The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

A little discussion came up on this thread (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4877.0), and I'm continuing it here at Luki's suggestion.


Actually, leadership is not something that Anarcho-Communism or Libertarian Socialism believe to be necessary. Order comes about naturally from a common interest to accomplish something.

Let's take one example we're probably all familiar with: free software. Like it or not, free software is essentially the very definition of Anarchist Communism; anyone is allowed access to it in order to use, modify, and distribute it as they please as long as they also provide these same rights for their modification/redistribution, which often causes people to voluntarily help on the project. In open source projects, there really is no need for a leader. As long as people are contributing to the project, the project will move forward.


I realize that not everyone is equal. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." For the common interest of not only survival, but a good life as well, people will work together and do what they do best.

Yeah, tell that to Timewarp or any other free software program that failed. Leadership isn't necessary for rote day to day work, but it is needed to keep a group together and to move it forward. Open source projects live and die with a team and it's fairly uncommon for one to be successful without some organization. Or have I got that wrong?


But if someone has a certain key ability, what motivates him/her to use it if it involves working a lot harder than those around him? Not saying we need all theincentiveswe have now, but with no incentives there'll be a lot of people who will simply do the minimal amount required.

TimeWarp died because there wasn't enough interest in it, just like every other project that has died. On the other hand, projects that people have a great interest in, such as Linux, continue to thrive. This occurs all the same in our current Capitalist system; things that companies work on that the public has no interest die out. The only difference is, while lack of interest is found out after the fact in our current system, resulting in a waste of resources and effort, lack of interest in open source results in the project dying before it's made, allowing potential contributors to move on to something more worthwhile.

Also, I must stress that no central leader is not synonymous with no organization (i.e. chaos). In a system with no central leader, the default is democracy, where the majority rules, and those in a small minority are usually willing to compromise what they would ideally like in order to achieve something.


The interest of achieving something, of course! Consider why people working on Project6014 are working so hard!

But let me give you a different, real-world example. A farmer. Why would a farmer grow a large amount of food and share it with others, when he can just grow enough for himself? The simple answer is, why not? It feels good to know that you're making a good difference in society. A farmer would feel much more important if he grows more and shares with everyone around him, because he knows that he's making people happy and keeping people alive. I don't know what kind of job you have, but can you honestly tell me you would be a lazy bum and do as little as possible?

Of course, there would likely be some people who are simply assholes and try to take advantage of the system, but these people would be shamed by everyone around them and, most likely, discover how unfulfilling being a lazy bum is. I must stress that in a working Anarchist Capitalist system, the bare minimum is zero contributions. There is no higher pecking order requiring you to do X amount of work. Instead, people do work because they want to contribute to society. This means lazy people cannot possibly justify doing nothing, even to themselves, and would be compelled by shame to contribute to society in some way, after which he would quickly learn that working isn't so bad.

Farmers don't produce more just out of curtesy - they need overproduction for paying for the required services, like electricity, water, stove gas and land costs. Of corse farms could be made self-supporting, but it would still need a huge amount of initial investments, that need to come from somewhere, or have means of loan return.

Not really. There was still a lot of interest in Timewarp and several developers present on the scene when I arrived some years ago. But even with all that, they couldn't make the project work. It's not that easy to get all sorts of volunteers coding according to standards that are anywhere near easy for others to pick up and follow through on. It's also pretty hard to do innovation by committee, which is what a democracy requires.


I actually work in a flat organisation. Do you know what happens when there is no clear command structure and everyone has an equal say in how a project should be done? Nothing gets done. people talk a lot, but no one can make a decision because no one has that authority unless you have... a leader. and if no one is appointed, it's usually whoever shouts the loudest.

Speaking of minority and majority, you end up in a completely different ballpark there. What if what the majority wants is very objectionable to the minority, or vice versa? Are there any checks and balances n your system?



The people on that project work hard because they have a common goal and someone organizing things. I won't pretend to know their inner workings, but I'm pretty sure not everyone has an equal say in their organization.


