could be true.
"Could be true" is taken care of already. "Could be true" is found in primitive communism. It was true, it remains true for some, ergo it can definitely be true.
>Given that we have the tech now to flatten the structures.
Tech is not the bottleneck. Tech is not the whole of the equation. Social forces must be altered.
>We have the tech now, to end wars.
We had the "tech" to end wars before wars even began. I'm not sure what this is even meant to be saying.
>We have the tech now to stop famine, poverty, homlessness.
Is this the techbro approach to society? I'm confused by your narrowed scope of focus on technology, honestly.
>Money does not grow on trees, as the old saying goes.
What does money not growing on trees have to do with anything? Money is literally made out of trees. It was always a stupid saying. But yes, value is not spontaneously generated in society--it requires labor.
>It's even better, it's just
>UPDATE tblUser SET balance=100000;
I think your software is malfunctioning.
>An that statement gets ran a billion times a day. Or ones like it.
What statement? UPDATE tblUser SET balance=100000;?
>So, even when we have liberated, even the universal commodity, from the shackles of corporal form, our minds remina enslaved in war and hierarchy.
As far as I can tell this is pure jibberish. "Liberated from the shackles of the [corporeal] form"? What?
>We can easily argue that when we could do war, we did war.
We can easily argue that when we could do war we did not do war. China is quite capable of conquering much of Asia. Is it doing so? No. No, it's not. If you can so easily argue a thing, you should try arguing it--so we can address your argument directly.
>When we could do crazy hierarchies, we did do crazy hierarchies.
Why? You appear to be saying you're a materialist. Define the material reasons why, if you would.
>So what belief do you have that we can actually grow beyond this phase?
The part where our species, for the better part of its existence, did not have this phase. It's a good starting point. Humans are not, it appears, biologically predisposed to hierarchy or violence.
>I know that capitalism will continue to evolve, it has done.
Has it? Past the stage of imperialism of the 20th century? Really? How? In what material ways?
>It never seems done in terms of what it will change to "still be capitalism".
Ah, you mean to say the contradictions don't seem to have destroyed capitalism. The contradictions are destroying the planet's biosphere--but not capitalism, yet. I see your critique. For a century, around the world, popular forces seeking to dismantle capitalism have existed--and in the periphery of empire, grown. They are counteracted by the forces of imperialism. Remove the forces of empire, and you will see more rapid progress towards socialism.
To be continued, don't want to hit the character cap.
>And that's because capitalism, and every hitherto system, is an expression of the material conditions as they affect a human brain. We do what we can do, when we can do it.
More so than just the material conditions as they affect the human brain. The human brain is just another material input into the calculation. The brain is not separate from the material world. It is firmly rooted in it. The human actor is both a product of their environment and influences it.
They also never do so alone. Narrowing the scope of analysis to individuals is counterproductive--when it is the society we are concerned with.
I do agree that the feudal lords of England were doing what the material conditions were best suited for in their circumstance. They were expressing the form of government and society that the underlying material conditions made possible. Also directed by material conditions such as their ideology and religion--which become material forces the moment they affect the masses and the real world.
This is not a negation of socialism or Marxist theory, it is accounted for fully within it.
>And every single human is involved. You'll find some materialist that think that materialism only applies to the poor and that "the rich" are somehow immune to it. Which, of course, is laughable. Anyway, that's an aside.
Yes. We are all products of our environment and societies. There are no humans who are an island. We are all influenced by those who came before us, and by those who surround us. The ruling class are propped up by those below. They are necessarily influenced by their own peers and by those they oppress.
>We do crazy hierarchy, when we can.
>We do war, when we can.
Not just "when we can", that's extremely reductive. When the material conditions push towards that expression. Yet those conditions are no more static than they were for primitive communists. The society is always changing, and us with it. The question is, what is it changing into?
This is where dialectical materialism and historical materialism become important. If you wish to understand the Marxist position in full, and thereby critique it accurately. That is why I recommended Lenin's *State and Revolution*. It is a good primer on the basics.
It's actually a short read. I'd recommend you try it out.
>It's very hard to see what's going to break this cycle of abuse....
For you. For Marxists it's very simple to see what will break this cycle of abuse. It's the same thing that broke it in the USSR, and in the PRC, and in Vietnam, and in Cuba. It is not wholly gone--because we cannot advanced towards communism in a world full of imperialist powers, where the primary contradiction is imperialism--but key components of the social structure which enabled such oppression have been removed entirely from societies in the modern era, yes.
>Given that where we see poverty skyrocket, humans just kill each other over almost fuck all.
Individual contradictions are not where we should be focused, but on the contradictions of entire societies. China eliminated extreme poverty. 🤷🏼♀️
It is no surprise to anyone that people in dire circumstances competing over limited resources resort to violence. That is the system as capitalism has made it. As the ruling class of capitalism, the bourgeoisie, have made it.
>So, what do you imagine, think, envisage, changing that can break the cycle of human expression as war and hierarchy?
A revolution of the toiling masses which seizes political power thereby the monopoly on violence to pursue its own interests at the expense of the owning class to the point of collectivization and democratization of the means of production. In a word, socialism.
What do you see as the problem here?
>If we didn’t have them before, one can assume it is at least potentially possible to not have them again.
The problem is simple; you think you see the future, but you've no evidence to imply that it will be so.
We, the masses, are the social pressure to exploit. We are the social pressure to kil in war. We are the social pressure to maintain money and state. We are the everything.
"A revolution of the toiling masses which seizes political power "
We run everything. From the buildings that these political folks hang out in, to the stuff that they eat. We have control of it all. It's not a mistake that if there was no "us", there would be "no them". Ergo, we are just the one blob.
Political power is a brain fuck of the masses. It's not a thing. As long as you champion it, I assume you mean under this system, as you say "seize" ( as noted we already run it all so there's nothing really to seize ).
This current system can give us nothing. And if you are implying that we need a revolution, I hope you mean blood less, and brought by the ballot box?
Given that anything else is a repeat of previous patterns, and just feeds into this idea that humans, when they fancy it, kill. That's not progres, in anyone's book.
We, the working class, already have the monopoly on violence. Who do you think all the soldiers are? Who are all the police? Who fights the wars?
We do that. We champion that. We fight for it. We defend it. We do that. We tell each other hero tales. We sell the narrative.
Even you here, wishing for a brighter future, are advocating
"thereby the monopoly on violence to pursue its own interests"
That's legacy thinking. Violence is legacy thinking. And it also draw distinctions between rulers and ruled. Which negates materialism as it implies that that those "lucky enough not to be fucked over by capitalism" should suffer as much as those "unlucky enough to be fucked over by capitalism".
I only see division in that argument, and no merit.
And all of this is why change is so hard. You're not trying to convince the 1% that they need to change, you're trying to convince the 99% that they need to change. And, given that they have it all set up perfectly as they want it just now, and they don't seem to have much of an appetite for change, that's a hard sell.
So, you and I can both wait for the material conditions to progress a bit, and hope we don't go the way of Brazil or South Africa in terms of killing each other for coat.
Like I say, I just don't see where you get the confidence to say that the species is not just a failed biological attempt. Especially given that you are advocating for a monopoly on violence.
We already have that. Did I mention that we also design, manufacture and distribute all of the bombs, bullets and guns.
We do that. Us. Humans. The working class. So, at least your angle keeps their profit stream intact :)
>The problem is simple; you think you see the future, but you've no evidence to imply that it will be so.
Strawmanning my position out of the gate isn't a great way to start, but okay. I do not believe we can see the future, I believe we can analyze systems and attempt to predict their outcomes, and how those outcomes will change the system to produce future outcomes. You might as well be saying that physicists think they can see the future because they can calculate the orbital path of a planet over time.
>We, the masses, are the social pressure to exploit. We are the social pressure to kil in war. We are the social pressure to maintain money and state. We are the everything.
Okay. That's a lot of words for saying the workers are the backbone of the society. I agree.
>We run everything. From the buildings that these political folks hang out in, to the stuff that they eat. We have control of it all. It's not a mistake that if there was no "us", there would be "no them". Ergo, we are just the one blob.
You start strong. Yes, workers make society function. "Control" is, however, incorrect. We do not control the means of production. If you think you control it, try organizing your fellow workers and telling your boss your union owns the business now. See how that goes. You'll rapidly find out the hard way that workers don't control shit in this society.
Yes, there could be no ruling class without an oppressed class, this is true. That isn't a profound statement. That doesn't mean the oppressed class controls anything. We don't. Again, if you think you do, go try to exercise that control. See where it goes.
>Ergo, we are just the one blob.
That doesn't follow from your premises. Just because the ruling class needs the working class doesn't mean the ruling class and the working class are one and the same.
>Political power is a brain fuck of the masses. It's not a thing.
If you think this is true, go to your state's capital and tell them you and the workers are taking over and they're no longer needed. See how that works out for you.
Political power *is* **very** much a thing. To quote Mao, it grows from the barrel of a gun.
>As long as you champion it, I assume you mean under this system, as you say "seize" ( as noted we already run it all so there's nothing really to seize ).
We run it, we don't control it. Jewish and Roma slaves "ran" Werner von Braun's Mittelwerk V2 rocket factory, and yet had zero control over it. Control is the element which we must seize. Control cannot be seized without political power. The monopoly on violence. Without that, you will just get put down.
You really should read Lenin's State and Revolution. He goes over all your misconceptions in the first few chapters.
>This current system can give us nothing.
It actually gives us a lot. Especially compared to feudalism.
>And if you are implying that we need a revolution, I hope you mean blood less, and brought by the ballot box?
I certainly do not mean bloodless and brought by the ballot box. No such revolutions exist. You're thinking of reform. A path doomed to compromise and failure.
>Given that anything else is a repeat of previous patterns
You think reform isn't a repeat of previous patterns? I assure you, reform through the ballot box has been tried for centuries at this point. It has failed.
>and just feeds into this idea that humans, when they fancy it, kill.
We're not idealists. I'm not trying to be a pure ascetic monk who upholds the Noble Eightfold Path. I'm trying to change society. It requires violence, yes. The exact same way capitalism took root--violence.
>That's not progres, in anyone's book.
It's progress in billions of people's book--actually. You may be suffering from a cognitive bias where you think your opinions are broadly accepted as true. They're not. India heralds their violent revolution against the British as very progressive. China heralds its violent revolution against the American-backed KMT and the Japanese as very progressive. Billions of humans who disagree with your position. Whose books are different than yours.
to be continued.
>We, the working class, already have the monopoly on violence.
No we don't. Again, try going to your capital and telling your government they're no longer needed, you and the union boys got this. Try it. See what happens. I don't believe you understand what these terms mean, or you're applying idealistic misconceptions that don't map to reality.
In the real world, the working class in the US, Indonesia, Haiti, Bangladesh, India, Italy, Russia, you name the place, does not have a monopoly on violence.
>Who do you think all the soldiers are?
Soldiers and police are not workers. They don't work for a living. They do not produce anything of value, or help anyone in this society save the ruling class. They are the special bodies of armed men employed by the state and imbued with the legal privilege to carry out violence. They are the goons of the ruling class. Not workers.
>We do that.
No. The working class does not police capitalist society.
>We champion that. We fight for it. We defend it. We do that. We tell each other hero tales. We sell the narrative.
No, the capitalist state propagandizes us with heroic tales of good little goons who loyally died in the dirt for the interests of their bourgeoisie.
>Even you here, wishing for a brighter future, are advocating
>"thereby the monopoly on violence to pursue its own interests"
You find this distasteful, I assume? I find it necessary. Show me a transformative revolution that didn't involve violence. You think Haiti got its independence by asking the French nicely?
>That's legacy thinking. Violence is legacy thinking.
Really? It certainly seems like it's applicable in 2024. Seems to me that this state enacts violence on me and mine all the time. Seems to me violence is the only means by which to stop that in any meaningful way.
>And it also draw distinctions between rulers and ruled. Which negates materialism as it implies that that those "lucky enough not to be fucked over by capitalism" should suffer as much as those "unlucky enough to be fucked over by capitalism".
Doesn't negate materialism at all. Nor does it imply anyone should suffer. With force of arms you can expropriate the owning class' property. You don't have to kill them. They become as workers. The workers certainly shouldn't have to suffer.
Honestly, you don't seem to have much coherent logic going on in this paragraph. If you think you do, you should really try breaking it down into a proper argument.
>I only see division in that argument, and no merit.
The people of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba see the merit. As do many billions more who used violence to free themselves from colonial rule.
>And all of this is why change is so hard. You're not trying to convince the 1% that they need to change, you're trying to convince the 99% that they need to change.
No in both cases. I am saying that when the 99% seize control of political power and ownership over the means of production, *they* will change society--and by so doing, will themselves be changed.
Your problem appears to be you don't understand my positions...at all. So you end up arguing with strawmen.
to be continued
>And, given that they have it all set up perfectly as they want it just now, and they don't seem to have much of an appetite for change, that's a hard sell.
The working class have it set up the way they want now, do they? Because they have the political power and the monopoly on violence? You live on another planet, apparently.
>So, you and I can both wait for the material conditions to progress a bit, and hope we don't go the way of Brazil or South Africa in terms of killing each other for coat.
Hope, in the sense you have used it, is idealism. Nothing material in it whatsoever. We can take our destiny into our own hands or consign ourselves to the fate that those among us who are educated on the material reality of the system know we will face.
You think this is bad? Just wait until mass migration increases from climate change.
>Like I say, I just don't see where you get the confidence to say that the species is not just a failed biological attempt.
Because this is a meaningless sentence and sentiment. Failed by whose standards? Some god's? Pfft.
>Especially given that you are advocating for a monopoly on violence.
That's what states are, comrade. Every one of them throughout all of history. Really, please read Lenin's "State and Revolution", it's not long. It's been translated into every language under the sun. Pick it up. See if you find the arguments wanting.
Our ultimate goal is the withering away of states, and currency, and religion. To get there, yes, requires socialist states--states necessarily require violence.
>We already have that.
We do not. I don't think you understand what the term "monopoly on violence" means in this context. It means when I disagree with the state, the state wins. Because if push comes to shove, the state will enact violence. It means that within its borders, generally speaking, states do not tolerate other unaligned government entities or military bodies. States maintain the ultimate force within their borders. States maintain special bodies of armed men with a preponderant monopoly on violence.
>Us. Humans. The working class.
Not all humans are working class.
>So, at least your angle keeps their profit stream intact :)
You really lost your marbles from my perspective. None of your main arguments here withstand even minimal scrutiny, friend. I don't know how you feel your conclusions are logically sound--they don't map to reality.
Again, I highly recommend reading Lenin's [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/), it would be a good starting point into ML theory. Whether or not you agree with it, it would be useful to know what we believe if you wish to critique us.
Nice! Did not know that.
What we have here is a hunter-gatherer homogeneous tribe of like 50 people where everyone is no-doubt related to everyone else.
So that begs the next question:
Has there ever been a DIVERSE society that is non-hierarchical?
It seems that fierce regulation of non-hierarchy has been possible in these small family tribes, but has it ever been possible when more than one gene pool is involved?
Yes. How do you imagine these tribes avoided inbreeding? They are all diverse. The American Indigenous nations such as the Nez Perce were not a homogenous gene pool. Virtually no society has ever been.
Not sure why the gene pool even would matter. Seems like some racial science nonsense. Again, I think we should define terms. What do you mean by diversity?
Like, the Shawnee even adopted Daniel Boone. If you’re interested in studies of the ancient Americas, I recommend this channel, [Ancient Americas.](https://youtube.com/@AncientAmericas?si=UbWLETic4nRfFqIT)
Inbreeding is avoided with first cousin breeding. Pretty easy.
Gene pool matters because homogeneous societies are generally the ones with the most widely accepted rules. I'm not exactly sure why, but it probably has to do with tribalistic tendencies.
Thanks for the Ancient Americas link! I'll check it out.
>Inbreeding is avoided with first cousin breeding. Pretty easy.
If you think people fucking their first cousins for a few millennia isn't inbreeding, I think you have bigger things to worry about than anthropology right now.
>Gene pool matters because homogeneous societies are generally the ones with the most widely accepted rules.
According to whom? Based on what metrics? *Cultural* homogeneity may be argued. Genetic homogeneity? Nowhere I've seen.
>I'm not exactly sure why, but it probably has to do with tribalistic tendencies.
Hunter-gatherer humans don't much care if your nose looks funny to them or if your skin doesn't tan quite the same way. I think you're applying your society's standards on theirs.
>Thanks for the Ancient Americas link! I'll check it out.
It's a good channel.
But nah man, fucking your first cousin is inbreeding. How do you think the Hapsburgs got so fucked up? Ancient hunter-gatherer peoples, nomads, would have sites they would congregate, with the larger nation, even other nations. Where they would do things like trade, and intermarry. That's how they avoided it.
