And there you have it, a solid writeup on why communism a specific, closed religious enclave which is, by design, not self-sufficient does not work in the real world has demographic problems, but provides a comfortable lifestyle for everyone in it.
Because people are people. Sad, but true.
Just had to adjust that a little bit there.
Meanwhile capitalism gives eight people the same wealth as 3.5 billion.
We are, as i said, highly secluar like most other communities such as mine throughout Israel (there is a minority of religious communities, but they are not orthodox or conservatives). don't forget our way of life was inspired by ideas whose author was atehist/militanty atheist.
We are also financially self sufficient and if we decide, we can might even become mostly self sufficient. our agriculture industry can feed well over a thousand people through our cows farms, chickens farms and crop fields. we even pump our own water and generate a portion of our electricity through solar panels and methane gas from the cows manure.
Also, the same social/demographic problems are extremely common throughout most other Kibbutzes in Israel and from anecdotal discussions, also in the world (Talked with people from Holland and Spain who lives in similar communities and which expressed similar problems).
This kind of system provides for a better average. extremely unaccurately and generally speaking (because the thershold for social problems is actually much lower), the social problems starts to arise when the median income cannot finance the average expenses, even though the average income still does. the financial problems arise when later generations who are not driven enough to bring in new businesses or work in a high paying job are becoming a burden because they bring kids of their own which they wouldn't have been able to finance outside of this system.
The motto for such a way of life is often being summarize as: "You give as much as you can and recieve as much as you need", our cynical addition is "Which creates lazy, needy people".
I think that such a system can't work on a large scale. one of the things that drives people to go up in the morning and efficiently work on a job they don't like is the social implications for not doing so. in smaller communities, people who don't do so are visible to the community and are being looked down upon, but in a larger scale, especially a privacy oriented country like the U.S, there would be no social implications for those who just cruise by the day and their output is just as required and not beyond, which is the real "cancer". you might say that could be handled in the workplace itself, but what happens when more than a few does that? what happens when those more than a few are the only ones willing to work at that place? without financial incentives, few people would be willing to work in jobs they don't like. also. the people who are high earners grow up and intimately live with the low earners, so they have a personal bond which enables them to live lower than their capabilities. a high earner who doesn't even superficially know low earners will be far more reluctant to share his income.
Besides, the American population is, i dare say, programmed against socialism. while i can't say my anecdotal experience from the U.S can be considered reflective, the people i met while there were completely shocked by the idea of working and not getting paid a wage and couldn't accept it even theoretically. even people who were clearly not on the winning side of capitalism couldn't understand the benefits. Western Europe actually have a far better chance in succeeding in a large scale "communism", both because of the free/affordable higher education and because they are more socially aware. it would still require some sort of social incentive to encourage individuals to aspire forward though.
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Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0 (Read 1419786 times)