Idealistic, but not realistic. If the farmer ends up with a lot of neighbours eating his food, demanding that he grow their favourite vegetables and giving him nothing in return but contempt, he'll eventually stop giving food away. After working hard in the field all year, he's likely to feel a bit bitter if he is the only one who has to do it while others just lounge around.


I'm a process design engineer. In my work I often see exactly this. If you get paid as much as the guy in the next cubicle, and you know that he spends most of his time goofing off and drinking coffee, you'll likely be less motivated to put in overtime and sacrifice family life for projects you do together. Not everyone of course, but it's true for a lot of people. If you just give someone increased responsibility and a heavier workload while keeping their salary at the same level as someone who has a lighter workload and no responsibility, they'll resent it and often underperform.


People don't need to be assholes to not feel compelled to give their all if they don't feel their input is recognized or respected. Anyway, if you were an asshole living in paradise with free food and no work, what would you care about those silly working ants and their opinions? You'd hang out with the other assholes.

And again, wanting to contribute to society and actually doing so are different things. I know several old ladies here in town who are trying to help immigrants with their Swedish skills. Lovely ladies, doing good in their spare time. Except they have never spoken anything but Swedish, so they have no clue about how to teach a language or even what their pupils are asking about. The immigrants come confused, and leave even more confused. Should they feel shamed, or is this a good thing? If asked, they'd probably not want to do anything else, this is where their passion lies. they just aren't good at it.

That's in today's Capitalist system. I'm talking about an Anarcho-Communist system.


If TimeWarp truly is wanted, people who want it will do whatever they can to contribute to the project. Otherwise, in the minds of the potential developers, the output is not worth the effort. Of course, there can be a situation where there are no people interested who have a necessary skill (i.e. programming or 3D modeling), but if that's the case, those who are interested will come up with a compromise, or perhaps try to get people with the necessary skill interested.


Yes, I can see your argument. This usually isn't the case, however, because most people are willing to make compromises for the benefit of a team effort. In the cases where a leader really is needed, a pseudo-leader will "take over" and direct traffic, without actually being officially in charge, and if he fails to properly represent what the majority wants, he will be ousted.


You mean, like in a game, making the KKK a protagonist and black people an antagonist? In this type of case, if it doesn't result in the death of the project, some type of bigotry must be normalized and a change in thought is needed. A leader being in charge wouldn't help at all, because he would most likely make the decision that would make more developers willing to keep at it. Therefore, rather than angering the racists who want the KKK to be the protagonist, he will anger the few black people who are part of the project by allowing the KKK to be a protagonist.

Of course, you would be right if we were talking about government, but we aren't. Putting in checks to ensure against "objectionable" content would only serve to hinder freedom of speech.


Your example isn't realistic either; it's pessimistic. Reality is far more likely to be between the idealistic and pessimistic extremes.


In your example, people are only going to work because they want to make money. In a society where such an incentive doesn't exist, people wouldn't go to a workplace and do nothing productive. You have to keep in mind, in an Anarcho-Communist society, there is no paycheck you get for being in a workplace. People only would go to a workplace if they want to work.


The problem with this assertion is it wouldn't be paradise. The rest of the working majority would detest you for wasting resources and not doing your fair share. In short, you and your asshole friends (if they even exist) would be outcasts.

This would be nearly impossible, but let's say, for the sake of argument, that for some reason 80% of people were lazy bums. Guess what would happen? Quality of life would plummet and they would be compelled to work to improve the quality of life by doing work; researching, making new things, etc.

Hey, don't take the sacred TimeWarp into that silly discussion! It's not failed yet!  ;D Okay maybe it is, but I'm still dreaming for proper Melee with global server list and multiple ships on a battlefield, everything running on my Android phone of course  ::) would be easier to improve UQM network then to fix TimeWarp bugs I guess.