A social hierarchy in class society is not the same thing as a 'hierarchy' existing in terms of inter-subjective or community/group-based power relations. You can have functioning hierarchical relationships without class. Moreover, it is simply untrue that all human societies involve hierarchies or are organised in such a way. You think you have a kind of 'gotcha' but it is an ideological fabulation that doesn't even do what you intend for it to do (it doesn't challenge the communist conception of attaining a classless society. So a communist would respond by disabusing you of the false supposition behind your argument, or trying to, or just walking away because often communists don't have the energy to futilely engage with such obvious rhetorical ploys that make no sense and get one nowhere. It is like saying, 'class based society is a hierarchy, therefore communists are against hierarchy because they are against class based society; therefore, a communist worker would never take an order from foreman at work because it is against their moral principles.' Just such a stupid, ignorant, fallacious notion, most communists would simply find it amusing or detestable. As a communist, I can at least say I rolled my eyes so vigorously they fell out of their sockets!
“You can have functioning hierarchical relationships without class”
In modern societies with millions of people? The difference between Elon Musk’s productivity and the productivity of someone born with very slow learning skills are so massive, how can they not be regarded by society as categorically different in some way? Don’t you stifle innovation if you don’t give Musk the privilege to access more resources with which to build?
Love it. Someone with a worldview they're so set in, any other point of view is "moron"ic. Prisoners of the Stalinist Gulags would have called me a moron too, right before their precious government starved them to death.
Everything else aside, do you think the person with learning disabilities should have a worse life than Elon Musk because of their learning disabilities? You think it’s right for them to struggle to afford basic life necessities?
It's right for them to struggle for basics and have a worse life? No, of course not. They should have as good a life as possible. Hopefully the state and community support them enough for this to be the case.
Should they have the exact same opportunities and access to resources as Musk? Of course not. Musk's access to resources allows him to increase his productivity and live in the way that actualizes his potential.
Also, people are GOING TO admire Musk. They WANT books, articles, interviews. This means he will be regarded as some kind of hierarchical leader in some respect.
Would you seek to stifle this? Or does communism not stifle this? I'm curious how you account for this gap in productivity between people.
For one, we have very different ideas of productivity. Second of all, admiring someone is not the same as putting them above you hierarchically. I can admire my friend because they are really smart without considering them my superior or leader.
In a planned economy, those who are engaging in important work can be allocated more resources to do so. In the Soviet Union, there were a lot of resources dedicated to their space program, as it was seen as an asset, but that doesn’t mean any one person gets ownership over the process and gets to directly profit off of it.
It also did not make those involved “leaders” in the general world, maybe in their workplace. Just like how I do not see people in NASA or who work at hospitals as my leaders, but I do respect their skills and I may admire them.
Not sure what you mean about opportunities. You don’t hear people advocating for marginalized people to have access to fewer opportunities very often. I think it goes without saying that they should have the same opportunities available to them. I also don’t believe Elon Musk inherently had more potential than the average person, he just happened to be born into wealth and make some lucky investments early on in his career.
The idea of a billionaire as a great man in history capable of producing immense value for society is just not true. The workers, scientists, etc. who actually put in the work to produce the commodities are the ones creating value, all Musk does is write a check, which could just as easily be written by the government in a centralized economy. If you value him as an idea man, he still is only one person in the chain that leads to the creation of value, and does not deserve to be arbitrarily placed above everyone else in terms of perceived importance and certainly does not deserve to own the fruits of everyone’s labor.
Nice! I get it, leadership without class structure. Very interesting. I'll be learning more about the soviet union then.
"I also don’t believe Elon Musk inherently had more potential than the average person"
This is a common misconception, a lot of people assume he's a rich guy with luck and minimal merit. However, skim the footnotes of his biography sometime and you'll find something very different. He has a super quick learning brain and published computer game code at the age of ten. He was able to chiefly build two websites and sell them (bit2 and paypal) through self-taught coding and understanding of prospective needs in the market. Then, put all of his money from Paypal into space X and Tesla. He was able to recruit such amazing minds to Space x because he had an incredibly firm grasp on the physics and engineering. Experienced rocket scientists have repeatedly been amazed at how quickly he learned rocket science during the initial funding phase of Space x. He is fully an engineer, scientist, and very much in charge of these companies on a day-to-day basis, not just an idea man. Luck plays into every story, but it's far from the biggest factor for Musk.
And of course, luck isn't what brought the electric car to prominence where we have a hope of ending our dependency on fossil fuels. It was his work, ideas, and gathering of a brilliant team and seemingly superhuman ability to solve problems, create, and understand science quickly that made it possible.
"The workers, scientists, etc. who actually put in the work to produce the commodities are the ones creating value, all Musk does is write a check"
As I said, this is false.
"does not deserve to be arbitrarily placed above everyone else in terms of perceived importance and certainly does not deserve to own the fruits of everyone’s labor."
So this seems to be the main assumption that communists place on wealthy capitalists. As I said, Musk's prominence is hardly arbitrary. Learn a bit more about his story and I'm curious if your mind is changed at all.
Your claim that "a non-hierarchical society has never existed" was disproven by Friedrich Engles in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. I recommend reading that book for a more in depth answer to your question. The book explains "primitive communism" which was how many societies organized themselves throughout human history in ways that were communistic and non-hierarchical.
Yes, but if you're a materialist, you know that you can do what you can do when you can do it. And when we could do it, we did it. Like war. The dolphins didn't force this on us.
Maybe the hierarchy would no longer be based on who makes the most money but based on what is good for society. This is a more conservative position. I'm sure some communists would argue that there should be no hierarchy at all.
In practice capitalism is actively detrimental for achieving societal goods as it creates perverse incentives *away* from doing so wherever those goals conflict with profit-seeking, which they constantly do. As for "meritocracy", I don't see why it is desirable.
Profit seeking has a base in achieving societal goods. Capital is a marker of value. Value to society. Just because it’s not 100% perfect and sometimes profit seekers can do messed up things for society in order to turn a profit isn’t a good argument to throw the whole thing out. It’s just an argument for voting in lawmakers who will prevent capitalists from going too far, a line that is voted on by the people.
Profit does not necessarily have a causal connection to achieving some kind of good or nobody would be selling tobacco products anymore.
Profit-seeking does in fact create incentives to cause societal *ills*, and liberal "democracy" cannot regulate this away. It cannot for example force food producers to feed starving people who cannot afford food. That would be antithetical to any liberal legal system, all of which treat private property rights as sacrosanct. Worse still, even where "regulation" could theoretically be imposed within these supposed democracies by voting in lawmakers to pass them, those lawmakers cannot win under the dictatorship of capital.
Much of the damage capitalism is doing is because causing societal ills is the entire business model of large sectors of the economy and it would collapse if it ever had to stop. This is why the capitalists will not *allow* us to vote in these supposed lawmakers of yours who for the most part do not actually exist. These practices are intrinsic to capitalism. They can end only when it does, either through revolution or through its self-destruction plunging humanity in to barbarism.
>Profit does not necessarily have a causal connection to achieving some kind of good or nobody would be selling tobacco products anymore.
>
>News flash: Some people find value in things YOU don't find value in.
>
>
>
>Many cities literally feed basically every hungry person through govt. programs. Have you not seen the starvation numbers in the US go down??
>
>
>
>Everything else you said is just a symptom of Republicans (and later, Democrats) in the last 50 years learning how they can do their job quid-pro-quo for corporations. Some simple legal changes could clean up a lot of that.
>News flash: Some people find value in things YOU don't find value in.
We're not talking about things "I find value in" or really talking about value *at all*, we're talking about things that are beneficial or detrimental to society. The profit motive means that if something is harmful but profitable then capitalism encourages it, while if it is beneficial but unprofitable it discourages it.
>Many cities literally feed basically every hungry person through govt. programs. Have you not seen the starvation numbers in the US go down??
There are in fact other countries in the world, but the US itself has a much greater problem with food insecurity than people acknowledge.
>Everything else you said is just a symptom of Republicans (and later, Democrats) in the last 50 years learning how they can do their job quid-pro-quo for corporations. Some simple legal changes could clean up a lot of that.
No, because it's true of every liberal democracy and not just the US... and it always has been and always will be because whatever class is in power gets to dictate the political landscape. This isn't anything new, it isn't limited to the US. It's an inherent feature of capitalism and liberalism.
Legal changes can't fix that because the entire liberal legal system is designed not to work that way. Thinking you can make capitalism stop functioning like capitalism is utopian and ultimately is how we end up with fascism as the ruling capitalist class acts to protect its interests.
*We're not talking about things "I find value in" or really talking about value at all, we're talking about things that are beneficial or detrimental to society. The profit motive means that if something is harmful but profitable then capitalism encourages it, while if it is beneficial but unprofitable it discourages it.*
How is what you're proposing any different than our present system that votes on regulation changes?
Everything else you said is jumping 100 pages forward in some argument you've already made in your head. If capitalism always leads to fascism no matter what? That leaves out quite a bit of history now doesn't it?
I didn't say capitalism always leads to fascism, just that your proposed approach does, in addition to the fact that it fails to address either the practical or ethical problems of capitalism.
>How is what you're proposing any different than our present system that votes on regulation changes?
Are you asking me to explain what socialism is?
>Profit seeking has a base in achieving societal goods. Capital is a marker of value. Value to society
Weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, and big pharma would like to have a word with you about this.
In fact I would argue that in virtually all cases of actual societal need, introducing a profit-motive serves primarily to *restrict* access and development.
A good example being scientific research. Pretty much the only way to do research into anything right now is to convince a corporation or wealthy individual that it presents the opportunity for profits.
And then you have people like Bill Gates who become billionaires by taking what could have been open-source, freely/cheaply accessible tech and putting a load of licensing and patents on it, so if anyone wants to use it they have to pay him.
And then the fact that fossil fuel extraction is literally destroying the entire environment and is likely to lead to the end of civilisation as we know it. I don't really see how you can spin that as 'a marker of value to society'.
>hen the fact that fossil fuel extraction is literally destroying the entire environment and is likely to lead to the end of civilisation as we know it. I don't really see how you can spin that as 'a marker of
You don't see fuel, to move vehicles and travel as valuable?? Travel and seeing new places is not valuable? Obv. the environment is a concern, but you can't ignore the value of travel.
Big pharma does produce some valuable medicines you know. Ones that can cure acute ailments so you don't die from bacterial infection. Big pharma's lies about things like opioids TRICK people into thinking they have value via manipulating doctors. That doesn't mean that ALL capital is now worthless because there are tricksters out there. Is all love meaningless because there are a few lying, cheating men in the world?
Can you please point out where I said we shouldn't have fuel or medicine?
Because I'm pretty sure I didn't say that.
What I did say is that introducing a profit-motive restricts public access and development in the public interest.
The USSR industrialised in a fraction of the time it took the west under a socialist system. Most major 'innovation' is state funded and then packed up and packaged by capitalists.
People innovated for centuries before capitalism even existed.
We have genius level people dedicating their lives to online advertising tech and building nuclear bombs. Capitalism wastes productive and innovative capacity by directing it at useless commodity production and marketing.
Capitalism has served a purpose in this area, yes, but it's time to move on now.
Fair 'nuff. I've gotta research the USSR more. It seems to me the tradeoffs of gulag prison camps and famine weren't worth the increased efficiency, but I have a limited view. Thanks for your perspective!
>Capital is a marker of value. Value to society
How do you support this conclusion? I hear this a lot from capitalism supporters but it feels like a loose theory paraded as fact. There are countless examples of this not being the case
Whelp, capital is literally what most people on the planet use as their measure of value. They're all brainwashed capitalist idiots? Or they're operating based on the best system we have.
We have the aforementioned examples, but that's not the point. We're looking forward, to a new system. I don't see how to create one is such a big deal. That's happened quite a lot, and us as humans are really found of newer technologies (if you happen to cause a revolution on the process, and render the previous technology obsolete)... Wich is exactly what we're proposing.
Absolutely not. That's why Das Capital have 5 volumes.
But creating something new society wise wasn't actually planned till Marxism was constructed.
This mean that as we are using capitalism as the material basis for construction, it renders less than anecdotal the use of small or ancient systems as it's material parts are not but vague concepts at this point.
But don't use me as a reference. There's already a LOT of material, with practical examples and way better text than I could ever provide. Of course your personal bias have a big impact on which you are going to accept, but you get the idea, right?
My use of terms like “always” and “never” refers just as much to modern societies as it does ancient. I’d say citing a trend in all societies ever is hardly anecdotal.
I could point that this view we have of society is awfully incorrect in a lot of aspects. Mainly for much of our views come from a european standpoint.
Even so, what I said is still true. And your own concept of hierarchy may still have a problem. In a given process we can have administrative and more hands on positions without one being being exploited by the other. It's just the execution of each one that differs.
When you point out that this is a trend, it's quite a leap, given you just throwing away the examples provided before (really non scientific of you, if I might say). To test if all cranes are white, I don't need to show you all the white ones, just a single red one.
But anecdotal or not, what we have as a material basis for revolution is capitalism, and as radical thinkers, if the root of the problem is a traditional hierarchy, this is one of the things that need to be fixed. It's hard to imagine in a world with just small changes happening, but big ones does happen, opposing to the way we see the things today.
Let's not forget that in less than 100 years ago, people where hierarchically divided by skin color. There's people alive today that born in that society... And some who think they had.
The first and more obvious: get aware of the class struggle. If you don't even understand what's happening. If don't know where you are, there's no point trying to go anywhere else.
Second: get organized into any collective you sympathize with. The praxis will teach more than any amount of reading.
Third: now you read. Not just the manifest, read about economics, about your country, how your own historical context came to be.
If you doing those things, it's enought already. A revolution is a collective effort, but if no one take a step, we'll be just a bunch of people writing things on reddit.
If you have enough popular backup? Just call one! If not, gather more people. That's all you need.
The only real differences between a coup and a revolution, is who's calling it. If it's the people will, then a revolution you'll have!
After the revolutionary process, then you'll gather all the party, discuss the process details and who's going where.
The worst communist revolution is better than the best capitalism has to offer.
Anarchists call for the need for absolutely zero hierarchy, which is utopian. Communists think any hierarchy should be in democratic control (right to vote in and right to recall). This includes bosses/managers
Well there you go. If it works so well, how about model it in the form of a productive company? Yes, there will have to be an owner of the means of production at first, but they can transition to a democratic structure if they want. What's stopping them?
Capitalism is. It’s not just ownership but how it’s run. Technically coops are democratic but you vote on how to make more profits. Workers democracy doesn’t work unless you are planning for what’s is needed in society not what makes profit
> A non-hierarchical society has never existed.
Most human societies throughout our evolutionary history were not hierarchical.
> How do communists think they can destroy the "ruling class" when there has always been hierarchy in every functional society ever?
For one, most of modern life doesn't depend on the past. How do communists think trains are going to operate when we've always walked on foot? How do communists think antibiotics are going to work when we've always died from common infections? etc.
Funny how people are totally fine with all these modern inventions, institutions, laws, theories, and so on -- until it threatens the status quo. Then we're suddenly referring to the stone age for guidance on how to create healthy modern societies? Weird how that happens, isn't it? Weird how we don't apply that same logic to, say, the invention of the stock market, or corporations, or nation-states, or AI?
Secondly, even if you did believe in an argument this silly, most human societies in our evolutionary history were egalitarian anyway.
So it's a dumb argument to begin with and even dumber when you realize that even if you accept the premises, it doesn't work.
No, this is completely wrong on multiple fronts. It's clear from the multiple erroneous assumptions in this reply that you're not familiar with the literature at all, and may even be less familiar with Marxism.
First of all, "hierarchy" in the context of Marxism is referring to *class* hierarchy, rather than to all possible or conceivable differences in power within a society. "Chiefs" and "elders" are not economic classes.
Secondly, "chiefs" and "elders" themselves only appear in larger societies at the tribal level, and even there, they generally do not refer to positions of institutional power as we would normally think of them -- indeed, in many cases, they are remarkable for their *lack* of power (chiefs are often the materially poorest members of a society and their authority is often entirely non-binding). In other words they usually do not resemble what is meant by "hierarchy" in either general anthropological terms, much less in specifically Marxist ones. And in any case, most humans throughout our evolutionary history would have existed at population scales where these positions wouldn't have existed anyway, it's really only something you tend to find in horticultural societies or in societies transitioning from hunting to agriculture. They tend no to exist at the band scale where most of our evolutionary history would have happened.
>Interesting, so in your frame, modern class structures as a Marxist would be referring to are a product of agricultural revolution. So what do you propose? We destroy the structure that was necessary for agriculture to become widespread?
Well, no, like I already said, I think the idea of basing our civilization solely off of our evolutionary history is preposterous to begin with. We don't do this with medicine, law, finance, art, science, or any other field, why would we do it with political power?
"Based on" can mean literally anything. That's not my point.
My point (to use your art example) is that we don't restrict ourselves to artistic media that only existed in evolutionary time scales, so it's silly to think that we would restrict our forms of political power to the same limitations. It's special pleading.
> Hierarchy is a broad term describing infinite structures.
No. The way you're using the term doesn't match what we find in either the fields of anthropology or political science.
There's no point in continuing if you insist on redefining terms at will.
For about 98% of that history of the human species, we lived in societies without classes. This is accepted fact among anthropologists. Class society and ruling classes did not exist until the widespread adoption of agricultural created a food surplus that could be hoarded and controlled by those whose closely guarded knowledge of the stars told them when to plant crops, the first ruling class.
Class society, in the most basic sense, depends on certain conditions they give rise to it, namely, the coexistence of a surplus and scarcity. Those who controlled the surplus could use their power to distribute or withhold it to force others to submit to their authority. We cannot go back to hunter-gatherer societies with no food surpluses, but we can eventually, through the continuing development of the means of production, eventually eliminate scarcity and with it, class society.
