Re: Lisp is Sin

David Trudgett wrote: 
On the contrary, he seems to have been of the
belief that, at a minimum, an organised and violent revolution would
be necessary on account of his other belief that the ruling class
would not give up their position of privilege voluntarily.

Basically saying that the solution to the poor wages paid by factory owners wasn't for the workers to build their own factory, but to simply steal one. The question is: what did they do before the factory came to life? Hand-knit carpets? If so, why didn't they continue to do so?

A simple fact, both in capitalism and in socialism is that you are free to produce whatever you produced in the way you produced it, but there is no guarantee that anyone will buy it. Cooperatives are cool, but they too have to adapt to the market pressure if they want to be competitive. Unless some central government allocates some money for them anyway.

Christianity, some say, is a theory that has never been put into
practice. Of course, that is not entirely true, as many individuals
and communities throughout the ages have come a lot closer to the
Christian ideal than, say, present day mainstream Churches of all
flavours. Which is to say that, when looking at the present
disgraceful state of Churches, Christianity is no more than a distant
theory to be discussed in the abstract by theologians. Yet
Christianity exists.

I haven't heard of any Christian, except maybe Mother Theresa. Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that. At least all of Christian USAians don't give up their job etc. Nonetheless, even though I'm basically against Christianity-as-religion (and all other Theist the-sole-god-that's-the-only-way-to-heaven religions), Jesus was a *very* cool guy (more in a cultural and political way) and IMHO a good person to inspire us. Just leave out the Antisemites like Saul/Paul or Luther to keep it clean :)

Communism can be regarded in a similar light. State communism, making
necessary use, as it does, of violence, is abhorrent and far from any
true spirit of brotherhood. Yet voluntary and free communism can exist
in small and large communities if they are simply left alone. So, yes,
free communism does exist despite communist states, in the same sense
that Christianity exists despite Christian Churches.

But these communities can perfectly exist within capitalism. Again: I don't see where anarchism has to be socialist, except that people are free to choose so (and I like the idea).

In communist states, however, there's enough coercion that maybe a free anarchist community couldn't exist, unless it operated like a black market in the underground.

As an aside, although I personally lean towards some of the best
ideals of communism, I am not an ideologue, I don't agree with much of
Marxist analysis, and I believe that any free association and
organisation of people without hierarchical power structures is
legitimate. Hunter gatherer societies, for example, though hardly
communist, were also a good idea at the time and, at least in the case
of Australian Aborigines, largely free of "power" hierarchy long
before the word 'anarchism' was ever thought of.


Agreed.

--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
	Edsger W. Dijkstra
.

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