Actually, 99% of people are lazy bums and other 1% have mental illnesses of some sort (that's not scientific data, just personal opinion).
What makes that lazy bums work is greed and desire to be better than others. No way someone will work for the sake of others if it won't give him/her more than others have. Even if you'll make zillion of robots to do all routine job for other ppl they will just do some silly things like abusing the power, making robots battle each other etc - there will be no reason for a person to improve, because you'll take the basic ground for improvement away, and that ground is our ancient instincts like hunger, greed and envy. Yes they're bad, but only if you abuse them in the way prohibited by law, when they are working properly you're doing useful work and moving progress ahead and filling up your pocket. So, why throw away a thing which worked for a million years and made humans dominant species on the planet? It's against open-source software ideas :P

I've heard this argument before, so I'm well aware of it. People are greedy and only care about themselves and their power, so if you aren't given a higher status for working harder, you will be a lazy bum. But I highly disagree. Even if power is a heavy driver today, and it very well might be, that doesn't mean that power is a necessary driver. Scientists are already driven by a quest for knowledge. I know very well that I'm driven to make games by my desire to make people happy. Linux sure wasn't driven by a desire for power, but I'd bet it was driven by a desire to have a UNIX-like OS on home computers. You see where I'm going here? People don't only care about their power over others. Power is something that many people seek, but it is not the only thing that people seek.

It matters whether your putting food on the table, not if your games are making people happy.

Just to point something out, Linux is absolutely NOT a leaderless, anarchist project. Linus Torvalds always has and still does control what goes into it, in addition to running and organizing the project. Linux is an example of a benevolent dictatorship, NOT anarchist communism. There are very few succesful free software/open source projects without any kind of leadership.


I agree wholeheartedly.

I understand this, but it is still an effort from many people with no monetary incentive. That was all I was saying.


So, all you care about is whether you have food? You have no desire to be useful to others? I'm having a hard time believing that.

Unless you satisfy the first, the second is irrelevant.

I realize that, but it's pretty easy to satisfy the first unless you're facing a food crisis.

So tell me about your system Are farms completely self-sustained? Or are there factory communities producing tractors and the likes?


But if what they can do isn't enough, the project is doomed to fail. As every volunteer project without the proper resources. And both getting them and getting everyone to agree with them is not an easy task. That is my point. people don'tust magically turn up and agree to compromise and follow someone else's direction, especially if they hold one of several key skills. But if they don't, the project doesn't move forward.


No, this usually is the case. People are complex creatures and "the benefit of team effort" ranks pretty low on your list of priorities. That's management speak and we spit on it. Pseudo-leaders do emerge, but will almost always fail since they lack any actual authority. For instance, imagine your school janitors. Do you really think that they work together for team benefits and will willingly allow one of their own to start organizing the schedule of everyone else just like that?


No, I mean as in the aforementioned janitors all voting together that "Cleaning toilets is Jack's job, we've all voted for that so clearly that's decided". You seem to be somewhat under the impression that we're just talking about computer development here. We're not, I don't care much about intellectual theories on how software should be produced. You mentioned that you want volunteers to take over real life things, such as refineries, farms and whatnot. That's what I'm curious about.


So what is at top, organizing these groups?


Here's a more realistic version. Bob and Bill have a farm each. They are both the same size, and based on "to everyone what he needs", they get the same kind of resources from wherever, and can both live similar lives. Bill works his ass off to produce as much food as possible. As a result he works long days, but it pays off in the form of loads of crops that he can give onwards to everyone. That gives him a lovely warm feeling, but he doesn't see his wife much. Bob does the bare minimum required. He grows crops comfortably, and hands out what little gets left over to others. His days are shorter and he can spend more time with his wife and children. Are you telling me that after several years of this, most Bill's out there wont start thinking "maybe spending more time with my family and doing less for the world wouldn't hurt, Bob seems to manage okay"?


I suspect your society will be a dirty dirty place, few people actually want to clean toilets or sweep streets at 5 in the morning. Also, I'm very good at what I do. I enjoy my job and I find it rewarding. But given the alternative to simply travel around the world, paint a  little and try to write stories, I'd never go back in to work. I suspect a lot of engineers out there feel the same. Optimizing a bitumen pumping system is rewarding, but it's hardly what anyone dreams of doing. So how is going to run the factories? Well meaning volunteers with a background in political sciences? They'll blow a refinery up before noon.


