Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:55:04 +0100

A libertarian socialist (I'm done arguing this definition for now) government with fair trade would have lower immigration than a capitalist country with fair trade but not one with free trade, such as the United States. But of course this is very difficult to prove without having a decent sample to work from as no countries are using it (at least not very well: Canada claims something similar, but does not practice it truly enough; and I can't think of any other significant examples).

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:45:06 +0100

About the definition, its just my personal opinion. I think the 2 terms fit togather poorlly, but thats just me. You may call it whatever you like, some may think my definition is contradictory.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:43:40 +0100

Of course there is an optimal point of imigration. But im saying with such a system it would be significantlly lower then with a capitalist system.

The market will decide what jobs are in demand, and the government can import workers for these jobs. But again there cant be a "common in" policy, because then all the labour comming in would be low skilled and low income. And in order to elvevat them to a lower midlle class standart, whic is the goal of this system, not to have anything below lower midlle class. It would put to mcuh strain on the system. Immigration would have to be heavilly monitored.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:33:10 +0100

Also libertarian socialism is a system of personal freedom and socialized programs (complete free speech, no drug prohibition etc, plus taxation to create socialized school, healthcare, etc) Libertarian socialism is usually only considered a contradiction in North America, but I'm pretty sure we are just arguing about the name of the ideology, so I digress.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:30:02 +0100

That would be true under a system of free trade with developing countries, but if we were to drastically reduce those ties to other countries producing for us, we would need new people to produce goods. Thismeans that not only would the current lower class get more jobs, but there would be enough jobs to offer to new immigrants (and I do agree with a cap on immigration once it reaches this point). This not only ensures employment for those already living in the host-country, but it also serves to put pressure on oppressive nations such as China, Mexico, Indonesia, and Cambodia as the workers of these countries get very little of the profit anyways.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:17:18 +0100

Liberetarian socialist is a contradiction. But if you mean more freedom in the socila sector, and some control in the economic sector.

Then you, like myself are a open-market socialist. Just specifics of definition really. Liberetarian implies extreamlly low economic controll at all, socialism implies tho oposite.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:11:30 +0100

If a strong system of sucial support. Such as welfere, low income housing etc. was established, along with socialized medicine and post secondary education. The onlly kind of immigration a antion with such a system could support would be high skilled education. Because the goal of the system is to establish a large middle class and elevate the lower class out of powerty. If a large ammount of low skilled low income immigrants enter the country then the system would colapse withing a decade. The simplly would not be enough funds to suport these low skilled imigrants. 9imigration is however essential to the system the us has)

And of course high skill imigration ussually doesent happen, en mass because if you are high skilled you probablly have a good standing in your own nation. As far as the tiers of production, with the curent technlogical advances most of the population of western nations works in the service industry which is usually a skilled field. So there is no need for a larg amout of production field workers.

Low imigration does cause significant stimulous to the economy, but only to such nations as the US, with a capitalism that is not kept in check. So establishing the system i propose will have to be done at the expense of the total size of the economy. But the living standart would be raised dramatically.

Now dont think that i am an an ethnocentric
bigot, that dislikes imigrants. I am an immigrant myself, i have only moved to the US in 2000. I just dont let personal fellings impact cold logical analisis.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:58:28 +0100

Also, I would like to point out for the record that I am a libertarian socialist, not an anarcho-communist as most of you have implied,.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:56:45 +0100

I would agree on all of your points, except for immigration. I believe that it is perfectly feasible to have this kind of system with high immigration so long as the immigrants that enter have jobs. So long as they are employed within three months of entering the country, there shouldn't be very much trouble if there is socialized post-secondary education. This would allow those born in the host country to move up to the higher paying/prestige jobs more quickly, creating the necessary tiers of employment. New immigrants would then qualify for socialized post-secondary education after being in the country for a certain amount of time.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:39:57 +0100

This sounds like Marxs ideal system. Perety much just communism as it was ment to be.

It is im sorry to say, much to impractical. Without a market system the economy will crumble in no time. Even the soviet union had a market with curency, it was simplly heavilly controled. It is almost imposible to redistribute goods without a market system, the process becomes incrediblly ineficient, shortages and surpluses are all too common. Professions are also dificult to regulate, if everyone gets paid an equal wage certain professions would be popular and thus would have many people traning for them. Others would be almost noneexistant. Im sure you see the issues quite clearlly. A market is nessisary.

About the anarcho part that i completlly agree with. The only laws should be those who have a victim. But of course there will also need to be property laws if there is a market.

I mysel think that an optimal system would be an open-market socialism. You get the benefits of the camitalist market. But it is kept in chek by taxation and trade laws, and strong social support system. Therby keeping the middle class large, assuring competition betwen buisnesses, and getting rid of poverty, and extreme wealth. There would be class distinction but no extreme class cleavege. Socialized education and medicine of course. In the social sector again onlly punish crimes that have a victim. Property infringment, murder, rape the usuall. No illigalization of ilicit drugs, no bans on prostitution, no bans on free speach. And of course very low imigration, because a system with a strong social safety net can not support large ammounts of imigrants. Im sure you get the picture.

Unlike anarcho comunism whic adopts 2 extreme aspects of the political spectrum. Open-market socialism sticks to the midlle, as we have observed through out history it is the systems that are more modorate and close to the midlle of the spectrum that have been most sucesfull. For instance we can observe something like what i have proposed in Norway, and Denmark. The capitalism we see in the US is a bit farther from the midlle on the political spectrum. And it works, but not as well as the Danish system, the more you go towards the edge of the spectrum. Communism, Facism, Communitarian system, Anarchy the more problematic and impractical the system becomes.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:19:44 +0100

Please don't call me a "douchebag".

I'm aware capitalism and communism are contradictions: perhaps you could inform the Chinese government or Goldman Sachs as well.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:09:03 +0100

I think that before changing our economic system, we should eliminate the problems of our own system. I am talking about problems that will make the new system obsolete.

I am no expert, but I personaly do not like corruption, corporate lobying, greedy politicians, and other forms of biases in the government. Who knows, maybe we already have the perfect system, but we have flawed it ourselves.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:19:38 +0100

Another question should be how would it survive and protect itself.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:36:45 +0100

True

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:01:54 +0100

Its not the number of people, but the power those people can muster. As of now, power lies in the hands of corporations and the states that facilitate them.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:25:36 +0100

That's true, anarcho-communism would be great, but I'm not sure if you could get enough people on board with the idea. Can't hurt to dream though.

Comment on: Can a country in the western world support an anarcho-communist government?

Bigthink — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:41:09 +0100

Not likely. I've said before that the modern world revolves around economic calculation. There is no possible way a developed Western country could be anarcho-communist. Socialism is the closest possible system.