On human nature-the end of capitalism-communism

[monkspider]

Great posts Gegap, very thought-provoking.
I will post more on this tommorrow if I remember.

[Velociryx]

I disagree, Odin.

Not with the fact that humans were once living in small (communally oriented) hunter-gatherer tribes--we know, in fact, that they did--but we've moved beyond that.

That worked because our communal groups were very small and the scattered tribes were essentially an extended family.

Trouble is, as humans began increasing in number, and the little scattered tribes began competing with each other for living space, they began uniting into progressively larger tribes (at first for mutual protection, and then for other reasons....there's efficiencies to being big) and the communal system fell apart.

It's just not scalable beyond very limited numbers. It's okay when everybody knows everybody (as was the case in our communal tribe, ancient past), but it simply cannot cope with the size issue.

In a very small tribe (group) everybody HAS TO work together to ensure survival. Skill-based specialization occurs, with each tribal member working on a specific task, and contributing his efforts to the whole, and that's okay, cos you know and trust everyone in your little tribe (and even here, on this small scale, there are tensions because although you are working for "the group" there's still the undercurrent of "me first" which leads to the leader of the group being continually tested by other alpha males who want the top spot).

Try turning NYC into a commune. Never happen. Too many people. They don't know each other....CAN'T know each other....there's just too many people.

Today, we have cities that are of sizes to boggle the mind. Bigger than anything our ancestors could have DREAMED, they're so huge. It's something fairly recent in our history, and something we've never dealt with before.

We dealt with it, IMO, by each becoming chief of our own little tribe (a tribe of one, or of the immediate family) and by continuing the process of an "informal" tribal association--most folks don't know or associate with more than ~100 or so individuals, including family, thus creating hundreds, if not thousands of little "tribes" inside our big cities, whose lines cross and tangle with each other in complex ways as friendships and bonds are created and destroyed.

In this chaos, it is impossible to have a communal society. The group memberships are too transient, too informal to support it, and the aggregate population is too large to impose a commune-like system over the top of it.

Just a bleary-eyed thought on the way to bed.

-=Vel=-

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sikander
Yet I bet those researchers never managed to find a way to make billions from this discovery by introducing an alternative compensation system, or conversely managed to save billions of polutants from being spewed into the air by all those people needlessly toiling for money that they don't even want.

Actually, a lot of modern management techniques are based on these researches. Indeed, they made and saved billions of dollars indirectly.

Furthermore, capitalism does not allow persons to seek self actualisation if doing so do not cover the basic needs. For example, an excellent pianoist could very well be forced to flip burgers if he couldn't pay his bills.

Originally posted by Sikander
Obviously, economic need is very acute on the one extreme and a non factor on the other.

Economics cover only the basic needs (e.g. food, shelter, etc.) It does not allow you to make friends, become part of a group, etc., etc.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dissident
they volunteer because they feel passionate about something.

That's excellent - that means people drive themselves much better than any external economic rewards.

Thus, in a society where basic needs are covered, people will drive themselves to do what they are passionate about. All the great classical composers were that way - they didn't have to worry about their basic needs, so they could become excel at what they loved.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dissident
would people work if they weren't paid?

The thing is that they will be paid. The question is whether people should be paid more for their work than other people who's work is less important or more desirable. My answer is yes, but just not in the amounts that some are paid now. I think that money is a great incentive, but you only really need a small amount to motivate people. It depends on how much money they already have, how much leisure time they have and maybe some other things.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Thus, in a society where basic needs are covered, people will drive themselves to do what they are passionate about. All the great classical composers were that way - they didn't have to worry about their basic needs, so they could become excel at what they loved.

How many serfs worked the land so the king could support that composer?

[Urban Ranger]

The point was people can attain greatness without striving for material possessions.

[BeBMan]

Good points GePap. I sometimes think the "people can´t change, they will always be egoistic, drive for material wealth etc"-speech is just an excuse for being an ass

Seriously, I can´t imagine a world where people act only altruistic, where material things do not play a role anymore, and where we all just happy. But as a human I think even when we probably never reach such an ideal world, it is certainly worth striving for to come closer to this ideal on the individual as well as on the societal level. The devil is however in the detail, and since I never saw a communist society that was not somehow authoritarian the term "communism" has no positive meaning for me (even when I know the ideal behind it was originally good).

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


Yet I bet those researchers never managed to find a way to make billions from this discovery by introducing an alternative compensation system, or conversely managed to save billions of polutants from being spewed into the air by all those people needlessly toiling for money that they don't even want.

Obviously, economic need is very acute on the one extreme and a non factor on the other. People like Bill Gates etc. keep at it for competitive reasons, or philisophical / utilitarian / ego reasons. Dollars are merely points for the ego, power for your ideas, and grist for your foundation.

On a certain lveel I do think there are parts of man that don't change. As socal animas, man seeks status within its tribe, which assures their ability to pass on genes. But the fact is that since we are sentient, we can channel those drives in myriad ways. The point of the drive for status is to pass genes, biologically speaking anyone who does not have children is a failure. And yet if Bill gates had never had children, would anyone call him a failure today? No, becuase we no longer define success to ourselves biologically.

And that is the point I am tryin to make: man may be driven, but driven to what? I don't think one can change the "driven" part, but the "towards what" part, that part can be changed. Redefine what the aims should be, redefine what gets you a high status, redefine the will to power (part of why nietzsche is my avatar) and you can, and do, get different outcomes.