I reiterate, why do I care what the majority thinks? People who flaunt social conventions and are ostracised for it exist today, why would they suddenly cease to exist?


And by the time this is noticeable and we've exhausted current stocks, we have a whole generation that hasn't learned about all the fancy high tech stuff they need to operate and control, power generation and production slump off, people starve and humanity slips backwards into the 18th century, feudalism is reinstated and we start over. Good going.

As a matter of fact several key Linux developers are paid to work on Linux, and other free software/OSS projects have paid contributors as well.

Before I go on to address your specific quotes, let me remind you that I'm talking about Anarchist Communism. There is no plan, there are no leaders, there are no superiors.


You seem to be under the impression that Anarchist Communism is a planned economy, which it isn't.

Other than that... why would farms be "self-sustained"? I'm talking about Anarchist Communism, here, not Anarcho-capitalism! Anarchist Communism is everyone banding together, helping each other out! How would this be reflected in a self-sustained farm?!


If there are no people with the necessary skills who are interested, in an Anarchist Communist system, it gets abandoned.


OK, let's say I give you two choices. You can sew the shirt by hand yourself to get the red-black checkered design you want, or you can make a compromise for a green-black checkered design with the help of 50 other workers and a proper factory. Which one do you choose?


The problem is, that kind of decision is not enforceable. Jack can just leave.

As for why I use software as examples a lot, naturally it's because I'm most familiar with that field, and so I can provide more specific examples.


No one. That would completely go against Anarchist Capitalism.


There's a such thing as "too much work". But that doesn't mean he should do the bare minimum, either. He should do whatever he's comfortable with. If he wants to grow 10 times as many crops as he actually needs, fine. If he's tired and only wants to produce a little more than what he needs, fine.


Factories are an issue that becomes less and less of an issue as more and more things can be automated. Actually, this is applicable to every type of boring, tedious, disgusting, or otherwise undesired jobs. As technology progresses, less and less unskilled labor is needed.

As for your "blow up a refinery" example, I have thought about this before, and I would advocate some regulations on who can do what based on education level.


People today are ostracized today for being different, so this is not a proper comparison. A far more proper comparison would be someone being ostracized by his/her co-workers for sleeping on the job and still taking a paycheck.


No, if only 20% of the population was working, the state would be facing famine and the lazy bums would get off their asses and grow some food, or in a worst-case scenario, the entire civilization would collapse from struggles to survive. But you're forgetting, this is a highly unlikely extreme. Let's create a similar one with our Capitalist system. Everyone decides that they're fine with just living on welfare, so food stocks run short, and either they get off their lazy asses and work, or famine causes disease and death, and the entire civilization collapses.

Do you see the flaw with this argument now? It is no different than the free-market Capitalist argument that welfare promotes laziness. People are not that lazy. People will seek to learn, improve, and better their standard of living, even if it helps everyone else around them at the same time.

I'm guessing you still live at home with your folks onpon? Here's an expiriment for ya: Get some friends together and rent an apartment. Now try practicing "Anarchist Communism" with your roommates. You'll soon understand why it will never work.

With respect as to how Project 6014 is “managed”, its actually pretty early days. It’s worked so far because it has been a very small team. I’ve been lucky to have people that are committed to the cause and have taken ownership of it. As long as people think that they are doing it for someone else I think they’ll lose interest.

As a project coordinator the challenge is to make contributors feel their own a piece of it and will be credited/rewarded with its success.

The bigger it gets though the harder it will be. It will be harder and harder to incorporate everyone’s ideas as they start conflicting. This is inevitable as a group of decision makers grows and grows.

So my thinking is at this time to keep the core group that I have and only add people if I’m convinced that they share the same vision.

