Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00440)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:
> You got a lousy dictionary there. While a number of philosophers 
have 
> discussed the ideas called Communism, the basis of Communism is 
still 
> "from each according to his own ability and to each according to 
his own 
> need."

> The major problem with Communism is that it assumes that, under a 
> Communist system, greed and evil will naturally disappear. 
Communist 
> systems can and do work, but only up to the point where someone 
points 
> to someone else and says, "That guy isn't working as hard as he 
can", or 
> "that person is getting more than they need." This creates a new 
job; 
> those who determine how hard people can work, and how much they 
need.

Read about the Essenes. They lived communally, but (1) obody 
married, so membership was by invitation and not the accident of 
birth, (2) only persons with phenomenal dedication were admitted (no 
slackers need apply), (3) those who were admitted were severely 
tested and required to submit to a draconian system of rules and 
penalties, (4) those who did not fit were summarily dismissed from 
the community, and (5) the system only worked for a subset of the 
community. It was impossible to extend this to the entire nation.

If communism does not "work" that last is the reason why. It is 
impossible to communize an entire community without things falling 
apart becsuse of the special qualities that are required in the 
members. The problem is that humanity is too diverse and those 
qualities will never be universal in human societies the way they are 
in ant farms. Societies where this has been tried have inevitably 
resorted to "expelling" people who do not fit by means of mass murder 
and labor camps. In more civilized countries, people who did not fit 
were occasionally encouraged by tax policy to go elsewhere, but the 
experiment did not last long.

As for Blavatsky, she hinted in one of her articles that in her uouth 
she sympathized with the anarchist movement in Russia, although she 
clearly was not un sympathy with it in old age.