XPost: alt.politics.socialism, alt.politics, alt.politics.liberalism   
   From: joshb@xs4all.nl   
      
   ["Followup-To:" header set to alt.politics.communism.]   
   On 2007-04-28, uri  wrote:   
   > Capitalism is based on competition. Competition and surivival is the   
   > game of life, and to stay in the game (keep living) you have to work   
   > either hard or smart. Even in some communist utopia in the distant   
   > future people will still have to work. Communism has been tried and it   
   > was found that people lost the motivation to work because the reward   
   > and compensation was taken away from them. And since no one will work   
   > for someone else, without the reward, people will not invest hard   
   > work.   
      
   Right. One form of Communism was tried, and I would say it wasn't   
   a form at all. Communism (Marxist variant), like Christianity, say:   
   "let's all be good to each other", another variation is "let's all   
   give products to each other for free".  That is an individual "rule"   
   of conduct, it is not a system. You can ask individuals to do that,   
   but it isn't a coherent system of society. When you remove the present   
   system and replace it with an individual moral code of conduct, nothing   
   good will happen because people aren't going to change their behavior   
   just because you ask them to (even if it were a justified demand).   
      
   If you look at even earlier attempts, for instance all the laws in the   
   oldest parts of the bible (I'm not kidding), then that was more of a system   
   approach. ``After so many ears you release your slave, so and so much   
   land you leave for the poor, for so long you are allowed to demand debt   
   payment, etc etc.'' That is a body of laws (I'd see it as progressive   
   given the time), supposedly coherent. It doesn't say like "now we're   
   all good people, and everything will be fine", or "leave me in power   
   and I'll take care of you". Or "we want more democracy but we don't   
   know how to get it, let's try anyway". When the communist movement   
   developed, there was no proposal of a coherent body of laws, and   
   therefore what happened was that "the situation" as it was became   
   law. The soviets had power, therefore the law became that the soviets   
   had power. The party had power (and it should have), so the law became   
   that the party has power also in the future (which is wrong).   
   --   
     Coherent body of laws: http://www.xs4all.nl/~joshb/constitution.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)