Bringing this back on topic, I think Timewarp is a fair analogy for Communism where it was a nice idea in theory but didn’t work in practise. What we have at Project6014 may perhaps turn out to be a bit more of an oligarchy, where the key decisions are made by a core group who share the same values and vision. And of course this is supplemented by contributions made by a wider group. Not a direct democracy by any means, but then not ruled by the iron fist of one tyrant either.

And when it comes to story telling, the less people involved the better!

I’d be more prepared to believe in Communism if there were any examples of success to draw upon. I cant think of any, but I can think of several absolutely horrendous disasters: Cambodia, North Korea, post-war Russia for starters. And ultimately these were all regimes that were controlled by a dictators in any case. This is because in the end, someone opportunistic ends up filling the decision making void.

People think of themselves first – its human nature. The need for community is only brought about by the need for personal security.

In the purviews of philosophy, psychology, and politics, anecdotal evidence is marginally meaningful. I do not mean this as an attack. Instead, I intend for this to be an embellishment on the fact that personal experiences often lead to hasty generalizations that spawn waves of misconception. Even self discovered truths such as the mighty axiom, “I think, therefore I am” can be brought to their knees with the simple question, “What if human logic is flawed?”

My point is that one can not speak definitively on matters such as this. For example, the statement, “Humans are inherently greedy, and naturally work in their own interest” is rather dubious. Are humans selfish? Or do the social machinations of today turn us into these less than altruistic abominations? If so, are we too far gone? How do we know in the first place? I can tell you that I most certainly can not say, but perhaps we can come across something similar to an answer if we try to find it. That is, ideals are obviously not viable, but is it incorrect to strive for them? In spite of the reality we are presented, can we almost achieve the impossible?

The only truly straight lines are imagined, so must we scribble?
Or shall we search for the silver lining of every storm cloud, only to be struck by lightning?

I don't understand why you people bring Timewarp in this discussion, really, without properly analysing which form of 'government' it used in the first place ;).

Haha, fair enough too

Enlighten us Angelfish!!

There have been Anarchist Communist nations before, in Spain during the Spanish Revolution and the Free Territory during the Russian Revolution. Both of these were crushed by more powerful regimes.

Authoritarian Communism, such as what occurred in the Soviet Union and still occurs in Cuba and North Korea, are NOT a good measure of how successful an Anarchist Communist nation would be.


Actually, that already happens in today's society. The only difference is it usually happens between two people who are married.

they had an asshole as a leader back in the day :P. Nevertheless, he was a good programmer :).

This alone should tell you something. An essentially leaderless society will always be crushed by a well organized military force, especially if that miliatry force has a numbers advantage, because even if the poeple are motivated to defend themselves, they won't be able to muster an organized defense in time for it to matter. This is why your Anarchist Communist utpoia will speedily be invaded and usurped by someone with a desire for power and an army at his back, assuming they don't gain that power through charisma and politics alone in a climate devoid of a strong leader.


The divorce rate in the US is currently hovering around 65%, last I heard.

Utopia? Who said anything about a utopia? I already realize that an Anarchist Communist society has its disadvantages, with weak/no military perhaps being one of them.

But then again, you are ignoring the context of both of those societies. Both of them came about during times of war/revolution, and to top it off, they were put down by world superpowers (namely the Soviet Union) and militarist states (namely Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy). That argument is about as valid as saying that Finland is no good because the US could probably take them over tomorrow if they wanted to.

Okay, I'll keep that in mind- Doesn't that make running anything more complex than a knitting circle pretty challenging though? Being a farmer, you pretty much have to reply on strangers being interested enough in building tractors, running refineries, operating chemical plants and keeping a traffic network running. If any of them fail, you can't do much more than grow by hand for your own use, and everyone depending on people like you starve. The system just sounds really sensitive to disturbances, especially since it all hinges on someone being interested in the most unlikely of things.


And this is fine for a piece of entertainment software. But less so for a nuclear power plant.


That's simplistic to the extreme. Lets say I'm part of the collective that runs a refinery and I want to upgrade the flare network. But bob wants to switch out a leaky heat exchanger and Jane wants to look at the sulphur pit. We're all equal and we all look to what we know about. Only one of these things can be done during the turnaround though, so we're locked in endless debate on what to do.