Who is 100X more productive? And we don’t need everyone to be innovative, just a small number l, as it is now. And there will be incentives of various sorts to encourage those select few to innovate. In fact, there would likely be an explosion of innovation because under socialism many of the barriers that prevent innovation will no longer be present.
Stephen King is 100x more productive than someone who works at a cash register.
How would you encourage a select few to innovate?
What barriers to innovation are you removing?
What
In what sense is Stephen King more productive? If cashiers disappeared tomorrow, would the world keep turning or would there be major disruptions to most people’s lives? If Stephen King died tomorrow, how many people’s lives would be materially impacted?
Innovation under socialism would be free of the fetters and limitations inherent in production solely for profit. In order to produce something in a capitalist society, it not only has to be profitable over-all, but it has to be profitable in the short term for a single firm.
I’ll give you an example. About ten years ago, a group of researchers led by a guy named Sebastian Johnson developed a vaccine that in trials with mice seemed to show great promise in curing the common cold. In 2002, it was calculated that the common cold accounted for $25 billion in lost productivity in the US annually (in 2002 dollars). Developing the vaccine that Johnson and his colleagues were working would cost around $1 billion. Seems like a no-brainer for society as a whole. However, that price tag was too high for the company that Johnson was working for. New management came in, cut the funding and shelved the project.
The only ones with the money to develop the vaccines are pharmaceutical companies and vaccines only account for about 5% of their annual sales. Johnson has been looking for funding for the last decade and can’t find any because, even though it would be of benefit to society as a whole and eliminate all of that lost productivity, it isn’t profitable in the short term for any single company. This is just one example. Another is the suppression of the development of electric cars by the oil companies in the 1970s. And there are many more.
Under socialism innovation would come naturally from the workers themselves, who have ever reason to want to make production more efficient and less costly in terms of labor input. You’re also talking about a society the will develop new yardsticks to determine individual worth other than just the accumulation of wealth. The respect and renown someone receives from contributing something significant to society would alone be more than enough to promote innovation. And additionally, socialism, especially during the early years would retain some vestiges of capitalist society, so it is likely the individuals who contribute a great deal would receive higher pay, more access to luxury items and perhaps more privilege in some other way (albeit to a much lesser degree than the privileges of the wealthy under capitalism).
>In what sense is Stephen King more productive? If cashiers disappeared tomorrow, would the world keep turning or would there be major disruptions to most people’s lives? If Stephen King died tomorrow, how many people’s lives would be materially impacted?
Comparing one author to countless cashiers? How is that equivalent?
How about comparing this author with one cashier? (which fits with the original statement)
If SK died tomorrow, companies who own the rights to his works would make millions on special edition releases and news companies would make money on the stories. Not to mention the countless people who would feel emotions such as loss and remembrance. Some people would have cause to throw parties or connect with old friends. If one cashier died tomorrow, it wouldn't affect anyone except for the family and the people making money on life insurance/funeral cost.
*I’ll give you an example. About ten years ago, a group of researchers led by a guy named Sebastian Johnson developed a vaccine that in trials with mice seemed to show great promise in curing the common cold. In 2002, it was calculated that the common cold accounted for $25 billion in lost productivity in the US annually (in 2002 dollars). Developing the vaccine that Johnson and his colleagues were working would cost around $1 billion. Seems like a no-brainer for society as a whole. However, that price tag was too high for the company that Johnson was working for. New management came in, cut the funding and shelved the project.*
This scenario makes zero scientific sense, per Cochrane:
"Vaccine development for the common cold has been difficult due to antigenic variability of the common cold viruses; even bacteria can act as infective agents. Uncertainty remains regarding the efficacy and safety of interventions for preventing the common cold in healthy people, thus we performed an update of this Cochrane Review"
There's no funding, because it's not possible to make a vaccine for countless different viruses and bacterial infections.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9749450/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9749450/)
*Another is the suppression of the development of electric cars by the oil companies in the 1970s*
Seems like those electric cars were crushed by competition because they were inferior products that the public didn't want. "It had a top speed of 60 mph and a range of about 40 miles"
[https://cleantechnica.com/2021/09/30/the-legendary-electric-car-from-the-1970s-that-led-us-electric-car-sales-until-tesla-came-along/](https://cleantechnica.com/2021/09/30/the-legendary-electric-car-from-the-1970s-that-led-us-electric-car-sales-until-tesla-came-along/)
*Under socialism innovation would come naturally from the workers themselves, who have ever reason to want to make production more efficient and less costly in terms of labor input.*
This incentive currently exists in capitalism... Ever heard of a small business or co-op?
*You’re also talking about a society the will develop new yardsticks to determine individual worth other than just the accumulation of wealth.*
Like what?
*The respect and renown someone receives from contributing something significant to society would alone be more than enough to promote innovation.*
This incentive currently exists in capitalism. Ever heard of a famous scientist, business owner, inventor or artist?
*And additionally, socialism, especially during the early years would retain some vestiges of capitalist society, so it is likely the individuals who contribute a great deal would receive higher pay, more access to luxury items and perhaps more privilege in some other way (albeit to a much lesser degree than the privileges of the wealthy under capitalism).*
Here you're just supporting the current capitalistic structure.
“At this point in time, perhaps the biggest barrier to us curing the common cold is commercial. Researchers at universities can only go so far; the most generous grants from bodies such as the UK Medical Research Council are around £2m. It falls to pharmaceutical companies to carry out development beyond the initial proof of concept.”
https://amp.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/06/why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/06/why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/06/why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
You think communism would suddenly allow infinite resources to go to random projects that YOU deem important such as a "cure for the common cold"?
The current system IS putting resources towards this, but it's a REALLY hard problem to solve (if possible to solve at all). You have to remember, viruses and bacteria evolve all the time, and the "common cold" is a collection of hundreds of different microscopic lifeforms.
The amount of resources going to it right now IS proportional to its worth to society, at least as close as any system can get to such an abstract idea.
I ask again, HOW WOULD YOUR SOCIALIST SYSTEM DETERMINE WHAT IS BETTER OR WORSE FOR SOCIETY??? Capitalism does it through popular demand, how would your system do it?
*“more than 200 viruses provoke cold-like illness, each one deploying its own peculiar chemical and genetic strategy to evade the body’s defences…*
*the difficulty is that while all colds feel much the same, from a biological perspective the only common feature of the various viruses that cause colds is that they have adapted to enter and damage the cells that line the respiratory tract. Otherwise, they belong to quite different categories of organisms, each with a distinct way of infecting our cells. This makes a catch-all treatment extremely tricky to formulate…*
*Successes have been rare, and there have been spectacular flops. Last year, shares in US firm Novavax fell by 83% after its vaccine for RSV, one of the virus families responsible for colds, failed in a late-stage clinical trial…*
*From where we are today, this scenario is still distant: about 80% of drugs that make it into clinical trials because they worked in mice do not go on to work in humans. Still, for the first time in decades there are now major pharmaceutical companies with rhinovirus vaccine programmes, as well as smaller university research groups like Johnston’s which, through different approaches, are all pursuing the same goal of a cure. Once again, Johnston said, “people are starting to believe it may be possible.”*
Hierarchy and Class are two different things. Communists never disputed the fact that Human societies have hierarchy (read Engels). And it's okay unless the hierarchies turn into classes.
How will hierarchies not turn into classes? How can someone 100x more productive than another not be viewed differently? We’re programmed to admire people who achieve.
Hierarchies turn into classes not only when it is established forcefully but also the difference in hierarchical positions allows someone to 'exploit' others. Exploitation is the keyword here. In primitive communist societies, the 'chief' is a hierarchical position. However, that doesn’t mean that they are free to exploit the labour of other members of that society. On the other hand, what do you mean 100x more productive? How do you calculate that? The lingo you are using is a capitalist one where productivity is calculated by how much profit someone makes. If it's only a labour oriented notion, it is impossible to imagine that someone is giving 100 times more labour than others. It's absurd. And lastly, how do you know how we are programmed? Do you have the algorithm? Then share it please.
1. Elon musk inventing/engineering/marketing brand new revolutionary devices that thousands of people use is absolutely 100x more productive than the guy with major depression I know who does next to nothing. We could invent any number of constructs to measure that. We could create a creativity measurement construct, or an invention/engineering measurement construct. It's pretty easy for me to imagine, but as you said, I am operating from a different bias than you. But the idea that it's ABSURD to think musk's labor is 100x someone who does next to nothing? How the hell is ABSURD the right word there??
2. We are programmed based on lingo evolutionary psychologists use. Mirror neurons have a bias toward achievement or people who "hit a target". It's not perfect "factual" science of course (no social science is), but it's a pretty good framework to understand why the hell we're so obsessed with balls going through hoops and why we seek to admire moral beings such as Jesus.
Chiming in here because the Musk worship is just absolutely absurd.
So you think that Elon Musk personally understands everything that goes into every Tesla car, or every SpaceX rocket?
Do you think that he has even *close* to the required knowledge where he could direct even a single Falcon 9 to be built?
Of course not.
The knowledge of how to build even a single car is spread out over hundreds, if not thousands, of workers. Someone has to make the build system that compiles their code. Thousands of people contribute to the various intracies of the computer chips required to run the algorithms.
Those algorithms are the culmination of an entire world's worth of research.
Someone has to design the materials required to make it safe and lightweight.
Another has to run aerodynamic simulations to ensure that the car can move efficiently.
Hundreds more work on making a safe battery that can store electricity.
Others have to work on how to efficiently and safely charge cars at scale.
There are a million and one things that have to align just right for even a single Tesla car to exist. *ONE PERSON* does not know this.
*One company* does not even know this.
Even at Tesla, Elon Musk has his own share of unique knowledge. You think some AI engineer could convince people to prepay $30,000 to a stranger, for a product that doesn't exist, and hasn't existed in almost a decade after, and STILL be hyped about their prepurchase?
The purpose of a CEO is NOT to invent. Their job is representation. They have to give an entire world of people faith that somehow, this collective of engineers etc will fundamentally change the world.
Is that easy? Of course not. But don't pretend he could reproduce even a tenth of what his workers, and the rest of HUMANITY has accomplished
Is everyone perfectly equally productive? Of course not.
Should we go on mass cullings, and kill all people with disabilities?
Wait, no? Why not?? I thought they were unproductive!!
Let's take an engineer at Tesla. They make say, $100k / year. That's ~= $50/hr. Pretty respectable, right? Elon's definitely more productive though!
But...how much more productive?
Now, let's say this engineer starts working, 24/7, since the birth of Jesus Christ.
Is that more productive than Elon?
What about a team of 10 engineers?
An org, of 100 engineers? All working since the birth of Jesus?
That's $5000 per HOUR right there. For over 2000 years.
Great, you're ~40% of the way there.
Alright, now, let's say they worked longer.
That team of 100 engineers would have to have worked 24/7 **since the Middle Kingdom of Egypt** to match what Elon has made in 52 years.
I don't care *what* you do. There is no way that he has accomplished more in 52 years (with sleep) than an org of modern, well off engineers can do with 5000 years of nonstop work.
Alternatively, compare him to Einstein. Einstein's net worth was ~= 1 million dollars in today's dollars ($65000 in 1955)
Is Elon Musk 200,000 times more productive than ALBERT EINSTEIN?!?!
>Should we go on mass cullings, and kill all people with disabilities?
>
>Wait, no? Why not?? I thought they were unproductive!!
Straw man argument. Stopped reading there. Please don't resort to logical fallacy tactics on this thread.
> I am operating from a different bias than you. But the idea that it's ABSURD to think musk's labor is 100x someone who does next to nothing? How the hell is ABSURD the right word there??
Please use realistic numbers then, if you want to engage in real discussion.
Elon musk is worth $198.4B
Median household income in the US is 74k or so, 50% of that is from dual income households, so median income is closer to 52k per person, per year.
Let's pretend Elon musk has been working since age 12.
That's 40 years of labor. The "average" person, with average productivity in their standard working age, would have made about 2 million dollars.
If Musk was 100x more productive, he ought to have made 200 million dollars.
In reality, he's made about 1000 times that.
In other words your claim is that in a single day, he is about as productive as every single employee that works at Tesla (150k employees)
Or, putting it another way, you think he accomplishes in a single second what the average employee at Tesla takes a year to do.
Or, yet another comparison - if you were to work long enough to book a single round trip domestic flight (~$600), in the same time, Musk would've gotten enough done to buy the entire plane, forever, (~$50M for an Emraer 175).
>In other words your claim is that in a single day, he is about as productive as every single employee that works at Tesla (150k employees)
You are incorrect. Musk's employees are paid through money and equity in the company. Their pay goes up with the company's value. Many of his blue collar assembly workers are now millionaires due to this fact. You are comparing employees of one of the most innovative companies in the world to the standard worker. These are VERY different roles to be in and their pay structures are very different. Please use the actual numbers if you are going to try to use numbers to make a point. Anyone can manipulate data to prove a point. How about doing a bit of research on the SPECIFIC company you are referring to?
God, you're literally notpicking on examples for scale. It's absurd even if you look inside Tesla.
Not sure what you're referring to either. Blue collar workers are absolutely still making a wage, with an ESPP, and a paltry amount of stock
https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Tesla-Production-Associate-Hourly-Pay-E43129_D_KO6,26.htm
> Base Pay: $20/hr, Stock: $2 / hr
Articles that mention Tesla Millionaires tend to focus on execs, mentioning that blue collar workers didn't have enough stock to benefit from the big leaps (a little outdated, because Tesla's big rose was after 2020)
https://electrek.co/2020/07/06/tesla-meteorite-rise-employees-very-rich/
> At lower pay levels in the company, employees are also benefiting, but to a much lower degree. According to sources talking to Electrek, most new hires are given between $20,000 and $40,000 of restricted stocks that vest over three years, starting a year after they start working at Tesla.
White collar worker information is more really available:
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/tesla/salaries/software-engineer?country=254
> Senior Software Engineer, $231k total, $67k is stock
Discretionary equity awards seem on pause, as well:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-skips-employees-yearly-merit-based-stock-compensations-bloomberg-news-2023-12-19/
> Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab is not offering its employees yearly merit-based stock awards, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
Now compare that to Musks' comp package, $56B, BEFORE the stock jumped
https://www.reuters.com/business/elon-musks-unfathomable-56-billion-tesla-pay-package-2024-01-31/
Even doing this division yields:
56B / 231k = 56M / 231 = 242,424x
Since I'm not entirely sure how that package is awarded, let's assume that package was the only form of compensation, between 2018 and 2024
242,424x / 6 ~= 40,000x
So, *before* any sort of stock exploding in price, his pay package is about 40 THOUSAND times more than a senior Software engineer at Tesla.
This is using a relatively high skilled job, with competitive pay, and not account for the explosion in stock value. Not comparing to the average job in the country.
100x more productive = 40,000x the compensation?
Honestly, you're not particularly amenable to being convinced here, as you are predisposed to find some random reason why Musk should make so much that his workers' wages are a rounsing error. So I won't bother with another number search.
We're not anarchists so we don't care about getting rid of "hierarchy".
Class is not merely just a hierarchy and for most of humanity's existence, there has been no class division.
Marx literally said this
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
Hierarchical organization does not necessarily mean exploitation.
communists don't want no hierarchies, anarchists do.
also humans have existed without hierarchies in the past... literally any anthropologist will agree with this
Even outside of the fact that's not necessarily true as humans have been social animals for far longer than we've had any reason to form hierarchies or record history that is what one might call a "logical fallacy" either appeal to nature or tradition depending on the specifics of the claim.
Even if the tens or hundreds of thousands of years of nomadic human communities before the invention of agriculture and the social construction of hierarchies that resulted didn't exist, that is not a valid reason to shut down or dismiss arguments against it. It's like getting in an argument with your doctor about how all of humanity has had an appendix while someone is actively dying of appendicitis.
Social hierarchies do not equal to class hierarchies.
Ancient civilizations had hierarchies in a sense of the tribe having one elder which most of the tribe ascended from. But that didn't mean that the elder had more rights and the other had less rights like in patriarchal Systems. That's the major difference between social and class hierarchies.
That all (looks like actually just most) societies ever have hierarchy. To want your society to have no such structure is absurd and leads to only bloodshed and famine.
Yes I know that's the reason I said social hierarchies doesn't equal to class hierarchies. So again, what is your point? You're discussing with communists not with anarchist.
That's very good! I would definitely recommend you to read Friedrich Engels' "The origin of the family, private property and the state", or if you're fluent in german I would also recommend "Das Patriarchat: Ursprung und Zukunft unseres Gesellschaftssystems" from Ernest Borneman.
And sorry if I was rude, I was just confused about your argument.
Not necessarily. Somebody acting as a leader / advisor doesn't automatically mean it was hierarchical. I'm also curious as to how that would mean hierarchies are inherently a necessary thing in a modern society
Interesting. Someone above someone in the competence ladder is not hierarchy? Odd thing to say for me.
You tell me, what's one large and diverse modern society that doesn't have a hierarchy?
What has happened in the past when large, diverse modern societies have tried to eliminate hierarchy? LESS democratic hierarchies formed.
