Hammer and Tickle
Quote:
Communism is the only political system to have created its own international brand of comedy. The standard interpretation is that communist jokes were a form of resistance. But they were also a safety valve for the regimes and jokes were told by the rulers as well as the ruled?even Stalin told some good ones.
Ben Lewis
Communism is the only political system to have created its own international brand of comedy. The standard interpretation is that communist jokes were a form of resistance. But they were also a safety valve for the regimes and jokes were told by the rulers as well as the ruled?even Stalin told some good ones.
Ben Lewis
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/a...ls.php?id=7412
I found this to be an interesting read. I also like how the story of the sixth paragraph points out a major failure of communism: in a free nation, any individual with the noted abilities for record keeping and data analysis would not be working as a train station clerk.
Comments
Originally posted by ThinkingDifferent
I think Communism would work for a certain economic strata, the people who have no ambition and just want to collect a paycheck.
I'd agree with that. The whole communist agenda is very anti-evolutionary. Not from a scientific vs. religion perspective, but from a social perspective.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
I'd agree with that. The whole communist agenda is very anti-evolutionary. Not from a scientific vs. religion perspective, but from a social perspective.
I don't think you can argue that effectively, because it depends upon your concept of the evolutionary box. If we are to be evolving within a social stratum, then perhaps you are correct, but if you look at a societal perspective of all levels and maximizing benefit to people, the jury is by far still out...
Originally posted by hardeeharhar
I don't think you can argue that effectively, because it depends upon your concept of the evolutionary box. If we are to be evolving within a social stratum, then perhaps you are correct, but if you look at a societal perspective of all levels and maximizing benefit to people, the jury is by far still out...
Evolution/development doesn't easily occur within zones of balance, social or otherwise. Communism itself is very much an exercise in balance.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
Evolution/development doesn't easily occur within zones of balance, social or otherwise. Communism itself is very much an exercise in balance.
But it may be advantageous to remove superfluous selection pressure -- all social organisms take advantage of the fact that individuals fair better in groups and are not exposed to evolutionary pressure that groupless individuals have.
So while it may seem like selection pressure is removed, perhaps that benefits the individuals overall...
And there is no reason to believe that evolution ceases to function in situations where we cannot find negative pressure to adapt -- there are such things as positive and neutral pressures (like sexual selection for adaptations that are irrelevant to survival).
Originally posted by hardeeharhar
. . . So while it may seem like selection pressure is removed, perhaps that benefits the individuals overall. . .
And there is no reason to believe that evolution ceases to function in situations where we cannot find negative pressure to adapt -- there are such things as positive and neutral pressures (like sexual selection for adaptations that are irrelevant to survival).
I'm not saying that there can't be any sort of social (or genetic) development within a regime of control, since it would make sense that, eventually, people would adapt to best serve the communist-utopian model. What I am saying, though, is that the communist-utopian model is an unnatural one, and that if one were to separate two groups of humans on different planets, one governed as a utopian society and one by the free market, after 100,000 years, the former would be little different than it was at year zero, and the latter would have a massively expanded knowledge of the universe.
Obviously, this is a hypothesis and not a manifesto, but there is enough evidence in the history of the people of planet Earth to grant it a fair amount of support.
Doll: I dislike socialism, for it is a crutch, and seemingly cannot exist without self-indulgent bureaucracies. The redistribution of wealth is something I don't appreciate, but I could live with it so long as the government were relatively enlightened and supported the case for the individual in all non-economic matters.
Originally posted by ThinkingDifferent
I think Communism would work for a certain economic strata, the people who have no ambition and just want to collect a paycheck.
That's mediocrity and can exist in any social structure... just take a look at "so-called democratic" USA these days?!