MacNCheezus

This guy cows

No, I’m saying unless you want EVERYONE to starve, excess productivity is required even under communism.

That would literally be a capitalist state in every meaningful sense.

In the same way that a collective of workers getting together to control the means of production would be a communist state in every meaningful sense.

Are you talking about China? If so, I'm afraid they're communist in name only. They realized many years ago that Marxist economic theory doesn't work and began to integrate capitalist principles into their economy. There are banks, there is a stock market, and there is private ownership of the means of production, although all of these are tightly regulated by the state and can be rescinded at any time or for any reason (such as not paying enough bribes).

De facto, China is a capitalist-fascist state more comparable to WW2 Germany than anything Marx ever came up with.

I made a number of well-reasoned and coherent arguments, to which responded with flippant one liners.

You're free to convince me that I misjudged you by actually making an argument, but I'm afraid your childish insults aren't going to change my mind anytime soon.

Okay, but if there isn't a state, who is to say the workers don't have the right to protect their surplus labor value from theft by seizing the means of production, through violence if necessary?

Nobody. But conversely, if there isn't a state, what's to prevent property owners from banding together and protecting their property with violence?

Before you say "but there's more workers than property owners", keep in mind that given enough money or gold or whatever, they could also hire mercenaries to prevent workers from rebelling.

It really all comes down to who is better at organizing. So it's possible that in one scenario, workers would seize the means of production successfully, and if they are good enough at keeping it running, they'd operate as a commune, while in another scenario, there'd be a more hierarchical, capitalist structure of organization.

You're simply arguing from a standpoint of "but I like THIS approach better" when it's a question of "but can you make it WORK?"

If you think about it, such communities probably already exist: most families, even in capitalism, are communist internally: the parents contribute far more to the household than the children do, who tend to consume far more than they produce. From each according to their ability to each according to their need.

This likely also explains the continued popularity of communism as a political philosophy, especially among young people. Going out into the world, where there is competition and conflict is jarring, and the wish for society to be organized more like a family unit is understandable, although it is far more difficult to organize a large country in this way than a household of no more than, say, a dozen people.

I only put that there because the thread starter seems to be an anarcho-communist who thinks that in absence of a state enforcing property rights, property rights simply won't be enforced. That is not the case. They may or may not be enforced, either by the property owner themselves or their tribe/community.

Okay, fair enough, and I am by no means intending to criticize you for your kindheartedness here, but that’s literally the opposite of economic theory, which concerns itself primarily with achieving the maximum output possible given a certain input.

Also, consider that this does not mean that it is therefore by nature entirely inhuman and incompatible with caring about people, but rather that the ability to achieve a high productivity is required in order to have an excess of resources than can be used to care for those who cannot care for themselves.

If you think about it, this is in fact essential to maintain human life. Children for instance always require more resources than they can produce, so parents have to be able to produce more than they need for themselves if they want their children to survive. Same goes for society as a whole — the productive members have to be able to produce an excess or the unproductive (weak, sick, or old) will starve.

Would you like fries with that?

On that note, I sure hope he doesn’t uses any Apple products either.