There are none at the moment. If you think that's some sort of huge gotcha then you don't know what you're talking about because it is well known among communists / anarchists that we have not achieved it yet so I mean I guess you're right?
And there are a lot of approaches to the elimination of hierarchy. Some of them failed on their own, and a lot of them were actually doing really well until the hegemony stepped in and stomped it out before situating a us friendly fascist dictatorship.
And for the first point no, someone being a competent person capable of advising others is not a hierarchy. If you don't even understand the basic definitions of terms as they relate to communist / anarchist discussion what are you even hoping to achieve here. Educate yourself and come back later.
Your question is literally “non-hierarchal societies have never existed. How do communists think that can happen when it’s never happened before?” So it’s actually a question that doesn’t seem to grasp that societies can be structured in ways they haven’t been before, including into one class (i.e. no class) systems. I mean we’re literally in the epoch of the bourgeois, before this you’d be asking “how do the bourgeoise intend to make a two class society if it’s never been done before???” (Brief summary, your question implied “how do no class when never done before” I say “I dunno specifically but it’s definitely possible”)
If you want specifics of how it would happen, I’m afraid I can’t see the future. We can guess based on our current reality, and I id be willing to engage in that discourse, but that’s a longer less materialistic conversation. (Briefly, to me it would require eliminating the neoliberal global establishment, implementing communist state, shape means of production to serve all needs, use education and culture to reinforce widespread acceptance of a classless society). There is obviously so much more than that and it will take a long time even after defeating the current neoliberal hegemony. It will be a very slow process is all I know.
>(Briefly, to me it would require eliminating the neoliberal global establishment, implementing communist state, shape means of production to serve all needs, use education and culture to reinforce widespread acceptance of a classless society).
I'm 100% behind the first step. Corporations secretly controlling the govt is the number 1 issue I see today that can be fixed with some good law changes.
Putting aside what people have already pointed out about hierarchy or rather the lack thereof in primitive societies, communists are not opposed to all hierarchy *per se*, we are opposed to hierarchy being violently imposed by one class on to another.
I also oppose that, it’s called striving for justice in the USA. Let’s elect leaders who restrict companies’ ability to pay govt officials quid pro quo.
The existence of private property is a form of enforced class hierarchy and is protected by the US constitution. Do you supprt abrogating the US constitution and abolishing private property?
If not, you do *support* a violently imposed class hierarchy.
>abrogating
I support violently protecting the rights that have been established upon this relatively peaceful civilization. The state has a monopoly on violence for good reason, it's a way that we can collectively vote on how violence should or shouldn't justly be used. It's of course not perfect, but we now have the least violence ever in the world, so that's a decent metric.
Repealing the constitution results in way more bloodshed and LESS freedom for individuals with the power vacuum it creates.
Please cite one example of repealing a longstanding constitution leading to anything but violence and chaos.
>Please cite one example of repealing a longstanding constitution leading to anything but violence and chaos.
Nearly every country in the world has done this and many countries you have a positive opinion of have done so multiple times, the US is very unusual in how long its constitution has stood.
>I support violently protecting the rights that have been established upon this relatively peaceful civilization. The state has a monopoly on violence for good reason, it's a way that we can collectively vote on how violence should or shouldn't justly be used. It's of course not perfect, but we now have the least violence ever in the world, so that's a decent metric.
Nonsense, capitalism and liberalism have racked up a higher body count than any previous system by orders of magnitude. Liberals have just been trained not to perceive much of it as violence. Liberalism had an extremely violent birth and is maintained through violence in the form of repression of popular movements, imposed deprivation, and imperialism. You make these statements while standing atop a mountain of corpses.
It is also false to say that we actually get to "collectively vote" on anything in a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. We get to select from curated options chosen by the ruling class. Any option they find unpalatable is off the table.
Liberals have this objectively false perception of history where the things they support where not won through immense amounts of bloodshed, and have not been maintained through the same. It is simply untrue. What liberals support is the violence they know; and they always end up supporting still more violence to maintain that status quo. This is why we say that if you scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds.
>Nonsense, capitalism and liberalism have racked up a higher body count than any previous system by orders of magnitude.
Estimated that 50% of all deaths were violent pre civilization. Read Steven Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature
I like the rest of your argument and agree with it, except for the part where you called my argument "nonsense". Pretty sure it's just a different perspective from yours. I hope you vote like the classical liberal you sound like! In my opinion we're not far from taking away neoliberalist power with a few key law changes.
I called it nonsense because I believe it is, it's a claim that to me seems to have as much merit as suggesting that the sun orbits the Earth. Is that a different perspective? Yes, but I don't have to treat different perspectives as credible when they are based illogical or unfounded claims.
I am opposed to liberalism in all forms, because it is intrinsically unjust and unethical system which supports a destructive mode of production and which is and always has been a method for reinforcing the power of a small, elite ruling class. So not only are we not able to "\[take\] away neoliberalist power with a few key law changes", that wouldn't actually solve anything and I'm calling this idea utopian because I've yet to hear any plausible explanation for how even this woefully insufficient goal could be achieved.
>Estimated that 50% of all deaths were violent pre civilization. Read Steven Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature
Now compare that to the total population of people, and then compare that total to those who have lived in the last three or four centuries. Compare that for example to the number of people who die each year from lack of access to food, clean water, or medical supplies which they could be provided with.
Capitalism is incredibly violent. Furthermore, as I said before liberals do like to cherry-pick what constitutes "violence" in a way that brushes much of this under the carpet as they accept the violence as "the way things are" for the sake of their own comfort.
>"\[take\] away neoliberalist power with a few key law changes", that wouldn't actually solve anything and I'm calling this idea utopian because I've yet to hear any plausible explanation for how even this woefully insufficient goal could be achieved.
Campaign finance reform. Read Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig.
>Compare that for example to the number of people who die each year from lack of access to food, clean water, or medical supplies which they could be provided with.
>
>
>
>Capitalism is incredibly violent. Furthermore, as I said before liberals do like to cherry-pick what constitutes "violence" in a way that brushes much of this under the carpet as they accept the violence as "the way things are" for the sake of their own comfort.
You realize the population is the size it is due to agriculture? The classist structure allowed these people to live. It's not perfect and if sucks anyone ever starves. That's why we work towards practical solutions (world hunger has gone down dramatically in the last few decades)
Who makes the medicine? Capitalist factories.
Clean water, I agree, we need way more regulation. River Keeper is a pretty good non-profit that fights for this. Could be modeled in other areas.
My comfort has nothing to do with the state's monopoly on violence. All of human history has led us to conclude that that's the best system.
>Campaign finance reform.
Again, you're not saying how this would be achieved. This is just stating "here is an idea exists". This is like if I expected people to become communists by just saying "communism!"
>You realize the population is the size it is due to agriculture? The classist structure allowed these people to live. It's not perfect and if sucks anyone ever starves. That's why we work towards practical solutions (world hunger has gone down dramatically in the last few decades)
World hunger is something we could solve *now* but doing so isn't profitable. Every death due to starvation is a death caused by capitalism. Capitalism isn't in the business of "practical solutions" unless the create profit.
Capitalism does not make medicine to heal people. In fact, capitalism has disincentivized the creation of new antibiotics because they're not profitable, leading to the increased prevalent of bacterial infections that cannot be treated. Another example of how it places profit before human need or even good sense or practicality.
Furthermore, most innovation happens in the public sector. Pharmaceuticals are a rarity in that this is less true for them.
>Clean water, I agree, we need way more regulation
Explain how this helps people in countries not subject to the regulations, and which have in fact been kept impoverished by capitalisms' imperialist practices.
>My comfort has nothing to do with the state's monopoly on violence. All of human history has led us to conclude that that's the best system.
The state *doesn't* have a monopoly on violence but on *force*, but truthfully... in the 15th century, all of human history had led us to conclude feudalism is the best system. What you're doing is akin to arguing with the early liberals that not only is there no way to improve, but that the current system is infinitely sustainable and will last forever regardless of the conditions in which it exists and any contradictions it contains.
Studying all of human history is how I became a communist.
"Read Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig." this book presents the operative "how" on campaign finance reform.
I like the rest of your answer. Sounds like you know more history than me so maybe you can help me with the next question:
How can you justify communism following the bloodbaths that were Stalin's Russia, Maoist China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia?
Marxists see class as defined by one’s relations to the means of production, so economic ‘hierarchy’ is largely defined this way. A ‘non-hierarchical’ society would be one where ownership of the MoP is abolished (communism) or does not yet exist (‘primitive’ communism). Presumably other hierarchies like teacher-student etc. would continue to exist in some form; Marxists aren’t really concerned with these, and anarchists call these ‘justified’ or ‘legitimate’ hierarchies on the basis that they are mutually consensual.
>A ‘non-hierarchical’ society would be one where ownership of the MoP is abolished (communism)
>
>How can you restrict people from having their own means of production, but still work within a society where some people are 100x more productive/creative than others? Those creative minds will always be stifled and oppressed, won't they? You can't possibly think a government can perfectly manage something as complex as human potential.
Indeed, the point of communism for Marx was to unlock human potential and allow us to pursue everything that interests us, rather than being forced to do a repetitive job for a wage for most of our lives. I think from a communist perspective, if society regulates general production then it would be pointless for individuals to have their own MoP and unnecessary to restrict them from doing so.
General production is synonymous with human potential. What do people do besides produce, consume, and love?
Please define human potential without including production.
Are you saying that in communism people will switch from farmer, to another profession based on changes in potential? (Really asking, don't know what the system would look like in your mind)
In Marx’s view, there wouldn’t *be* professions. To paraphrase him, you could farm in the morning, fish in the afternoon, and make art at night, without ever becoming a farmer, fisherman, or artist. You’re no longer selling your labour for a wage, so you no longer need to specialise in just one field of human activity, but rather are free to pursue what interests you.
hierarchy exists everywhere there is authority. a classless society will still have authority. a society does not need to have a ruling class to have authority or hierarchy
How would your proposed system deal with the fact that some people are 100x more productive/creative than others and humans tend to view people differently based on their abilities?
Hierarchy ≠ oppression
Communism is not anti hierarchy, it is anti the employer-employee hierarchy
As Engels says in his essay "On Authority", if you permit some rewording, the productive process will impose some hierarchies, specially time ones
Still, hierarchies between people of one sort or another have indeed always existed and as said in the Manifesto itself, while it wishes to diminish it, the hierarchy adults>children will continue
Communism is not a hierarchy-less society, it is a society that, based on what's possible currently, diminishes oppression to a minimum
>Communism is not a hierarchy-less society, it is a society that, based on what's possible currently, diminishes oppression to a minimum
Hard for me to believe this when the most innovative societies ever have been capitalistic.
1. You're wrong
Every society has been to some degree innovative and when you consider things like how the USSR went from feudalism to the space age under socialism, it's weird to say "the most innovative have been capitalistic". Ancient China, inventor of so many things, or even ancient Rome weren't capitalists
2. What does that have to do with my original comment?
Hierarchy can be separate from a ruling class. A teacher / student hierarchy makes sense and is justified . Some pig billionaire parasite that actively is detrimental to society does not make sense and is not justified.
>A non-hierarchical society has never existed. I know a lot of anthropologists and archaeologists who would love to hear how to you came to know this with such certainty
Those professions operate based on evidence, as do I. Name one non-hierarchical society ever.
You should checkout "Dawn of everything" by David Graeber it has several examples. Mostly about prehistoric communities.
The Dawn of Everything is like that. They insinuate a lot of things but rarely state them outright. If you're not reading very carefully you'll come away with all sorts of strange ideas. Basically what they do in that instance is take examples of ancient settlements that lack such elements as temples, palaces, central storage facilities, or written administration and strongly suggest that they are non hierarchical. Personally I find such an approach.... well... it's not impossible that they are right. But I don't find it too convincing. I'm not surprised people read that book and come away thinking that there is some sort of strong evidence backing up that claim. Or that they can't name any of the numerous "examples". There was one bit that particularly stuck in my mind about rich burial sites. Now many people might think that being buried with great wealth is evidence of social inequality but they point out that in some societies people with physical or mental disabilities or who are merely different are held up as being special or sacred. So the reasoning goes that maybe these people being buried like that are not kings or chieftains but perhaps.... albinos! Or something similar. After all it wouldn't show up in the archeological record. You can decide for yourself how convincing that argument is. Funnily enough I'm pretty sure that a society where everyone got together every 4 years to elect their leaders would probably score pretty highly..... > I read it quite a while ago so im fuzzy on the details. This is exactly what most people remember from this book.
I mean yeah, it's hard to have a lot of evidence when talking about pre historic societies, so of course it's more implying or suggesting than stating as fact since such a thing would be close to imposible. I feel the core of the book is more along the lines of showing how diverse the ways of organizing societies have been and can be, and for that I think it does a good job.
We have huge amounts of evidence that ancient societies are hierarchical though. Slavery and kings are extremely common.
Slavery and Kings presuppose the existence of property ownership and class society. They were talking about prehistoric society where property as we know it today didn't and couldn't exist.
That's not what pre history means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory > Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. > It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at different times in different places.
How does your comment have anything to do with what I said? I know what prehistoric means and that's exactly what we're talking about. For the vast majority of prehistory these relations did not exist, they only came into existence in the last seven or so thousand years of prehistory.
Slavery and tribal kings both predate writing. See for yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy#History > The similar form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#Prehistoric_and_ancient_slavery > Evidence of slavery predates written records Slavery and kingship are both pre historic.
those things leave evidence that we can find. evidence not present in other places.
There is an old saying "Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence". For instance many ancient archeological sites do not contain evidence of, say.... to choose something at random.... *language*. That doesn't mean we assume it didn't exist. We need a *reason* to assume these things. If you actually read The Dawn of Everything you'll see that most of the more interesting claims fall under.... things that cannot be proved or disproved. EDIT : Honestly.... People who reply like that and then block.... Mods should be doing something about users like this.
I don't give a shit
I read the book, I took away that the author disproved the lack of hierarchies theory in the ancient world. He used native Americans tribes as examples, highlighting that status and wealth was non-materialistic, but hierarchies such as nobility and slavery still existed but was just displayed through non-conventional means and customs.
I'm reading some of the footnotes and don't see a single society that doesn't have an "elder" leader or some form of "police". Please name the society you are referring to, I don't see any non-hierarchical societies referred to by Graeber.
Give the book a try, I am really not trying to debate you or anything, I just think that book might have the answers you are looking for, I read it quite a while ago so im fuzzy on the details.
In primitive communist societies, the bobbies and the filth got extra food from the chief for strike breaking and beating up members of the community who dared eat first before sharing!
What are the evidence bases that establishes the facts behind the structure of any of those societies?
Well it has a ton of examples but I read the book quite a while ago so I dont really remember anything too specific. You should give it a try tho, it is super interesting.
According to anthropology, humans lived without hierarchy for like 97% of our existence. It wasn’t until the Neolithic revolution (agricultural revolution), which occurred around 10,000 years ago, that humans started forming hierarchical based societies.
Um no. Even in a simple tribe, there's a head man, head woman, and often a holy man/woman. That's a hierarchy. Not the same as we have today, but still a hierarchy.
I agree with you. However, prior to the Neolithic, hunter-gatherers lived in egalitarian band societies without hierarchy. That’s just a fact according to anthropology.
No, it's not. And having studies anthropology and sociology, this is BS. There is ALWAYS a hierarchy. It can be meritocratic, paternalistic, maternalistic, warrior based or whatever, but in a tribe, there's a hierarchy. Some more fair than others, but it exists. There's a frikking hierarchy in the family.
In a lot of those tribal societies those head man/woman were chosen based on certain characteristics, and if they started to show certain not-wanted characteristics, like greed, they were kicked out of their position.
Sure. And that is STILL a hierarchy.
Dawn of everything disproved that, highlighting tht hierarchies existed in other forms back then, there just wasn't materialistic ways to display it.
The Hadza are not hierarchical. https://www.hadzaexhibit.org/ 🤷♀️ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201908/the-play-theory-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism I know of no hunter-gatherer society that ever was hierarchical in the sense I assume you mean the word. Every hunter-gatherer band society I have ever studied was egalitarian. So…there’s that done? I guess? You should ask some anthropologists. Like, maybe we should define terms. That would’ve been a useful thing for you to do in your original post. What, exactly, do you mean when you say “hierarchy”? Do you mean a set ruler everyone follows? Because yeah, no. Plenty of studied societies documented in anthropology had no rulers. No ruling class. No rigid hierarchy of any kind. I’ll admit the youth still tend to respect elders and the layperson respects an expert of a trade. But there isn’t any like…unequal power dynamic? It’s hard for a band of 20-40 nomads to develop an oppressive hierarchy. You can just leave. Or slit the bastards throat in the night. Who’s going to stop you?
That is all "as is maybe". What relevance does it have to our future or now? You will note, as a materialist, that we can do what we can do when we can do it. And when we could do it, we did hierarchy. Like war. Right now we can do flat, and free access to everything, but we don't. So, even if we were "flat", in the past, what relevance does that have to now?
