Young Master Smeet
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All of which is why I reckon that placing a member of the forum on pre-moderated is a better way forward than banning, we should investigate that option.
The French already have an individual legal right to strike, it hasn't brought us socialism. Slight joking aside, mine and ALB's suggestions really are backed with the idea that once you have a socialistically determined majority on side, and you can take control of the state, you have the power to abolish capitalism outright. If you can pass a law, you can abolish capitalism, so there's nop point in half measures.
Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:So this website is capitalist? LOL that's funny.I think you missed my point: within capitalist society, there are vast swathes of areas, of behaviour, interactions and structures that are 'socialistic', i.e. are not performed on the basis of the exchange of commodities with a view to making a profit. However, as we are living within a capitalist society, the interests of capitalists predominate, and these behaviours can only exist where they don't conflict with the interest of profit seeking.Wikipedia is a good example of a starting point for how we could co-operate in socialism, without leaders, without masses of bureaucracy, etc. Ultimately, within capitalism, it depends on the Wikimedia Foundation (and donations).This is a website run by socialists within capitalism.
Gnome,you don't pay per mile, nor does vehicle tax pay for the road, it's a general tax, it just uses vehicles on the road as a means of collection. At most it's like a club membership: you get unlimited usage: but there is no commodity relation. The tax is on the vehicle.
Essentially the same thing: use political power to break a key structure in the system of capitalism, and rely on the expressed will of the vast majority to carry through the changes that result.
Just to play along: Make it a criminal offence to be an employer (In UK terms: to be the master in a contract of service). That, or make strikes legally enforceable: put police on the picket lines!
The communistic bar is quite low: it is when people interract and don't hold property barriers in the way, and share their goods. It's the situation in family life, when you're with your friends: the trick is to turn it into the organising basis of society. So, for all of us, presently, any activity we do ultimately is dependent on commodity production and the need to sell our ability to work: I can only edit wikipedia articles when I'm not selling that ability (I'd never do it at work, honest). In our workplaces, though, we co-operate, and don't put commodity barriers in the way of working together: socialism would extend this to cover the whole of society.
Wikipedia is not a democracy, it works by consensus (which has swings and roundabouts) and Jimmy Wales is the owner/dictator of last resort. In daily practice, anyone can access wikipedia, there is no charge for its articles, and the articles ae produced by volunteers (as are the adminisrators and moderators. It's a great example of free association of producers, and decentralised co-operation.There are downsides: there is a particular demographic who get involved (white under forties males, typically, and American), and consensus leads to some odd results: the case of Chelsea Manning, traditional publishers were able to accomodate the name change, where consensus was difficult on Wikipedia.
gnome wrote:You obviously don't have a motor vehicle. Try accessing your "communist roads" in one without the requisite road tax and insurance and see what happens.Indeed, I don't, my bicycle uses the roads for free: but even road tax is a tax on the vehicle, not on the usage of the roads per se.
LBird wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:There wasn't much voting in primitive communism.That's why it's called primitive communism, YMS.
But it's still communism.
It is possible to have communism/socialism without democracy: but not, I'd suggest, sustainably nor even desireably. Modern communism needs democracy.
LBird,do you accept that roads are communist? There is no commodity relationship to roads, we all access them freely (exclude toll roads and congestion charge areas, for now). In a democratic polity we would collectively decide what roads to build, but we wouldn't set about saying what the quicket routes between several stops would be, people would travel down the roads freely.
The point is they are working towards a scientific commons, one regulated and sustained communally, in which we will all share the benefit. This is an interesting event, as much klike our communist roads, this is actually existing communism.
ALB wrote:I don't know if anyone else noticed it, but someone has posted in another section here that the BBC are charging £1000 for every minute of material from their archives:http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/production/articles/archive-rights-clearancesAnd, more relevently:http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/