Not if they vote to chain him up. There's no law to stop them after all. On a grander scale, if the Riverdale Valley industrial collective votes to run their trucks into the Riverside Valley farming collective and kidnap their women to hold in exchange for goods, who stops them?



So if most farmers eventually want to spend most of their time with their families, everyone needs to farm. Specialization ends and we all get busy growing our food, except for the collectives who vote for razing homesteads in their path.


Robots that can do all our menial jobs are way into the future. Right now many more automated factories require their operators to have 3 or 4 years of experience before they can be trusted to go out into the field on their own and fix all the automatic systems that break down. A pressure control valve that sticks full of bitumen because the steam tracing fails isn't going to be opened by anyone but a human or a fairly advanced android. Same with your basic clogged toilet really.


And who decides on these regulations? I thought there was no organization? Without one, no way are you going to be able to stop liberal arts majors who really want to help providing power for humanity.


No, that's not true. There are plenty of people out there already who do the absolute minimum they get away with. They are already ostracized to varying levels by their co-workers, but they continue anyway. I have not visited a single office that didn't have at least one of these guys.


In our current system the state will have time to cut welfare and state owned media will get the word out. in your system no one is actually overseeing this, so there's no way of knowing how bad things are before we run out of food. Sure, by the time we're down to canned stocks people will be grumbling a bit, but hey. The Easter islanders probably grumbled a bit when that last tree was cut down as well, imprisoning them on the island and impoverishing them for all eternity.


Hard to see a flaw that isn't there. I'll happily agree that many people aren't lazy, but as a race we have a tendency to take the easy way out.


Oh I agree completely. But in my opinion experience with people still trumps completely theoretical idealization. If onpon4 was citing scientific studies on human behaviour, I'd keep my work experiences to myself. But he isn't, he's just giving us theorized behaviour that is far from what most people experience at work every day. Thus I submit my anecdotal evidence as a (weak) argument.


That's what the Soviet Union thought as well boy. You're welcome to try ;)

Sadly, what Lukipela describes as happening at his workplace is not anecdotal, it happens everywhere, I have three immediate colleagues (in team of 17) that are just that. We only have two (I'm proud to be one of them) that do the absolute maximum possible. All my friends and working relatives tell the same story.
You can't run away from Human nature - we are lazy egoistic bunch...

Well, to be honest, my boss pays me peanuts -- so he gets a monkey :). Luckily I can get away with that because most people are even lazier or even too dumb to actually accomplish anything. The worse your company is managed the more monkeys you have on the floor.
I also have some people like you as colleagues. I always wonder whether they are happy to sell themselves into such slavery, getting underpaid, fucked over by their bosses and still working their asses off each day ;).

And then he is an unproductive bum living on the streets cause this happens to all of his jobs.

I think the definition of Communism is something that looks great, but just doesn't work. I'd be all for a working society of equal persons, if it actually existed.

it does work. China isn't falling apart. neither is North Korea or Cuba.

Neither of these states are truly communistic - they all use currencies and have extensive internal enforcement.

The Soviet Union wasn't looking particularly unstable when it was 50 years old either, it was building nuclear missile sites less than 100 miles from American shores. But we all know what happened after another 40 years.

People today do "work" so they can get money to buy food. People would contribute to food production to ensure that they get food. It's not really that unstable.


People have an interest in surviving, and they have an interest in having electricity.


Where did I say there would be no law?


When did I say there would be no organization? I seem to remember stating specifically that no leaders is not synonymous with no organization.


That's because they are being forced to work, which is something they don't like.


Ever heard of "word of mouth"?


As a race, we tend to take the way that we feel benefits us most. I think that, to most people, prosperity seems like a beneficial thing.

In this situation, the majority's rule IS law. There is nothing stopping them from breaking all those nice rules the people who started this system thought up, if they really want to.