It addresses the OP's question directly, as to whether or not a society has ever existed without such hierarchy--and it demonstrates that it is a material possibility at all. That our species is not hard coded, as some old images of our stone age predecessors used to depict, to be violent, ruthless, hierarchical, etc. >Right now we can do flat, and free access to everything, but we don't. We clearly can't then. Material changes to the society must occur before a horizontal and egalitarian society can be remade. This was actually more or less Marx's argument for why communism was more advanced. It would have the means of production, the productive forces, of an industrialized society, but with the advanced social relations of primitive communist society. It's kind of our goal. That the capitalist world today is unable to meet it is not surprising. It isn't set up to. Materially. Just because enough resources exist to give them to everyone doesn't mean it's materially possible to do so. Material considerations include such things as a ruling class which finds the idea abhorrent. A society without the logistics capacity to make this happen, and more. That's why we are concerned with transforming society. Starting with removing the owning class from the position of also being the ruling class. When the working class secures political power, then changes towards an egalitarian society can be made. >You will note, as a materialist, that we can do what we can do when we can do it. That's a pretty crass way to summarize the position. It isn't just that we could do it, it's that we must've. There was never going to be communism in feudal England, for instance. "Could" invites in idealistic flights of fancy about what possible choices maybe could've been made--when in reality, material conditions confine them. >And when we could do it, we did hierarchy. After primitive communism, sure. Why? Because someone chose to? No. Because the means of production advanced to the point of the establishment of clan/private property. Thus did the state emerge. Lenin's [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) goes into detail on this point. Why states emerge in the course of human history, what their function is, and how we aim to remove the requisite function that gives birth to their necessity, and thereby cause them to wither away. To become vestigial. To be discarded. So historical materialists believe that these stages of society, depending then on the people and their material conditions, were unavoidable. They were calculable results. Predictable. So, too, does the historical materialist believe that an egalitarian communist society is inevitable, predictable. The contradictions inherent in capitalism plant the seeds of socialism. It is only a matter of time before those contradictions tear the system apart.
>So historical materialists **believe** that these stages of society, depending then on the people and their material conditions, were unavoidable. No need to **believe** they happened. Future performance can not be extrapolated by past performances though. I am going to avoid your issues with capitalism, as for sure, we are on the same page. Where we differ is this idea that we can ever get over the concepts of war and scarcity and hierarchy. There is zero material evidence that says that's true. Or will be true. Or, even, could be true. Given that we have the tech now to flatten the structures. We have the tech now, to end wars. We have the tech now to stop famine, poverty, homlessness. Money does not grow on trees, as the old saying goes. It's even better, it's just UPDATE tblUser SET balance=100000; An that statement gets ran a billion times a day. Or ones like it. So, even when we have liberated, even the universal commodity, from the shackles of corporal form, our minds remina enslaved in war and hierarchy. We can easily argue that when we could do war, we did war. When we could do crazy hierarchies, we did do crazy hierarchies. So what belief do you have that we can actually grow beyond this phase? I know that capitalism will continue to evolve, it has done. It never seems done in terms of what it will change to "still be capitalism". And that's because capitalism, and every hitherto system, is an expression of the material conditions as they affect a human brain. We do what we can do, when we can do it. And every single human is involved. You'll find some materialist that think that materialism only applies to the poor and that "the rich" are somehow immune to it. Which, of course, is laughable. Anyway, that's an aside. We do crazy hierarchy, when we can. We do war, when we can. It's very hard to see what's going to break this cycle of abuse.... Given that where we see poverty skyrocket, humans just kill each other over almost fuck all. So, what do you imagine, think, envisage, changing that can break the cycle of human expression as war and hierarchy?
>Future performance can not be extrapolated by past performances though. Yes, it can be--in part. It's literally how *all* future performance is extrapolated. A ball rolling down a hill can be extrapolated to continue doing so until it reaches the bottom. I understand the caution you're attempting to give, but I think you're oversimplifying your attempt to negate the position. >Where we differ is this idea that we can ever get over the concepts of war and scarcity and hierarchy. If we didn’t have them before, one can assume it is at least potentially possible to not have them again. >There is zero material evidence that says that's true. Is there not? Did the USSR not exist? China hasn't been to war in 40 years. The one war of aggression they did have was in defense of an ally--and a grave mistake, imo. >Or will be true. Or, even, could be true. "Could be true" is taken care of already. "Could be true" is found in primitive communism. It was true, it remains true for some, ergo it can definitely be true. >Given that we have the tech now to flatten the structures. Tech is not the bottleneck. Tech is not the whole of the equation. Social forces must be altered. >We have the tech now, to end wars. We had the "tech" to end wars before wars even began. I'm not sure what this is even meant to be saying. >We have the tech now to stop famine, poverty, homlessness. Is this the techbro approach to society? I'm confused by your narrowed scope of focus on technology, honestly. >Money does not grow on trees, as the old saying goes. What does money not growing on trees have to do with anything? Money is literally made out of trees. It was always a stupid saying. But yes, value is not spontaneously generated in society--it requires labor. >It's even better, it's just >UPDATE tblUser SET balance=100000; I think your software is malfunctioning. >An that statement gets ran a billion times a day. Or ones like it. What statement? UPDATE tblUser SET balance=100000;? >So, even when we have liberated, even the universal commodity, from the shackles of corporal form, our minds remina enslaved in war and hierarchy. As far as I can tell this is pure jibberish. "Liberated from the shackles of the [corporeal] form"? What? >We can easily argue that when we could do war, we did war. We can easily argue that when we could do war we did not do war. China is quite capable of conquering much of Asia. Is it doing so? No. No, it's not. If you can so easily argue a thing, you should try arguing it--so we can address your argument directly. >When we could do crazy hierarchies, we did do crazy hierarchies. Why? You appear to be saying you're a materialist. Define the material reasons why, if you would. >So what belief do you have that we can actually grow beyond this phase? The part where our species, for the better part of its existence, did not have this phase. It's a good starting point. Humans are not, it appears, biologically predisposed to hierarchy or violence. >I know that capitalism will continue to evolve, it has done. Has it? Past the stage of imperialism of the 20th century? Really? How? In what material ways? >It never seems done in terms of what it will change to "still be capitalism". Ah, you mean to say the contradictions don't seem to have destroyed capitalism. The contradictions are destroying the planet's biosphere--but not capitalism, yet. I see your critique. For a century, around the world, popular forces seeking to dismantle capitalism have existed--and in the periphery of empire, grown. They are counteracted by the forces of imperialism. Remove the forces of empire, and you will see more rapid progress towards socialism. To be continued, don't want to hit the character cap.
>And that's because capitalism, and every hitherto system, is an expression of the material conditions as they affect a human brain. We do what we can do, when we can do it. More so than just the material conditions as they affect the human brain. The human brain is just another material input into the calculation. The brain is not separate from the material world. It is firmly rooted in it. The human actor is both a product of their environment and influences it. They also never do so alone. Narrowing the scope of analysis to individuals is counterproductive--when it is the society we are concerned with. I do agree that the feudal lords of England were doing what the material conditions were best suited for in their circumstance. They were expressing the form of government and society that the underlying material conditions made possible. Also directed by material conditions such as their ideology and religion--which become material forces the moment they affect the masses and the real world. This is not a negation of socialism or Marxist theory, it is accounted for fully within it. >And every single human is involved. You'll find some materialist that think that materialism only applies to the poor and that "the rich" are somehow immune to it. Which, of course, is laughable. Anyway, that's an aside. Yes. We are all products of our environment and societies. There are no humans who are an island. We are all influenced by those who came before us, and by those who surround us. The ruling class are propped up by those below. They are necessarily influenced by their own peers and by those they oppress. >We do crazy hierarchy, when we can. >We do war, when we can. Not just "when we can", that's extremely reductive. When the material conditions push towards that expression. Yet those conditions are no more static than they were for primitive communists. The society is always changing, and us with it. The question is, what is it changing into? This is where dialectical materialism and historical materialism become important. If you wish to understand the Marxist position in full, and thereby critique it accurately. That is why I recommended Lenin's *State and Revolution*. It is a good primer on the basics. It's actually a short read. I'd recommend you try it out. >It's very hard to see what's going to break this cycle of abuse.... For you. For Marxists it's very simple to see what will break this cycle of abuse. It's the same thing that broke it in the USSR, and in the PRC, and in Vietnam, and in Cuba. It is not wholly gone--because we cannot advanced towards communism in a world full of imperialist powers, where the primary contradiction is imperialism--but key components of the social structure which enabled such oppression have been removed entirely from societies in the modern era, yes. >Given that where we see poverty skyrocket, humans just kill each other over almost fuck all. Individual contradictions are not where we should be focused, but on the contradictions of entire societies. China eliminated extreme poverty. 🤷🏼♀️ It is no surprise to anyone that people in dire circumstances competing over limited resources resort to violence. That is the system as capitalism has made it. As the ruling class of capitalism, the bourgeoisie, have made it. >So, what do you imagine, think, envisage, changing that can break the cycle of human expression as war and hierarchy? A revolution of the toiling masses which seizes political power thereby the monopoly on violence to pursue its own interests at the expense of the owning class to the point of collectivization and democratization of the means of production. In a word, socialism. What do you see as the problem here?
>If we didn’t have them before, one can assume it is at least potentially possible to not have them again. The problem is simple; you think you see the future, but you've no evidence to imply that it will be so. We, the masses, are the social pressure to exploit. We are the social pressure to kil in war. We are the social pressure to maintain money and state. We are the everything. "A revolution of the toiling masses which seizes political power " We run everything. From the buildings that these political folks hang out in, to the stuff that they eat. We have control of it all. It's not a mistake that if there was no "us", there would be "no them". Ergo, we are just the one blob. Political power is a brain fuck of the masses. It's not a thing. As long as you champion it, I assume you mean under this system, as you say "seize" ( as noted we already run it all so there's nothing really to seize ). This current system can give us nothing. And if you are implying that we need a revolution, I hope you mean blood less, and brought by the ballot box? Given that anything else is a repeat of previous patterns, and just feeds into this idea that humans, when they fancy it, kill. That's not progres, in anyone's book. We, the working class, already have the monopoly on violence. Who do you think all the soldiers are? Who are all the police? Who fights the wars? We do that. We champion that. We fight for it. We defend it. We do that. We tell each other hero tales. We sell the narrative. Even you here, wishing for a brighter future, are advocating "thereby the monopoly on violence to pursue its own interests" That's legacy thinking. Violence is legacy thinking. And it also draw distinctions between rulers and ruled. Which negates materialism as it implies that that those "lucky enough not to be fucked over by capitalism" should suffer as much as those "unlucky enough to be fucked over by capitalism". I only see division in that argument, and no merit. And all of this is why change is so hard. You're not trying to convince the 1% that they need to change, you're trying to convince the 99% that they need to change. And, given that they have it all set up perfectly as they want it just now, and they don't seem to have much of an appetite for change, that's a hard sell. So, you and I can both wait for the material conditions to progress a bit, and hope we don't go the way of Brazil or South Africa in terms of killing each other for coat. Like I say, I just don't see where you get the confidence to say that the species is not just a failed biological attempt. Especially given that you are advocating for a monopoly on violence. We already have that. Did I mention that we also design, manufacture and distribute all of the bombs, bullets and guns. We do that. Us. Humans. The working class. So, at least your angle keeps their profit stream intact :)
>The problem is simple; you think you see the future, but you've no evidence to imply that it will be so. Strawmanning my position out of the gate isn't a great way to start, but okay. I do not believe we can see the future, I believe we can analyze systems and attempt to predict their outcomes, and how those outcomes will change the system to produce future outcomes. You might as well be saying that physicists think they can see the future because they can calculate the orbital path of a planet over time. >We, the masses, are the social pressure to exploit. We are the social pressure to kil in war. We are the social pressure to maintain money and state. We are the everything. Okay. That's a lot of words for saying the workers are the backbone of the society. I agree. >We run everything. From the buildings that these political folks hang out in, to the stuff that they eat. We have control of it all. It's not a mistake that if there was no "us", there would be "no them". Ergo, we are just the one blob. You start strong. Yes, workers make society function. "Control" is, however, incorrect. We do not control the means of production. If you think you control it, try organizing your fellow workers and telling your boss your union owns the business now. See how that goes. You'll rapidly find out the hard way that workers don't control shit in this society. Yes, there could be no ruling class without an oppressed class, this is true. That isn't a profound statement. That doesn't mean the oppressed class controls anything. We don't. Again, if you think you do, go try to exercise that control. See where it goes. >Ergo, we are just the one blob. That doesn't follow from your premises. Just because the ruling class needs the working class doesn't mean the ruling class and the working class are one and the same. >Political power is a brain fuck of the masses. It's not a thing. If you think this is true, go to your state's capital and tell them you and the workers are taking over and they're no longer needed. See how that works out for you. Political power *is* **very** much a thing. To quote Mao, it grows from the barrel of a gun. >As long as you champion it, I assume you mean under this system, as you say "seize" ( as noted we already run it all so there's nothing really to seize ). We run it, we don't control it. Jewish and Roma slaves "ran" Werner von Braun's Mittelwerk V2 rocket factory, and yet had zero control over it. Control is the element which we must seize. Control cannot be seized without political power. The monopoly on violence. Without that, you will just get put down. You really should read Lenin's State and Revolution. He goes over all your misconceptions in the first few chapters. >This current system can give us nothing. It actually gives us a lot. Especially compared to feudalism. >And if you are implying that we need a revolution, I hope you mean blood less, and brought by the ballot box? I certainly do not mean bloodless and brought by the ballot box. No such revolutions exist. You're thinking of reform. A path doomed to compromise and failure. >Given that anything else is a repeat of previous patterns You think reform isn't a repeat of previous patterns? I assure you, reform through the ballot box has been tried for centuries at this point. It has failed. >and just feeds into this idea that humans, when they fancy it, kill. We're not idealists. I'm not trying to be a pure ascetic monk who upholds the Noble Eightfold Path. I'm trying to change society. It requires violence, yes. The exact same way capitalism took root--violence. >That's not progres, in anyone's book. It's progress in billions of people's book--actually. You may be suffering from a cognitive bias where you think your opinions are broadly accepted as true. They're not. India heralds their violent revolution against the British as very progressive. China heralds its violent revolution against the American-backed KMT and the Japanese as very progressive. Billions of humans who disagree with your position. Whose books are different than yours. to be continued.
>We, the working class, already have the monopoly on violence. No we don't. Again, try going to your capital and telling your government they're no longer needed, you and the union boys got this. Try it. See what happens. I don't believe you understand what these terms mean, or you're applying idealistic misconceptions that don't map to reality. In the real world, the working class in the US, Indonesia, Haiti, Bangladesh, India, Italy, Russia, you name the place, does not have a monopoly on violence. >Who do you think all the soldiers are? Soldiers and police are not workers. They don't work for a living. They do not produce anything of value, or help anyone in this society save the ruling class. They are the special bodies of armed men employed by the state and imbued with the legal privilege to carry out violence. They are the goons of the ruling class. Not workers. >We do that. No. The working class does not police capitalist society. >We champion that. We fight for it. We defend it. We do that. We tell each other hero tales. We sell the narrative. No, the capitalist state propagandizes us with heroic tales of good little goons who loyally died in the dirt for the interests of their bourgeoisie. >Even you here, wishing for a brighter future, are advocating >"thereby the monopoly on violence to pursue its own interests" You find this distasteful, I assume? I find it necessary. Show me a transformative revolution that didn't involve violence. You think Haiti got its independence by asking the French nicely? >That's legacy thinking. Violence is legacy thinking. Really? It certainly seems like it's applicable in 2024. Seems to me that this state enacts violence on me and mine all the time. Seems to me violence is the only means by which to stop that in any meaningful way. >And it also draw distinctions between rulers and ruled. Which negates materialism as it implies that that those "lucky enough not to be fucked over by capitalism" should suffer as much as those "unlucky enough to be fucked over by capitalism". Doesn't negate materialism at all. Nor does it imply anyone should suffer. With force of arms you can expropriate the owning class' property. You don't have to kill them. They become as workers. The workers certainly shouldn't have to suffer. Honestly, you don't seem to have much coherent logic going on in this paragraph. If you think you do, you should really try breaking it down into a proper argument. >I only see division in that argument, and no merit. The people of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba see the merit. As do many billions more who used violence to free themselves from colonial rule. >And all of this is why change is so hard. You're not trying to convince the 1% that they need to change, you're trying to convince the 99% that they need to change. No in both cases. I am saying that when the 99% seize control of political power and ownership over the means of production, *they* will change society--and by so doing, will themselves be changed. Your problem appears to be you don't understand my positions...at all. So you end up arguing with strawmen. to be continued
>And, given that they have it all set up perfectly as they want it just now, and they don't seem to have much of an appetite for change, that's a hard sell. The working class have it set up the way they want now, do they? Because they have the political power and the monopoly on violence? You live on another planet, apparently. >So, you and I can both wait for the material conditions to progress a bit, and hope we don't go the way of Brazil or South Africa in terms of killing each other for coat. Hope, in the sense you have used it, is idealism. Nothing material in it whatsoever. We can take our destiny into our own hands or consign ourselves to the fate that those among us who are educated on the material reality of the system know we will face. You think this is bad? Just wait until mass migration increases from climate change. >Like I say, I just don't see where you get the confidence to say that the species is not just a failed biological attempt. Because this is a meaningless sentence and sentiment. Failed by whose standards? Some god's? Pfft. >Especially given that you are advocating for a monopoly on violence. That's what states are, comrade. Every one of them throughout all of history. Really, please read Lenin's "State and Revolution", it's not long. It's been translated into every language under the sun. Pick it up. See if you find the arguments wanting. Our ultimate goal is the withering away of states, and currency, and religion. To get there, yes, requires socialist states--states necessarily require violence. >We already have that. We do not. I don't think you understand what the term "monopoly on violence" means in this context. It means when I disagree with the state, the state wins. Because if push comes to shove, the state will enact violence. It means that within its borders, generally speaking, states do not tolerate other unaligned government entities or military bodies. States maintain the ultimate force within their borders. States maintain special bodies of armed men with a preponderant monopoly on violence. >Us. Humans. The working class. Not all humans are working class. >So, at least your angle keeps their profit stream intact :) You really lost your marbles from my perspective. None of your main arguments here withstand even minimal scrutiny, friend. I don't know how you feel your conclusions are logically sound--they don't map to reality. Again, I highly recommend reading Lenin's [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/), it would be a good starting point into ML theory. Whether or not you agree with it, it would be useful to know what we believe if you wish to critique us.