[Velociryx]

Success is one of those amorphous words tho. It has whatever meaning we ascribe to it.

If Gates has no children to pass on his genes, yes. He is a failure in the biologic sense, no matter what his economic standing.

Likewise, his obvious wealth an affluence makes him a success, economically. Does that mean he is a "good man"? Hardly. The two are unrelated.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

The point, however, is that each individual decides what "success" means for him/her. I don't want Gates' wealth. Does that make me a failure? I think not, and I daresay that in pursuit of my own goals (goals I can and have accomplished better than Bill Gates), I have succeeded.

But "success" is not one of those root level human things. Striving FOR, on the other hand, is, and part of striving is competitiveness.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Individuals may chose what their desired individual outcomes will be, but within a set of preset choices open to them; choices set by society. No one choses to be the best hangman in town, since hanging people is no longer a profession. And your choices are infomrned by your values, another things society makes.

But "success" is not one of those root level human things. Striving FOR, on the other hand, is, and part of striving is competitiveness.

No it is not. He who strives to climb a mountain is seeking the limits of their abilities. They are not competing with anyone else. Monks who set vows of silence don;t do it to "beat monk" x. They do it to see how fathfull they can be. A striving inward is striving nonetheless, without repercussions for anyone else, but yourself, unless you then decide to do somehting social with your new found knowledge.

And success is a basic drive, People may disagree on what they want to do, but there is not one human being who does not want to do somehting and achieve it (even if that something were, say, self-destruction).

[Velociryx]

GePap: note the phrase a part of striving....

And, while you are correct that a Monk does not compete with the other Monks to see who can do "better" in terms of vows of silence, in some ways this too is "competition with the self" - surely there is a drive to speak and communicate, but there is another drive in play as well....the vow of silence in reverence to one's god (or whatever vows of silence are taken for). And the mountain climber most certainly pits himself against the mountain, "competing" both with himself (and his own limits, striving to push them beyond what they are), and with the stoic mountain itself.

As to society defining the range of choices....I agree partly. Mostly society defines what one cannot do, and anything not expressly forbidden is fair game, and thus limited only by the imagination. So in as much as "society" sets the limits, I agree.

-=Vel=-

EDIT: And you misunderstand me, I think. Sure, the desire for, the striving for success is a basic human drive, but "success" does not have a singular definition, and in and of itself is not a basic human drive....the desire for it (in whatever form it takes for the individual) is.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Trouble is, as humans began increasing in number, and the little scattered tribes began competing with each other for living space, they began uniting into progressively larger tribes (at first for mutual protection, and then for other reasons....there's efficiencies to being big) and the communal system fell apart.

That's not historically accurate. Communal societies did not fall apart.

When societies began producing more food than they needed, this freed people up for speciaization, division of labor. The big division of labor was between the astronomers and the farmers. The people who kept watch on the heavens where the ones who told people when to plant, when to hunt, when to do this or that. Eventually they became the rulers.

The other main split was the group of people who protected society from outsiders. All the groups needed each other, all the classes existence was justified from an economic and pracitical standpoint. By the nature o the intellectual and the military classes, however, they were able to appropriate the lions share of production. They could either take it or justify it by their connection to the Gods.

And this is how history has worked from 8000BCE until the latter half of the 18th Century. Nothing normal, magical, mysterious about it. Communal society didn't fall apart, it evolved into something more efficient, slavery.

[DAVOUT]

Man is driven by greed and violence and he can't change? If so, why have we criminalized killing for honor, killing for faith? We have criminalized slavery, usery, beating your spouse: having your servants burried alive or dead (after killinfg them) to serve you in the hear-after. We have criminalized rape, having the wife throw herself in the fires of the husbands pyre, human sacrfice, even animal sacrifice. Letting the cripples and sick babies to die from exposure has been outlawed. Blood sports, the razing of cities, the decimation of units to teach them loyalty, punishment by cutting off limbs. When we aim to kill, we even go so far as to try to do it "humanely". Even the litte things, like vicious torture of criminals, drawn and quarterings, the rack, cruxifictions, burnings at the stakes, even these things that used to draw crowds are now banned. Even against animals this is banned. We live in a culture so removed form death that most posters here would get naseaus seeing their food slaughtered and cut up in front of them, so divorced form death (an omnipresent reality of being alive) that seeing someone die is a rare event, only a bit more rare than even seeing a dead body.

Your examples can be used to demonstrate that man has not changed.

Killing for honor was forbidden under the threat of death by monarchs who prefered to keep those guys for killing in war, and not given up by choice.

Slavery was criminalized when it became economically less efficient that paid workers.

Blood sports still exist; the success of F1 racing or rallies competitions is partly due to the danger for pilots or spectators.

Razing of cities … Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, Nagasaki …

Decimation of units: although not representing 10%, soldiers were shot in 1917 for the example. Who could tell that after 3 years of war in the future, it will not occur again.

The little things, as you said, were what they were for exemplarity and information. They are no longer necessary because the information is much better (not the Man).

If Man had improved, it would take more that 6 months to transform 20 years old civilized guys in killers, as all armies are able to do anywhere.

But I do not mean that the aim cannot be changed, or I would rather say discovered. Man could be more ambitious than becoming a perfect consumer. Many are, along many different ways. The difficulty is to mach individual desires with the elevation of the humankind.