Theos-Talk Archives (July 2003 Message tt00242)

I have seen all the things you describe in capitalistic American 
corporations, so it would be an error to assume these problems are 
not unique to socialism and somehow excluded by capitalism.

There are two "problems" with socialism, one of which can be 
illustrated from ancient history and the other from modern.

The first can be seen in Josephus' description of the Essenes, 
written, I believe in his WARS OF THE JEWS. They lived communally in 
the first century, but to make it work they had a Draconian system 
whereby people who did not fit were turned out ruthlesly and left to 
starve at the side of the road. We can see this same ruthlessness in 
the Stalin purges, the Mao purges, etc. It is built in to any form 
of communal social structure, including instances of socialism whochj 
dares not speak its name. An ant hill is a great example of 
socialism that works, but who would want to live in an ant hill?

The second was exposed to view after the downfall of Saddam Hussein. 
The Ba'ath Party in both Iraq and Syria (although two completely 
separate organizations) was founded to promote socialism. In 
practice what that means is, (1) the state owns every enterprise in 
the entire country much larger than a kiosk, and (2) the Hussein 
royal family owns the state. The result is that the concentration of 
wealth is far more complete than in any capitalistic system. It is 
also notable that Saddam, too, murdered people by the hundreds of 
thousands as did nis mentors Stalin and Mao and for the same 
reasons. Iraq was a company town with only one company in town.

I am not sure a Catholic monastery is a good model for understanding 
larger socialistic systems, since most people are not homosexuals and 
since most people organize themselves into nuclear families in which 
it is understood sexual activity is not to cross the family system 
boundary. The larger society is filled with social structures which 
are explicitly forbidden in a Catholic monastery, and the monastery 
is based on stuff which was strictly underground in the larger 
society until recently.

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:
> Frank Reitemeyer wrote:
> > Communism is a high degree of
> > Freemansonry and that's the reason why all communistic states 
have
> > the masonic signs in their flags, like Russia, China etc.
> 
> Communism is, ultimately, a good system. It is simply not a 
workable 
> system, and the proponents of Communism can only support it as an 
ideal 
> for when humanity is changed, or to ignore the current state of 
reality 
> and pretend it is something else.
> 
> Here is the basic flaw in Communism. It is based on everybody 
working 
> as well as they can, and everybody getting what they need. When you 
have 
> a dedicated group, where everybody trusts each other, Communism 
works 
> (certain Roman Catholic monastic groups have been effectively 
Communist 
> for centuries; The Kibbutz system in Israel worked well until the 
level 
> of effort to just stay alive was no longer necessary).
> 
> Because as soon as you have a case where somebody says, "That 
person 
> could be doing more work!", or, "That person is getting more than 
they 
> need!", the system falls apart. Not immediately. But a job is 
created: 
> Those who decide whether people are working up to capacity, and 
that 
> people are getting only what they need. And the people who will 
work the 
> hardest to get this job will be the most corruptible, the most 
selfish, 
> the people who are least qualified to perform this job. And the 
system 
> sinks into despotism, and anybody who publicly recognizes what is 
going 
> on is declared insane, and treated as such.
> 
> Any current political system built on the assumption that 
selfishness 
> doesn't exist (or, for that matter, that altruism doesn't exist) is 
> doomed to fail.
> 
> Bart