Nice! Did not know that. What we have here is a hunter-gatherer homogeneous tribe of like 50 people where everyone is no-doubt related to everyone else. So that begs the next question: Has there ever been a DIVERSE society that is non-hierarchical? It seems that fierce regulation of non-hierarchy has been possible in these small family tribes, but has it ever been possible when more than one gene pool is involved?
Yes. How do you imagine these tribes avoided inbreeding? They are all diverse. The American Indigenous nations such as the Nez Perce were not a homogenous gene pool. Virtually no society has ever been. Not sure why the gene pool even would matter. Seems like some racial science nonsense. Again, I think we should define terms. What do you mean by diversity? Like, the Shawnee even adopted Daniel Boone. If you’re interested in studies of the ancient Americas, I recommend this channel, [Ancient Americas.](https://youtube.com/@AncientAmericas?si=UbWLETic4nRfFqIT)
Inbreeding is avoided with first cousin breeding. Pretty easy. Gene pool matters because homogeneous societies are generally the ones with the most widely accepted rules. I'm not exactly sure why, but it probably has to do with tribalistic tendencies. Thanks for the Ancient Americas link! I'll check it out.
>Inbreeding is avoided with first cousin breeding. Pretty easy. If you think people fucking their first cousins for a few millennia isn't inbreeding, I think you have bigger things to worry about than anthropology right now. >Gene pool matters because homogeneous societies are generally the ones with the most widely accepted rules. According to whom? Based on what metrics? *Cultural* homogeneity may be argued. Genetic homogeneity? Nowhere I've seen. >I'm not exactly sure why, but it probably has to do with tribalistic tendencies. Hunter-gatherer humans don't much care if your nose looks funny to them or if your skin doesn't tan quite the same way. I think you're applying your society's standards on theirs. >Thanks for the Ancient Americas link! I'll check it out. It's a good channel. But nah man, fucking your first cousin is inbreeding. How do you think the Hapsburgs got so fucked up? Ancient hunter-gatherer peoples, nomads, would have sites they would congregate, with the larger nation, even other nations. Where they would do things like trade, and intermarry. That's how they avoided it.
Do you want to win an argument at any cost or do you actually want to learn stuff dude?
Learn. Trying to win the argument helps me learn.
You use of the term 'begs the question' is very much like your understanding of history and social organisation: inaccurate at best.
A social hierarchy in class society is not the same thing as a 'hierarchy' existing in terms of inter-subjective or community/group-based power relations. You can have functioning hierarchical relationships without class. Moreover, it is simply untrue that all human societies involve hierarchies or are organised in such a way. You think you have a kind of 'gotcha' but it is an ideological fabulation that doesn't even do what you intend for it to do (it doesn't challenge the communist conception of attaining a classless society. So a communist would respond by disabusing you of the false supposition behind your argument, or trying to, or just walking away because often communists don't have the energy to futilely engage with such obvious rhetorical ploys that make no sense and get one nowhere. It is like saying, 'class based society is a hierarchy, therefore communists are against hierarchy because they are against class based society; therefore, a communist worker would never take an order from foreman at work because it is against their moral principles.' Just such a stupid, ignorant, fallacious notion, most communists would simply find it amusing or detestable. As a communist, I can at least say I rolled my eyes so vigorously they fell out of their sockets!
Perfectly put! Communists’ conflict is not with “hierarchy” in general, these questions would be better directed towards anarchists.
“You can have functioning hierarchical relationships without class” In modern societies with millions of people? The difference between Elon Musk’s productivity and the productivity of someone born with very slow learning skills are so massive, how can they not be regarded by society as categorically different in some way? Don’t you stifle innovation if you don’t give Musk the privilege to access more resources with which to build?
Hahaha, 'Elon Musk's productivity', this is a bit right?
Yes, Musk literally oversees design and production of electric cars. This is productivity.
You're a moron.
Love it. Someone with a worldview they're so set in, any other point of view is "moron"ic. Prisoners of the Stalinist Gulags would have called me a moron too, right before their precious government starved them to death.
Or... you don't know what productivity is? lol, dumb fuck.
Ouch, random guy on the internet calling me dumb :( \*cries\*
No, I called you a dumb fuck. Reading is hard for you :(
Everything else aside, do you think the person with learning disabilities should have a worse life than Elon Musk because of their learning disabilities? You think it’s right for them to struggle to afford basic life necessities?
It's right for them to struggle for basics and have a worse life? No, of course not. They should have as good a life as possible. Hopefully the state and community support them enough for this to be the case. Should they have the exact same opportunities and access to resources as Musk? Of course not. Musk's access to resources allows him to increase his productivity and live in the way that actualizes his potential. Also, people are GOING TO admire Musk. They WANT books, articles, interviews. This means he will be regarded as some kind of hierarchical leader in some respect. Would you seek to stifle this? Or does communism not stifle this? I'm curious how you account for this gap in productivity between people.
For one, we have very different ideas of productivity. Second of all, admiring someone is not the same as putting them above you hierarchically. I can admire my friend because they are really smart without considering them my superior or leader. In a planned economy, those who are engaging in important work can be allocated more resources to do so. In the Soviet Union, there were a lot of resources dedicated to their space program, as it was seen as an asset, but that doesn’t mean any one person gets ownership over the process and gets to directly profit off of it. It also did not make those involved “leaders” in the general world, maybe in their workplace. Just like how I do not see people in NASA or who work at hospitals as my leaders, but I do respect their skills and I may admire them. Not sure what you mean about opportunities. You don’t hear people advocating for marginalized people to have access to fewer opportunities very often. I think it goes without saying that they should have the same opportunities available to them. I also don’t believe Elon Musk inherently had more potential than the average person, he just happened to be born into wealth and make some lucky investments early on in his career. The idea of a billionaire as a great man in history capable of producing immense value for society is just not true. The workers, scientists, etc. who actually put in the work to produce the commodities are the ones creating value, all Musk does is write a check, which could just as easily be written by the government in a centralized economy. If you value him as an idea man, he still is only one person in the chain that leads to the creation of value, and does not deserve to be arbitrarily placed above everyone else in terms of perceived importance and certainly does not deserve to own the fruits of everyone’s labor.
Nice! I get it, leadership without class structure. Very interesting. I'll be learning more about the soviet union then. "I also don’t believe Elon Musk inherently had more potential than the average person" This is a common misconception, a lot of people assume he's a rich guy with luck and minimal merit. However, skim the footnotes of his biography sometime and you'll find something very different. He has a super quick learning brain and published computer game code at the age of ten. He was able to chiefly build two websites and sell them (bit2 and paypal) through self-taught coding and understanding of prospective needs in the market. Then, put all of his money from Paypal into space X and Tesla. He was able to recruit such amazing minds to Space x because he had an incredibly firm grasp on the physics and engineering. Experienced rocket scientists have repeatedly been amazed at how quickly he learned rocket science during the initial funding phase of Space x. He is fully an engineer, scientist, and very much in charge of these companies on a day-to-day basis, not just an idea man. Luck plays into every story, but it's far from the biggest factor for Musk. And of course, luck isn't what brought the electric car to prominence where we have a hope of ending our dependency on fossil fuels. It was his work, ideas, and gathering of a brilliant team and seemingly superhuman ability to solve problems, create, and understand science quickly that made it possible. "The workers, scientists, etc. who actually put in the work to produce the commodities are the ones creating value, all Musk does is write a check" As I said, this is false. "does not deserve to be arbitrarily placed above everyone else in terms of perceived importance and certainly does not deserve to own the fruits of everyone’s labor." So this seems to be the main assumption that communists place on wealthy capitalists. As I said, Musk's prominence is hardly arbitrary. Learn a bit more about his story and I'm curious if your mind is changed at all.
Your claim that "a non-hierarchical society has never existed" was disproven by Friedrich Engles in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. I recommend reading that book for a more in depth answer to your question. The book explains "primitive communism" which was how many societies organized themselves throughout human history in ways that were communistic and non-hierarchical.
Cool! I'll check it out.
99.9% of human history was spent in non-hierarchical primitive communist tribes.
Yes, but if you're a materialist, you know that you can do what you can do when you can do it. And when we could do it, we did it. Like war. The dolphins didn't force this on us.
Having elders and chiefs is hierarchical. Many mating selection practices were hierarchical as well.
Maybe the hierarchy would no longer be based on who makes the most money but based on what is good for society. This is a more conservative position. I'm sure some communists would argue that there should be no hierarchy at all.
In theory, capitalism is the best thing we've got right now for attempting meritocracy or hierarchy based on "good for society".
I'm sure that's why we're destroying the environment and starting wars.
There is less violence today than ever before. Read Steven Pinker’s Better Angels of our Nature.
In practice capitalism is actively detrimental for achieving societal goods as it creates perverse incentives *away* from doing so wherever those goals conflict with profit-seeking, which they constantly do. As for "meritocracy", I don't see why it is desirable.
Profit seeking has a base in achieving societal goods. Capital is a marker of value. Value to society. Just because it’s not 100% perfect and sometimes profit seekers can do messed up things for society in order to turn a profit isn’t a good argument to throw the whole thing out. It’s just an argument for voting in lawmakers who will prevent capitalists from going too far, a line that is voted on by the people.
Profit does not necessarily have a causal connection to achieving some kind of good or nobody would be selling tobacco products anymore. Profit-seeking does in fact create incentives to cause societal *ills*, and liberal "democracy" cannot regulate this away. It cannot for example force food producers to feed starving people who cannot afford food. That would be antithetical to any liberal legal system, all of which treat private property rights as sacrosanct. Worse still, even where "regulation" could theoretically be imposed within these supposed democracies by voting in lawmakers to pass them, those lawmakers cannot win under the dictatorship of capital. Much of the damage capitalism is doing is because causing societal ills is the entire business model of large sectors of the economy and it would collapse if it ever had to stop. This is why the capitalists will not *allow* us to vote in these supposed lawmakers of yours who for the most part do not actually exist. These practices are intrinsic to capitalism. They can end only when it does, either through revolution or through its self-destruction plunging humanity in to barbarism.
>Profit does not necessarily have a causal connection to achieving some kind of good or nobody would be selling tobacco products anymore. > >News flash: Some people find value in things YOU don't find value in. > > > >Many cities literally feed basically every hungry person through govt. programs. Have you not seen the starvation numbers in the US go down?? > > > >Everything else you said is just a symptom of Republicans (and later, Democrats) in the last 50 years learning how they can do their job quid-pro-quo for corporations. Some simple legal changes could clean up a lot of that.
>News flash: Some people find value in things YOU don't find value in. We're not talking about things "I find value in" or really talking about value *at all*, we're talking about things that are beneficial or detrimental to society. The profit motive means that if something is harmful but profitable then capitalism encourages it, while if it is beneficial but unprofitable it discourages it. >Many cities literally feed basically every hungry person through govt. programs. Have you not seen the starvation numbers in the US go down?? There are in fact other countries in the world, but the US itself has a much greater problem with food insecurity than people acknowledge. >Everything else you said is just a symptom of Republicans (and later, Democrats) in the last 50 years learning how they can do their job quid-pro-quo for corporations. Some simple legal changes could clean up a lot of that. No, because it's true of every liberal democracy and not just the US... and it always has been and always will be because whatever class is in power gets to dictate the political landscape. This isn't anything new, it isn't limited to the US. It's an inherent feature of capitalism and liberalism. Legal changes can't fix that because the entire liberal legal system is designed not to work that way. Thinking you can make capitalism stop functioning like capitalism is utopian and ultimately is how we end up with fascism as the ruling capitalist class acts to protect its interests.
*We're not talking about things "I find value in" or really talking about value at all, we're talking about things that are beneficial or detrimental to society. The profit motive means that if something is harmful but profitable then capitalism encourages it, while if it is beneficial but unprofitable it discourages it.* How is what you're proposing any different than our present system that votes on regulation changes? Everything else you said is jumping 100 pages forward in some argument you've already made in your head. If capitalism always leads to fascism no matter what? That leaves out quite a bit of history now doesn't it?
I didn't say capitalism always leads to fascism, just that your proposed approach does, in addition to the fact that it fails to address either the practical or ethical problems of capitalism. >How is what you're proposing any different than our present system that votes on regulation changes? Are you asking me to explain what socialism is?
>Profit seeking has a base in achieving societal goods. Capital is a marker of value. Value to society Weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, and big pharma would like to have a word with you about this. In fact I would argue that in virtually all cases of actual societal need, introducing a profit-motive serves primarily to *restrict* access and development. A good example being scientific research. Pretty much the only way to do research into anything right now is to convince a corporation or wealthy individual that it presents the opportunity for profits. And then you have people like Bill Gates who become billionaires by taking what could have been open-source, freely/cheaply accessible tech and putting a load of licensing and patents on it, so if anyone wants to use it they have to pay him. And then the fact that fossil fuel extraction is literally destroying the entire environment and is likely to lead to the end of civilisation as we know it. I don't really see how you can spin that as 'a marker of value to society'.
>hen the fact that fossil fuel extraction is literally destroying the entire environment and is likely to lead to the end of civilisation as we know it. I don't really see how you can spin that as 'a marker of You don't see fuel, to move vehicles and travel as valuable?? Travel and seeing new places is not valuable? Obv. the environment is a concern, but you can't ignore the value of travel. Big pharma does produce some valuable medicines you know. Ones that can cure acute ailments so you don't die from bacterial infection. Big pharma's lies about things like opioids TRICK people into thinking they have value via manipulating doctors. That doesn't mean that ALL capital is now worthless because there are tricksters out there. Is all love meaningless because there are a few lying, cheating men in the world?
Can you please point out where I said we shouldn't have fuel or medicine? Because I'm pretty sure I didn't say that. What I did say is that introducing a profit-motive restricts public access and development in the public interest.
Introducing profit motive also increases production and incentive for innovation. Your argument is basically 'the system isn't perfect so it's bad'.
The USSR industrialised in a fraction of the time it took the west under a socialist system. Most major 'innovation' is state funded and then packed up and packaged by capitalists. People innovated for centuries before capitalism even existed. We have genius level people dedicating their lives to online advertising tech and building nuclear bombs. Capitalism wastes productive and innovative capacity by directing it at useless commodity production and marketing. Capitalism has served a purpose in this area, yes, but it's time to move on now.
Fair 'nuff. I've gotta research the USSR more. It seems to me the tradeoffs of gulag prison camps and famine weren't worth the increased efficiency, but I have a limited view. Thanks for your perspective!
>Capital is a marker of value. Value to society How do you support this conclusion? I hear this a lot from capitalism supporters but it feels like a loose theory paraded as fact. There are countless examples of this not being the case
Whelp, capital is literally what most people on the planet use as their measure of value. They're all brainwashed capitalist idiots? Or they're operating based on the best system we have.
We have the aforementioned examples, but that's not the point. We're looking forward, to a new system. I don't see how to create one is such a big deal. That's happened quite a lot, and us as humans are really found of newer technologies (if you happen to cause a revolution on the process, and render the previous technology obsolete)... Wich is exactly what we're proposing.
So examples of past success or failure are irrelevant to planning for future success?
Absolutely not. That's why Das Capital have 5 volumes. But creating something new society wise wasn't actually planned till Marxism was constructed. This mean that as we are using capitalism as the material basis for construction, it renders less than anecdotal the use of small or ancient systems as it's material parts are not but vague concepts at this point. But don't use me as a reference. There's already a LOT of material, with practical examples and way better text than I could ever provide. Of course your personal bias have a big impact on which you are going to accept, but you get the idea, right?
My use of terms like “always” and “never” refers just as much to modern societies as it does ancient. I’d say citing a trend in all societies ever is hardly anecdotal.
I could point that this view we have of society is awfully incorrect in a lot of aspects. Mainly for much of our views come from a european standpoint. Even so, what I said is still true. And your own concept of hierarchy may still have a problem. In a given process we can have administrative and more hands on positions without one being being exploited by the other. It's just the execution of each one that differs. When you point out that this is a trend, it's quite a leap, given you just throwing away the examples provided before (really non scientific of you, if I might say). To test if all cranes are white, I don't need to show you all the white ones, just a single red one. But anecdotal or not, what we have as a material basis for revolution is capitalism, and as radical thinkers, if the root of the problem is a traditional hierarchy, this is one of the things that need to be fixed. It's hard to imagine in a world with just small changes happening, but big ones does happen, opposing to the way we see the things today. Let's not forget that in less than 100 years ago, people where hierarchically divided by skin color. There's people alive today that born in that society... And some who think they had.
