Politics...

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Selfish does not necessarily mean actively aggressive. People in general are much more passive aggressive than actively aggressive.

Only in the context of a society that has ground rules for solving civil disputes and allocation of certain resources. In a world where everyone is too self-interested and egotistical to democratically come up with laws, institutions, etc... that allow for some sharing of certain resources deemed public, people will be resorting to brute force and physical violence if that's what it takes to get their needs met. Without a foundation of cooperation, capitalism will fall into anarchy and the law of the jungle.

The real reason implementations of state communism have failed has much less to do with selfish human nature than other far more important factors.

Communism can only be applied through force. People are only altruistic and collectivist when it suits their personal interests. We've moved beyond small subsistence existence.

Same goes for unrestrained capitalism. At some point the wealthy hoarders, given absolute free reign, will have to resort to forcefully defending their walled-in existence from the starving masses.

Alls I know, the more politische mischmasch threads I look at here, the more I wonder why we let any politicians have house room.

Which is likely why no pure-communist or pure-capitalist state exists.

Unrestrained capitalism is generally not permitted by governments. Unrestrained capitalism is similar to life in the various pirate havens in the Caribean Sea. Arrrghhh!

Capitalism has always been constrained by law, at the very least. Any commercial society be it capitalist, mercantile or what have you must be able to rely on contracts being honored and fraud being punished and discouraged. Such restraints are far from perfect (see how many years Maddof got away with his shenanigans), but these restraints are in place.

The most capitalist place in the world was Hong Kong under the British.

ruveyn

Laws against that which is deemed unfair are inherently collective and altruistic. The fact that some individual self-interest is at stake (i.e. the people writing/voting for such laws wouldn't want to be victims themselves) doesn't negate the collective and altruistic nature of laws. Some people care about justice for it's own sake, even if self-interest is an additional consideration.

Well, that's probably why most people don't. Most people who are left wing will argue for socialism--not Communism.

And this would be where I ask the questions why do we have jobs? why do we need to buy things? and is it really the way society should be set up. Then again when you start questioning everything that the society seems to be built on it can be a lot to try and thinka about.

But then it is not communism is it, because someone has to be in charge of the force it is enforced by.....which means ruling class which cannot exist in actual communism.

And the intresting thing is this is already taking place...

The best way I can put it, look into evolutionary psychology. We're built on a lot of things that we have zero control over, part of this is that - in a lot of ways - we will take the path of least resistance, money does talk, and societies unravel fast when they exist on handouts (not to mention family unravels, it gets to be something like an all expenses paid version of being in the wild where the most powerful and violent will be the most likely to procreate - even moreso than today).

Its not that we're vile sinners, its that we're a very big (six billion) clan of apes mounting each other from the back and there's nothing more that we can be until some very big problems get fixed - the genetic prison (sort of a 'damnation in life by birth' - whether for uselessness, lack of ability, violent tendencies, mental/physical illness, etc.) being the first and foremost, after that being our ability to take our production to the next level and truly have a society who can physically and mentally cope with having machines make everything and truly, and in all senses, superfluous (believe it or not that makes *many* people suicidal).

So.... its extremely involved and we as humans are loaded with complications stacked hard against any ability for long-term happiness at the present time.

If A did not cause B to be hungry why should A be compelled to feed B?

If need is a sufficient criterion to demand satisfaction, why bother to work? Just demand what you need from someone who has what you need.

ruveyn

I'm pretty sure that Marx (and I know that Lenin) said there was another side to that social contract: you are expected to work in return for being provided what you need. "To each according to his need, from each according to his ability."