Does Communism Necessitate the Abolition of Personal Possesions??
Does Communism Necessitate the Abolition of Personal Possesions??
Personally, I think a modern conception of communism is possible wherein the individual is allowed a certain level of private 'wealth' (although I don't like that term) - so that they may have private possessions, like clothing, tools, perhaps including computers, televisions, smartphones, and other similar devices, while doing away with other possessions such as land and structures, perhaps even automobiles (although I'm not sure about that one).
What do you think?
What do you think?
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Re: Does Communism Necessitate the Abolition of Personal Possesions??
As far as Karl Marx was concerned, communism never involved the abolition of personal possessions. I can't be bothered rewriting what I wrote about it before, so here is a copypasta job. Again.
Hermit wrote: ↑Thu Sep 27, 2018 10:13 amI am getting a little tired of arguing about this particular canard, so I'll just copypaste what I said about it previously.Hermit wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:02 amPerfect thread for this question.FBM wrote:How do you stand on the issue of private property ownership? Would we be better off without it?
"The abolition of private property" is one of the most often used phrases for scaring the population. It seems to imply that Marx and Engels wanted to create a society in which you can't own a bed, and that the bowl of soup might be snatched from under your spoon at any time and for any reason. Nowhere did Marx or Engels even imply any such thing. When they spoke of the abolition of private property, they only ever used the phrase in the context of the means of production - factories, agricultural landholdings, money used solely to create more money and so forth. They wanted none of that privately owned. While strictly speaking such personal property such as your bed, your soup, your tampon, is a subset of private property, they never concerned themselves with it in relationship to privatisation because it is not a means of production, and as such irrelevant to the relation between capital and labour.
I should note here that I am not a communist in the Marxian sense. Marx was just another obsessively scribbling utopian, and his conception of revolutionary communism can at best be described as fatally inadequate, and looking at all instances where communism through revolution has been attempted, fucking disastrous.Hermit wrote: ↑Mon Apr 09, 2018 5:17 amPsychoSerenity wrote:But there's no reason under certainly some forms of communism why the vast majority of people couldn't still own as much as they do under capitalism. There's no reason to end ownership of personal property. About the largest thing that could be considered personal property is a home. What would need to be stopped is private and for profit ownership of non-personal property e.g means of production or someone else's home.Brian Peacock wrote:That's the thing with communism though, why it will never work - people like to own stuff.Actually, it is. Marx and Engels never wrote about the expropriation of private property in the context of your underpants, toothbrush or roof over your head. They only ever used the term "private property" in the context of privately owned means of production. Only through the judicious application of quote mining can one attempt to argue otherwise.Brian Peacock wrote:Sure. But that's not really communism is it?Hermit wrote: ↑Mon Apr 09, 2018 6:42 amWell, there are hundreds, if not thousands of communist and socialist models and parties about. (Obligatory Monty Python clip right here) But when it comes to fundamental concepts, such as Marx's and Engels's concept of private property, there is no confusion despite the right wing nuts who try to tell us that under communism a woman will have her tampon ripped out by its string if a female party member has greater need of it.Scot Dutchy wrote:The communist model was never very clear.
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Re: Does Communism Necessitate the Abolition of Personal Possesions??
You'll get my Breville espresso machine when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Re: Does Communism Necessitate the Abolition of Personal Possesions??
Are 3d printers/rapid prototypers 'private'? How about my Bridgeport? A sawmill?
There is a bit of over-simplification in thinking there is a clear line between private property and private property.
There is a bit of over-simplification in thinking there is a clear line between private property and private property.
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Re: Does Communism Necessitate the Abolition of Personal Possesions??
What Marx didn't realise I think is how deeply ingrained is the human desire for possessing. He was an optimist who assumed that as society 'progressed' and communism delivered (at some future time) the desire for profit and private ownership would fade as we became for too advanced for such petty considerations.
Sadly I think he was overly optimistic by some measure.
Sadly I think he was overly optimistic by some measure.
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Re: Does Communism Necessitate the Abolition of Personal Possesions??
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Re: Does Communism Necessitate the Abolition of Personal Possesions??
It's as if you never read my reply to you.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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