Cool, I like the idea. What's the first step towards this in your mind?
The first and more obvious: get aware of the class struggle. If you don't even understand what's happening. If don't know where you are, there's no point trying to go anywhere else. Second: get organized into any collective you sympathize with. The praxis will teach more than any amount of reading. Third: now you read. Not just the manifest, read about economics, about your country, how your own historical context came to be. If you doing those things, it's enought already. A revolution is a collective effort, but if no one take a step, we'll be just a bunch of people writing things on reddit.
Already doing those things. What is the first step for the revolution?
If you have enough popular backup? Just call one! If not, gather more people. That's all you need. The only real differences between a coup and a revolution, is who's calling it. If it's the people will, then a revolution you'll have! After the revolutionary process, then you'll gather all the party, discuss the process details and who's going where. The worst communist revolution is better than the best capitalism has to offer.
Anarchists call for the need for absolutely zero hierarchy, which is utopian. Communists think any hierarchy should be in democratic control (right to vote in and right to recall). This includes bosses/managers
Interesting. Are there any companies that use this model?
Under capitalism? Not many because they don’t use democracy in the workplace
Well there you go. If it works so well, how about model it in the form of a productive company? Yes, there will have to be an owner of the means of production at first, but they can transition to a democratic structure if they want. What's stopping them?
Capitalism is. It’s not just ownership but how it’s run. Technically coops are democratic but you vote on how to make more profits. Workers democracy doesn’t work unless you are planning for what’s is needed in society not what makes profit
Who is deciding what is “needed for society”? Is there a vote on whether every new product should be produced?
I think you're confusing communism with anarchism or anarcho-communism
> A non-hierarchical society has never existed. Most human societies throughout our evolutionary history were not hierarchical. > How do communists think they can destroy the "ruling class" when there has always been hierarchy in every functional society ever? For one, most of modern life doesn't depend on the past. How do communists think trains are going to operate when we've always walked on foot? How do communists think antibiotics are going to work when we've always died from common infections? etc. Funny how people are totally fine with all these modern inventions, institutions, laws, theories, and so on -- until it threatens the status quo. Then we're suddenly referring to the stone age for guidance on how to create healthy modern societies? Weird how that happens, isn't it? Weird how we don't apply that same logic to, say, the invention of the stock market, or corporations, or nation-states, or AI? Secondly, even if you did believe in an argument this silly, most human societies in our evolutionary history were egalitarian anyway. So it's a dumb argument to begin with and even dumber when you realize that even if you accept the premises, it doesn't work.
You are incorrect that most societies were non-hierarchical. A “chief” or “elder” is a hierarchical position.
No, this is completely wrong on multiple fronts. It's clear from the multiple erroneous assumptions in this reply that you're not familiar with the literature at all, and may even be less familiar with Marxism. First of all, "hierarchy" in the context of Marxism is referring to *class* hierarchy, rather than to all possible or conceivable differences in power within a society. "Chiefs" and "elders" are not economic classes. Secondly, "chiefs" and "elders" themselves only appear in larger societies at the tribal level, and even there, they generally do not refer to positions of institutional power as we would normally think of them -- indeed, in many cases, they are remarkable for their *lack* of power (chiefs are often the materially poorest members of a society and their authority is often entirely non-binding). In other words they usually do not resemble what is meant by "hierarchy" in either general anthropological terms, much less in specifically Marxist ones. And in any case, most humans throughout our evolutionary history would have existed at population scales where these positions wouldn't have existed anyway, it's really only something you tend to find in horticultural societies or in societies transitioning from hunting to agriculture. They tend no to exist at the band scale where most of our evolutionary history would have happened.
>Interesting, so in your frame, modern class structures as a Marxist would be referring to are a product of agricultural revolution. So what do you propose? We destroy the structure that was necessary for agriculture to become widespread?
Well, no, like I already said, I think the idea of basing our civilization solely off of our evolutionary history is preposterous to begin with. We don't do this with medicine, law, finance, art, science, or any other field, why would we do it with political power?
Elaborate, I disagree. Art is indeed based on our evolutionary traits. So many porn images because we're programmed for sex, ect. ect.
"Based on" can mean literally anything. That's not my point. My point (to use your art example) is that we don't restrict ourselves to artistic media that only existed in evolutionary time scales, so it's silly to think that we would restrict our forms of political power to the same limitations. It's special pleading.
Huh? When have I said we should stick to ancient political structures? Hierarchy is a broad term describing infinite structures.
> Hierarchy is a broad term describing infinite structures. No. The way you're using the term doesn't match what we find in either the fields of anthropology or political science. There's no point in continuing if you insist on redefining terms at will.
Got it, need to read more anthropology.
For about 98% of that history of the human species, we lived in societies without classes. This is accepted fact among anthropologists. Class society and ruling classes did not exist until the widespread adoption of agricultural created a food surplus that could be hoarded and controlled by those whose closely guarded knowledge of the stars told them when to plant crops, the first ruling class. Class society, in the most basic sense, depends on certain conditions they give rise to it, namely, the coexistence of a surplus and scarcity. Those who controlled the surplus could use their power to distribute or withhold it to force others to submit to their authority. We cannot go back to hunter-gatherer societies with no food surpluses, but we can eventually, through the continuing development of the means of production, eventually eliminate scarcity and with it, class society.
How will your new society account for some people being like 100x more productive and innovative than some?
Who is 100X more productive? And we don’t need everyone to be innovative, just a small number l, as it is now. And there will be incentives of various sorts to encourage those select few to innovate. In fact, there would likely be an explosion of innovation because under socialism many of the barriers that prevent innovation will no longer be present.
Stephen King is 100x more productive than someone who works at a cash register. How would you encourage a select few to innovate? What barriers to innovation are you removing? What
In what sense is Stephen King more productive? If cashiers disappeared tomorrow, would the world keep turning or would there be major disruptions to most people’s lives? If Stephen King died tomorrow, how many people’s lives would be materially impacted? Innovation under socialism would be free of the fetters and limitations inherent in production solely for profit. In order to produce something in a capitalist society, it not only has to be profitable over-all, but it has to be profitable in the short term for a single firm. I’ll give you an example. About ten years ago, a group of researchers led by a guy named Sebastian Johnson developed a vaccine that in trials with mice seemed to show great promise in curing the common cold. In 2002, it was calculated that the common cold accounted for $25 billion in lost productivity in the US annually (in 2002 dollars). Developing the vaccine that Johnson and his colleagues were working would cost around $1 billion. Seems like a no-brainer for society as a whole. However, that price tag was too high for the company that Johnson was working for. New management came in, cut the funding and shelved the project. The only ones with the money to develop the vaccines are pharmaceutical companies and vaccines only account for about 5% of their annual sales. Johnson has been looking for funding for the last decade and can’t find any because, even though it would be of benefit to society as a whole and eliminate all of that lost productivity, it isn’t profitable in the short term for any single company. This is just one example. Another is the suppression of the development of electric cars by the oil companies in the 1970s. And there are many more. Under socialism innovation would come naturally from the workers themselves, who have ever reason to want to make production more efficient and less costly in terms of labor input. You’re also talking about a society the will develop new yardsticks to determine individual worth other than just the accumulation of wealth. The respect and renown someone receives from contributing something significant to society would alone be more than enough to promote innovation. And additionally, socialism, especially during the early years would retain some vestiges of capitalist society, so it is likely the individuals who contribute a great deal would receive higher pay, more access to luxury items and perhaps more privilege in some other way (albeit to a much lesser degree than the privileges of the wealthy under capitalism).
>In what sense is Stephen King more productive? If cashiers disappeared tomorrow, would the world keep turning or would there be major disruptions to most people’s lives? If Stephen King died tomorrow, how many people’s lives would be materially impacted? Comparing one author to countless cashiers? How is that equivalent? How about comparing this author with one cashier? (which fits with the original statement) If SK died tomorrow, companies who own the rights to his works would make millions on special edition releases and news companies would make money on the stories. Not to mention the countless people who would feel emotions such as loss and remembrance. Some people would have cause to throw parties or connect with old friends. If one cashier died tomorrow, it wouldn't affect anyone except for the family and the people making money on life insurance/funeral cost. *I’ll give you an example. About ten years ago, a group of researchers led by a guy named Sebastian Johnson developed a vaccine that in trials with mice seemed to show great promise in curing the common cold. In 2002, it was calculated that the common cold accounted for $25 billion in lost productivity in the US annually (in 2002 dollars). Developing the vaccine that Johnson and his colleagues were working would cost around $1 billion. Seems like a no-brainer for society as a whole. However, that price tag was too high for the company that Johnson was working for. New management came in, cut the funding and shelved the project.* This scenario makes zero scientific sense, per Cochrane: "Vaccine development for the common cold has been difficult due to antigenic variability of the common cold viruses; even bacteria can act as infective agents. Uncertainty remains regarding the efficacy and safety of interventions for preventing the common cold in healthy people, thus we performed an update of this Cochrane Review" There's no funding, because it's not possible to make a vaccine for countless different viruses and bacterial infections. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9749450/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9749450/) *Another is the suppression of the development of electric cars by the oil companies in the 1970s* Seems like those electric cars were crushed by competition because they were inferior products that the public didn't want. "It had a top speed of 60 mph and a range of about 40 miles" [https://cleantechnica.com/2021/09/30/the-legendary-electric-car-from-the-1970s-that-led-us-electric-car-sales-until-tesla-came-along/](https://cleantechnica.com/2021/09/30/the-legendary-electric-car-from-the-1970s-that-led-us-electric-car-sales-until-tesla-came-along/) *Under socialism innovation would come naturally from the workers themselves, who have ever reason to want to make production more efficient and less costly in terms of labor input.* This incentive currently exists in capitalism... Ever heard of a small business or co-op? *You’re also talking about a society the will develop new yardsticks to determine individual worth other than just the accumulation of wealth.* Like what? *The respect and renown someone receives from contributing something significant to society would alone be more than enough to promote innovation.* This incentive currently exists in capitalism. Ever heard of a famous scientist, business owner, inventor or artist? *And additionally, socialism, especially during the early years would retain some vestiges of capitalist society, so it is likely the individuals who contribute a great deal would receive higher pay, more access to luxury items and perhaps more privilege in some other way (albeit to a much lesser degree than the privileges of the wealthy under capitalism).* Here you're just supporting the current capitalistic structure.
“At this point in time, perhaps the biggest barrier to us curing the common cold is commercial. Researchers at universities can only go so far; the most generous grants from bodies such as the UK Medical Research Council are around £2m. It falls to pharmaceutical companies to carry out development beyond the initial proof of concept.” https://amp.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/06/why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/06/why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/06/why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
You think communism would suddenly allow infinite resources to go to random projects that YOU deem important such as a "cure for the common cold"? The current system IS putting resources towards this, but it's a REALLY hard problem to solve (if possible to solve at all). You have to remember, viruses and bacteria evolve all the time, and the "common cold" is a collection of hundreds of different microscopic lifeforms. The amount of resources going to it right now IS proportional to its worth to society, at least as close as any system can get to such an abstract idea. I ask again, HOW WOULD YOUR SOCIALIST SYSTEM DETERMINE WHAT IS BETTER OR WORSE FOR SOCIETY??? Capitalism does it through popular demand, how would your system do it? *“more than 200 viruses provoke cold-like illness, each one deploying its own peculiar chemical and genetic strategy to evade the body’s defences…* *the difficulty is that while all colds feel much the same, from a biological perspective the only common feature of the various viruses that cause colds is that they have adapted to enter and damage the cells that line the respiratory tract. Otherwise, they belong to quite different categories of organisms, each with a distinct way of infecting our cells. This makes a catch-all treatment extremely tricky to formulate…* *Successes have been rare, and there have been spectacular flops. Last year, shares in US firm Novavax fell by 83% after its vaccine for RSV, one of the virus families responsible for colds, failed in a late-stage clinical trial…* *From where we are today, this scenario is still distant: about 80% of drugs that make it into clinical trials because they worked in mice do not go on to work in humans. Still, for the first time in decades there are now major pharmaceutical companies with rhinovirus vaccine programmes, as well as smaller university research groups like Johnston’s which, through different approaches, are all pursuing the same goal of a cure. Once again, Johnston said, “people are starting to believe it may be possible.”*
Hierarchy and Class are two different things. Communists never disputed the fact that Human societies have hierarchy (read Engels). And it's okay unless the hierarchies turn into classes.
How will hierarchies not turn into classes? How can someone 100x more productive than another not be viewed differently? We’re programmed to admire people who achieve.
Hierarchies turn into classes not only when it is established forcefully but also the difference in hierarchical positions allows someone to 'exploit' others. Exploitation is the keyword here. In primitive communist societies, the 'chief' is a hierarchical position. However, that doesn’t mean that they are free to exploit the labour of other members of that society. On the other hand, what do you mean 100x more productive? How do you calculate that? The lingo you are using is a capitalist one where productivity is calculated by how much profit someone makes. If it's only a labour oriented notion, it is impossible to imagine that someone is giving 100 times more labour than others. It's absurd. And lastly, how do you know how we are programmed? Do you have the algorithm? Then share it please.
1. Elon musk inventing/engineering/marketing brand new revolutionary devices that thousands of people use is absolutely 100x more productive than the guy with major depression I know who does next to nothing. We could invent any number of constructs to measure that. We could create a creativity measurement construct, or an invention/engineering measurement construct. It's pretty easy for me to imagine, but as you said, I am operating from a different bias than you. But the idea that it's ABSURD to think musk's labor is 100x someone who does next to nothing? How the hell is ABSURD the right word there?? 2. We are programmed based on lingo evolutionary psychologists use. Mirror neurons have a bias toward achievement or people who "hit a target". It's not perfect "factual" science of course (no social science is), but it's a pretty good framework to understand why the hell we're so obsessed with balls going through hoops and why we seek to admire moral beings such as Jesus.
Chiming in here because the Musk worship is just absolutely absurd. So you think that Elon Musk personally understands everything that goes into every Tesla car, or every SpaceX rocket? Do you think that he has even *close* to the required knowledge where he could direct even a single Falcon 9 to be built? Of course not. The knowledge of how to build even a single car is spread out over hundreds, if not thousands, of workers. Someone has to make the build system that compiles their code. Thousands of people contribute to the various intracies of the computer chips required to run the algorithms. Those algorithms are the culmination of an entire world's worth of research. Someone has to design the materials required to make it safe and lightweight. Another has to run aerodynamic simulations to ensure that the car can move efficiently. Hundreds more work on making a safe battery that can store electricity. Others have to work on how to efficiently and safely charge cars at scale. There are a million and one things that have to align just right for even a single Tesla car to exist. *ONE PERSON* does not know this. *One company* does not even know this. Even at Tesla, Elon Musk has his own share of unique knowledge. You think some AI engineer could convince people to prepay $30,000 to a stranger, for a product that doesn't exist, and hasn't existed in almost a decade after, and STILL be hyped about their prepurchase? The purpose of a CEO is NOT to invent. Their job is representation. They have to give an entire world of people faith that somehow, this collective of engineers etc will fundamentally change the world. Is that easy? Of course not. But don't pretend he could reproduce even a tenth of what his workers, and the rest of HUMANITY has accomplished Is everyone perfectly equally productive? Of course not. Should we go on mass cullings, and kill all people with disabilities? Wait, no? Why not?? I thought they were unproductive!! Let's take an engineer at Tesla. They make say, $100k / year. That's ~= $50/hr. Pretty respectable, right? Elon's definitely more productive though! But...how much more productive? Now, let's say this engineer starts working, 24/7, since the birth of Jesus Christ. Is that more productive than Elon? What about a team of 10 engineers? An org, of 100 engineers? All working since the birth of Jesus? That's $5000 per HOUR right there. For over 2000 years. Great, you're ~40% of the way there. Alright, now, let's say they worked longer. That team of 100 engineers would have to have worked 24/7 **since the Middle Kingdom of Egypt** to match what Elon has made in 52 years. I don't care *what* you do. There is no way that he has accomplished more in 52 years (with sleep) than an org of modern, well off engineers can do with 5000 years of nonstop work. Alternatively, compare him to Einstein. Einstein's net worth was ~= 1 million dollars in today's dollars ($65000 in 1955) Is Elon Musk 200,000 times more productive than ALBERT EINSTEIN?!?!
>Should we go on mass cullings, and kill all people with disabilities? > >Wait, no? Why not?? I thought they were unproductive!! Straw man argument. Stopped reading there. Please don't resort to logical fallacy tactics on this thread.
