Having read the last 2 pages of replies, at least the not-too-heavily economics-based parts, it seems to me that the central element of the complete lack of mutual understanding between jbsay and everyone else is largely a different conception of human nature and human history.
I think what will penetrate the problem most deeply is asking jbsay about his conception of pre-Marx history. He mentions Mercantilism as a reply to kit-kat's similar enquiry, which is apparently a form of statist economic interventionism, but I think a broader picture would be interesting. For example, I've just read Kropotkin's 'Mutual Aid', which describes life in medieval (12th / 13th century) city-states. The states were largely communistic - people lived for each other, things were shared, land was kept in common, and so forth. The picture painted was great; people's lives were enriched by a strong society, they produced great works of architecture, people were cared for by the community. This was then destroyed by - as you will doubtless sympathise with - the power-mongering of the monarchs and landowners, who first established control over the peasants, and then incorporated the city-states into their budding nation-states - and then we have the story from the ~17th century as has been debated so extensively in this thread.
In contrast to this, jbsay, it appears (I don't know your full viewpoint, but this is what has come across) that you have a conception of history that equates communal living with some kind of horror-laden subsistence living, rife with hunger and disease, which can only be alleviated by capitalistic principles.
Two things - Firstly, there is a history of very successful forms of communal living, arguably many of which compete with today in terms of quality of life (especially when the health of the psyche is taken into account).
Secondly, linked in with this, I think you fail to understand perhaps THE central element of communistic / anarchistic thought. This is the concept of brotherhood, unity, togetherness - not forced, but natural. Natural feelings of love for your fellow men and women. Thus, the communism of the city-states and village communities was not coerced - it was genuine human feeling and compassion, backed by the practical acknowledgement that to survive, people needed each other. The lack of this connection between us, the loss of community and togetherness, is central to Marx's concept of alienation, and central to our conception of what we need to reclaim.
When you see a tribe living 'hand to mouth', you seem to see poverty and misery - many people in the west today, although they acknowledge the poverty, see human togetherness, and a life far more grounded, 'real', less alienated, than that we are living. I think it's the hope of communist and especially anarcho-communist thought to regain this level of unity and reality, while retaining the incredible things that science, progress etc have attained. This is I think something that many people on this board hold somewhere in the back on their minds - maybe not in those words or to that extent, but that kind of thing is perhaps where they're coming from - while you seem to have an extremely different conception of such things. Elaborating your thought on these issues; the human history of communism and the status of human nature regarding unity etc, would be very interesting, as long as the thread does not mind a brief change in tac. |