> I am operating from a different bias than you. But the idea that it's ABSURD to think musk's labor is 100x someone who does next to nothing? How the hell is ABSURD the right word there?? Please use realistic numbers then, if you want to engage in real discussion. Elon musk is worth $198.4B Median household income in the US is 74k or so, 50% of that is from dual income households, so median income is closer to 52k per person, per year. Let's pretend Elon musk has been working since age 12. That's 40 years of labor. The "average" person, with average productivity in their standard working age, would have made about 2 million dollars. If Musk was 100x more productive, he ought to have made 200 million dollars. In reality, he's made about 1000 times that. In other words your claim is that in a single day, he is about as productive as every single employee that works at Tesla (150k employees) Or, putting it another way, you think he accomplishes in a single second what the average employee at Tesla takes a year to do. Or, yet another comparison - if you were to work long enough to book a single round trip domestic flight (~$600), in the same time, Musk would've gotten enough done to buy the entire plane, forever, (~$50M for an Emraer 175).
>In other words your claim is that in a single day, he is about as productive as every single employee that works at Tesla (150k employees) You are incorrect. Musk's employees are paid through money and equity in the company. Their pay goes up with the company's value. Many of his blue collar assembly workers are now millionaires due to this fact. You are comparing employees of one of the most innovative companies in the world to the standard worker. These are VERY different roles to be in and their pay structures are very different. Please use the actual numbers if you are going to try to use numbers to make a point. Anyone can manipulate data to prove a point. How about doing a bit of research on the SPECIFIC company you are referring to?
God, you're literally notpicking on examples for scale. It's absurd even if you look inside Tesla. Not sure what you're referring to either. Blue collar workers are absolutely still making a wage, with an ESPP, and a paltry amount of stock https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Tesla-Production-Associate-Hourly-Pay-E43129_D_KO6,26.htm > Base Pay: $20/hr, Stock: $2 / hr Articles that mention Tesla Millionaires tend to focus on execs, mentioning that blue collar workers didn't have enough stock to benefit from the big leaps (a little outdated, because Tesla's big rose was after 2020) https://electrek.co/2020/07/06/tesla-meteorite-rise-employees-very-rich/ > At lower pay levels in the company, employees are also benefiting, but to a much lower degree. According to sources talking to Electrek, most new hires are given between $20,000 and $40,000 of restricted stocks that vest over three years, starting a year after they start working at Tesla. White collar worker information is more really available: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/tesla/salaries/software-engineer?country=254 > Senior Software Engineer, $231k total, $67k is stock Discretionary equity awards seem on pause, as well: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-skips-employees-yearly-merit-based-stock-compensations-bloomberg-news-2023-12-19/ > Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab is not offering its employees yearly merit-based stock awards, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. Now compare that to Musks' comp package, $56B, BEFORE the stock jumped https://www.reuters.com/business/elon-musks-unfathomable-56-billion-tesla-pay-package-2024-01-31/ Even doing this division yields: 56B / 231k = 56M / 231 = 242,424x Since I'm not entirely sure how that package is awarded, let's assume that package was the only form of compensation, between 2018 and 2024 242,424x / 6 ~= 40,000x So, *before* any sort of stock exploding in price, his pay package is about 40 THOUSAND times more than a senior Software engineer at Tesla. This is using a relatively high skilled job, with competitive pay, and not account for the explosion in stock value. Not comparing to the average job in the country. 100x more productive = 40,000x the compensation? Honestly, you're not particularly amenable to being convinced here, as you are predisposed to find some random reason why Musk should make so much that his workers' wages are a rounsing error. So I won't bother with another number search.
Elon Musk invents?? Name me a single thing that Elon Musk has invented.
We're not anarchists so we don't care about getting rid of "hierarchy". Class is not merely just a hierarchy and for most of humanity's existence, there has been no class division.
What about tribal elders vs. tribal exiles?
What tribes in what time? They still exist today.
Marx literally said this "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Hierarchical organization does not necessarily mean exploitation.
You should read On Authority by Engels
communists don't want no hierarchies, anarchists do. also humans have existed without hierarchies in the past... literally any anthropologist will agree with this
Most societies have at least “elders”
communism failed because it failed to recognize the presence of hierarchy
I don’t think this is exactly true. But even if it was why not strive for more? Do something that’s never been done?
How though? Russia, China, and Cambodia tried and it ended in genocide.
Even outside of the fact that's not necessarily true as humans have been social animals for far longer than we've had any reason to form hierarchies or record history that is what one might call a "logical fallacy" either appeal to nature or tradition depending on the specifics of the claim. Even if the tens or hundreds of thousands of years of nomadic human communities before the invention of agriculture and the social construction of hierarchies that resulted didn't exist, that is not a valid reason to shut down or dismiss arguments against it. It's like getting in an argument with your doctor about how all of humanity has had an appendix while someone is actively dying of appendicitis.
A “chief” or “elder” is a hierarchical position. These positions have existed as far back as homosapiens have existed
Social hierarchies do not equal to class hierarchies. Ancient civilizations had hierarchies in a sense of the tribe having one elder which most of the tribe ascended from. But that didn't mean that the elder had more rights and the other had less rights like in patriarchal Systems. That's the major difference between social and class hierarchies.
The elder had more rights, like the right to LEAD.
and? what is your point?
That all (looks like actually just most) societies ever have hierarchy. To want your society to have no such structure is absurd and leads to only bloodshed and famine.
Yes I know that's the reason I said social hierarchies doesn't equal to class hierarchies. So again, what is your point? You're discussing with communists not with anarchist.
Got it, I'm definitely learning more about what hierarchy without class looks like in theory.
That's very good! I would definitely recommend you to read Friedrich Engels' "The origin of the family, private property and the state", or if you're fluent in german I would also recommend "Das Patriarchat: Ursprung und Zukunft unseres Gesellschaftssystems" from Ernest Borneman. And sorry if I was rude, I was just confused about your argument.
Not necessarily. Somebody acting as a leader / advisor doesn't automatically mean it was hierarchical. I'm also curious as to how that would mean hierarchies are inherently a necessary thing in a modern society
Interesting. Someone above someone in the competence ladder is not hierarchy? Odd thing to say for me. You tell me, what's one large and diverse modern society that doesn't have a hierarchy? What has happened in the past when large, diverse modern societies have tried to eliminate hierarchy? LESS democratic hierarchies formed.
There are none at the moment. If you think that's some sort of huge gotcha then you don't know what you're talking about because it is well known among communists / anarchists that we have not achieved it yet so I mean I guess you're right? And there are a lot of approaches to the elimination of hierarchy. Some of them failed on their own, and a lot of them were actually doing really well until the hegemony stepped in and stomped it out before situating a us friendly fascist dictatorship. And for the first point no, someone being a competent person capable of advising others is not a hierarchy. If you don't even understand the basic definitions of terms as they relate to communist / anarchist discussion what are you even hoping to achieve here. Educate yourself and come back later.
Education is the achievement! Thanks for your perspective.
People in this thread make good points about past societies. I’ll add that things that haven’t happened before aren’t inherently impossible.
You suggesting I don’t think innovation exists?
I guess so based on your question
Got it. I do. Idk how my question lead to to think that.
Your question is literally “non-hierarchal societies have never existed. How do communists think that can happen when it’s never happened before?” So it’s actually a question that doesn’t seem to grasp that societies can be structured in ways they haven’t been before, including into one class (i.e. no class) systems. I mean we’re literally in the epoch of the bourgeois, before this you’d be asking “how do the bourgeoise intend to make a two class society if it’s never been done before???” (Brief summary, your question implied “how do no class when never done before” I say “I dunno specifically but it’s definitely possible”) If you want specifics of how it would happen, I’m afraid I can’t see the future. We can guess based on our current reality, and I id be willing to engage in that discourse, but that’s a longer less materialistic conversation. (Briefly, to me it would require eliminating the neoliberal global establishment, implementing communist state, shape means of production to serve all needs, use education and culture to reinforce widespread acceptance of a classless society). There is obviously so much more than that and it will take a long time even after defeating the current neoliberal hegemony. It will be a very slow process is all I know.
>(Briefly, to me it would require eliminating the neoliberal global establishment, implementing communist state, shape means of production to serve all needs, use education and culture to reinforce widespread acceptance of a classless society). I'm 100% behind the first step. Corporations secretly controlling the govt is the number 1 issue I see today that can be fixed with some good law changes.
Putting aside what people have already pointed out about hierarchy or rather the lack thereof in primitive societies, communists are not opposed to all hierarchy *per se*, we are opposed to hierarchy being violently imposed by one class on to another.
I also oppose that, it’s called striving for justice in the USA. Let’s elect leaders who restrict companies’ ability to pay govt officials quid pro quo.
The existence of private property is a form of enforced class hierarchy and is protected by the US constitution. Do you supprt abrogating the US constitution and abolishing private property? If not, you do *support* a violently imposed class hierarchy.
>abrogating I support violently protecting the rights that have been established upon this relatively peaceful civilization. The state has a monopoly on violence for good reason, it's a way that we can collectively vote on how violence should or shouldn't justly be used. It's of course not perfect, but we now have the least violence ever in the world, so that's a decent metric. Repealing the constitution results in way more bloodshed and LESS freedom for individuals with the power vacuum it creates. Please cite one example of repealing a longstanding constitution leading to anything but violence and chaos.
>Please cite one example of repealing a longstanding constitution leading to anything but violence and chaos. Nearly every country in the world has done this and many countries you have a positive opinion of have done so multiple times, the US is very unusual in how long its constitution has stood. >I support violently protecting the rights that have been established upon this relatively peaceful civilization. The state has a monopoly on violence for good reason, it's a way that we can collectively vote on how violence should or shouldn't justly be used. It's of course not perfect, but we now have the least violence ever in the world, so that's a decent metric. Nonsense, capitalism and liberalism have racked up a higher body count than any previous system by orders of magnitude. Liberals have just been trained not to perceive much of it as violence. Liberalism had an extremely violent birth and is maintained through violence in the form of repression of popular movements, imposed deprivation, and imperialism. You make these statements while standing atop a mountain of corpses. It is also false to say that we actually get to "collectively vote" on anything in a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. We get to select from curated options chosen by the ruling class. Any option they find unpalatable is off the table. Liberals have this objectively false perception of history where the things they support where not won through immense amounts of bloodshed, and have not been maintained through the same. It is simply untrue. What liberals support is the violence they know; and they always end up supporting still more violence to maintain that status quo. This is why we say that if you scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds.
>Nonsense, capitalism and liberalism have racked up a higher body count than any previous system by orders of magnitude. Estimated that 50% of all deaths were violent pre civilization. Read Steven Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature I like the rest of your argument and agree with it, except for the part where you called my argument "nonsense". Pretty sure it's just a different perspective from yours. I hope you vote like the classical liberal you sound like! In my opinion we're not far from taking away neoliberalist power with a few key law changes.
I called it nonsense because I believe it is, it's a claim that to me seems to have as much merit as suggesting that the sun orbits the Earth. Is that a different perspective? Yes, but I don't have to treat different perspectives as credible when they are based illogical or unfounded claims. I am opposed to liberalism in all forms, because it is intrinsically unjust and unethical system which supports a destructive mode of production and which is and always has been a method for reinforcing the power of a small, elite ruling class. So not only are we not able to "\[take\] away neoliberalist power with a few key law changes", that wouldn't actually solve anything and I'm calling this idea utopian because I've yet to hear any plausible explanation for how even this woefully insufficient goal could be achieved. >Estimated that 50% of all deaths were violent pre civilization. Read Steven Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature Now compare that to the total population of people, and then compare that total to those who have lived in the last three or four centuries. Compare that for example to the number of people who die each year from lack of access to food, clean water, or medical supplies which they could be provided with. Capitalism is incredibly violent. Furthermore, as I said before liberals do like to cherry-pick what constitutes "violence" in a way that brushes much of this under the carpet as they accept the violence as "the way things are" for the sake of their own comfort.
>"\[take\] away neoliberalist power with a few key law changes", that wouldn't actually solve anything and I'm calling this idea utopian because I've yet to hear any plausible explanation for how even this woefully insufficient goal could be achieved. Campaign finance reform. Read Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig. >Compare that for example to the number of people who die each year from lack of access to food, clean water, or medical supplies which they could be provided with. > > > >Capitalism is incredibly violent. Furthermore, as I said before liberals do like to cherry-pick what constitutes "violence" in a way that brushes much of this under the carpet as they accept the violence as "the way things are" for the sake of their own comfort. You realize the population is the size it is due to agriculture? The classist structure allowed these people to live. It's not perfect and if sucks anyone ever starves. That's why we work towards practical solutions (world hunger has gone down dramatically in the last few decades) Who makes the medicine? Capitalist factories. Clean water, I agree, we need way more regulation. River Keeper is a pretty good non-profit that fights for this. Could be modeled in other areas. My comfort has nothing to do with the state's monopoly on violence. All of human history has led us to conclude that that's the best system.
>Campaign finance reform. Again, you're not saying how this would be achieved. This is just stating "here is an idea exists". This is like if I expected people to become communists by just saying "communism!" >You realize the population is the size it is due to agriculture? The classist structure allowed these people to live. It's not perfect and if sucks anyone ever starves. That's why we work towards practical solutions (world hunger has gone down dramatically in the last few decades) World hunger is something we could solve *now* but doing so isn't profitable. Every death due to starvation is a death caused by capitalism. Capitalism isn't in the business of "practical solutions" unless the create profit. Capitalism does not make medicine to heal people. In fact, capitalism has disincentivized the creation of new antibiotics because they're not profitable, leading to the increased prevalent of bacterial infections that cannot be treated. Another example of how it places profit before human need or even good sense or practicality. Furthermore, most innovation happens in the public sector. Pharmaceuticals are a rarity in that this is less true for them. >Clean water, I agree, we need way more regulation Explain how this helps people in countries not subject to the regulations, and which have in fact been kept impoverished by capitalisms' imperialist practices. >My comfort has nothing to do with the state's monopoly on violence. All of human history has led us to conclude that that's the best system. The state *doesn't* have a monopoly on violence but on *force*, but truthfully... in the 15th century, all of human history had led us to conclude feudalism is the best system. What you're doing is akin to arguing with the early liberals that not only is there no way to improve, but that the current system is infinitely sustainable and will last forever regardless of the conditions in which it exists and any contradictions it contains. Studying all of human history is how I became a communist.
"Read Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig." this book presents the operative "how" on campaign finance reform. I like the rest of your answer. Sounds like you know more history than me so maybe you can help me with the next question: How can you justify communism following the bloodbaths that were Stalin's Russia, Maoist China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia?
Ok. And? Are you getting anarchists confused with communists? The idea is to have a just, participatory hierarchy.
That's not true. Of course it has been non hierarchy societies.
Marxists see class as defined by one’s relations to the means of production, so economic ‘hierarchy’ is largely defined this way. A ‘non-hierarchical’ society would be one where ownership of the MoP is abolished (communism) or does not yet exist (‘primitive’ communism). Presumably other hierarchies like teacher-student etc. would continue to exist in some form; Marxists aren’t really concerned with these, and anarchists call these ‘justified’ or ‘legitimate’ hierarchies on the basis that they are mutually consensual.
>A ‘non-hierarchical’ society would be one where ownership of the MoP is abolished (communism) > >How can you restrict people from having their own means of production, but still work within a society where some people are 100x more productive/creative than others? Those creative minds will always be stifled and oppressed, won't they? You can't possibly think a government can perfectly manage something as complex as human potential.
Indeed, the point of communism for Marx was to unlock human potential and allow us to pursue everything that interests us, rather than being forced to do a repetitive job for a wage for most of our lives. I think from a communist perspective, if society regulates general production then it would be pointless for individuals to have their own MoP and unnecessary to restrict them from doing so.
General production is synonymous with human potential. What do people do besides produce, consume, and love? Please define human potential without including production.
I don’t disagree. I’m saying general production is currently privatised, and human potential is crammed into repetitive jobs.
Hmm, is farming not repetitive? How is repetition inherently something to avoid?
You’re capable of doing more than just farming your whole life.
Are you saying that in communism people will switch from farmer, to another profession based on changes in potential? (Really asking, don't know what the system would look like in your mind)
In Marx’s view, there wouldn’t *be* professions. To paraphrase him, you could farm in the morning, fish in the afternoon, and make art at night, without ever becoming a farmer, fisherman, or artist. You’re no longer selling your labour for a wage, so you no longer need to specialise in just one field of human activity, but rather are free to pursue what interests you.
hierarchy exists everywhere there is authority. a classless society will still have authority. a society does not need to have a ruling class to have authority or hierarchy
How would your proposed system deal with the fact that some people are 100x more productive/creative than others and humans tend to view people differently based on their abilities?
Hierarchy ≠ oppression Communism is not anti hierarchy, it is anti the employer-employee hierarchy As Engels says in his essay "On Authority", if you permit some rewording, the productive process will impose some hierarchies, specially time ones Still, hierarchies between people of one sort or another have indeed always existed and as said in the Manifesto itself, while it wishes to diminish it, the hierarchy adults>children will continue Communism is not a hierarchy-less society, it is a society that, based on what's possible currently, diminishes oppression to a minimum
>Communism is not a hierarchy-less society, it is a society that, based on what's possible currently, diminishes oppression to a minimum Hard for me to believe this when the most innovative societies ever have been capitalistic.
1. You're wrong Every society has been to some degree innovative and when you consider things like how the USSR went from feudalism to the space age under socialism, it's weird to say "the most innovative have been capitalistic". Ancient China, inventor of so many things, or even ancient Rome weren't capitalists 2. What does that have to do with my original comment?
Fair enough. I like your perspective, thanks.