The closest anyone got to the true Communism were the Kibbutzim of early Israel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz) but even this failed over quite short time. They couldn't sustain themselves and need constant investments from the state. People abandoning the Kibbutz quite regularly and the internal rules are changed dramatically to try to survive, but it's just not working...

That doesn't mean that they aren't, in some part, communistic. In fact, what defines true communism is something that's interpreted by everyone differently.

yes, it had fallen apart. Many states that have a parliamentary democracy have fallen apart too. What's your point?

I suppose it depends what you mean by falling apart. 2 million people died of starvation in North Korea in the 90s. Tjhe regime ,may have remained in place but the economy and society went bottoms up long ago

Likewise in China during the Great Leap Forward - 50 million dead. The thing abut democracies is that regimes come and go but generally the economy and society, the true measures of a nation, remain relatively stable.

Yes. bad execution. Not a bad system ;).

[/quote]

Those 50 million you mention are grossly exaggerated. Actual estimates vary between 20 and 45 million.
And just look at China now. I am guessing that their economy, society and culture are still intact despite those millions of dead people.
The 3 gorges dam as an example, wouldn't be possible in any democratic country. Waay too much red tape.

No law and no organization are what you tend to get with no leaders. In order to enforce laws and apply organization, you need someone in charge to delegate tasks and ensure that lawbreakers are punished. This is where the "anarchy" part of anarcist communism comes into play; people can arbitrarily try to make laws all they want, but without leadership there is no enforcement beyond personal vigilanteism.


You're absolutely right. However, many people, when presented with the choice of "prosperity thanks to my own hard work" and "prosperity thanks to skating by off of someone else's hard work," will have no qualms about choosing the latter. The issue is that people tend to choose the route they feel benefits them personally the most, not society the most, so they choose personal prosperity over community prosperity.


So... you would want to live in a totalitarian regime? I know I wouldn't. Governance by fear tends to be fairly unstable, and work toward the detriment of all but the elite few. And then a bigger bully shows up, deposes the current ruler, and the vicious cycle repeats.

Alot of what onpon is saying sounds like Jim Jones' theories. The cult leader who's legacy is that 900 of his followeres (and himself) commited suicide or were murdered in 1978. Although christianity was Jones' premise, he only used religion to lure people into his group. Religion was a ruse as he was an athiest with a firm belief in communism. He promised his followers a communist eden on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

In my view, pure communism doesn't work just as pure capitalism doesn't work. Even though people like to think the U.S. is the shining pilar of capitalism, without our solcialist policies our country would fall apart.

Of course. Unrestrained capitalism is what caused the great depression, and was responsible for a lot of the reprehensible conditions in the US around the turn of the century in 1900. It wasn't until we started heavily regulating business practices that we got back on our feet (of course, the war economy that developed at the time didn't hurt).

Ofcourse I wouldn't want to live in such a regime. But I believe that we were talking about what government is best for the country as a whole, not for specific peons like ourselves ;).

Just because the regimes in charge of North Korea, Cuba, and China haven't collapsed, doesn't necessarily mean they're "best" for the country. In fact, I'd say they're a far cry from it in all 3 cases.

I don't think so. China will succeed in becoming the major dominant power on earth in the coming decades because of this very regime. Does this make china a nice country to live in? Don't think so, but it makes China achieve things it could never achieve otherwise.

Cuba is/was a terrible country for most people. I personally know people who traveled ~120 miles on a raft to escape Castro after he tried to kill the family.

Ofcourse the country is terrible for the people.. but we weren't talking about what's best for the people ;).

I honestly don't think anything else is really significant.

Ofcourse not. People by themselves can't look at 'the bigger picture', what's best for the country. People can only think for themselves, what's best for them personally.

I think there is a key difference here though. In our current system, whatever you do you have a certain power over your available resources. Simplified, if you’re a farmer you have a list that you can tick off for what you’ll need to buy during the following year, and you know how much you have to buy it with. But in the system you’re describing, all I have is a list. Then I just have to hope that some community somewhere happens to be producing this thing, and that they haven’t already given their surplus away. And if I understand things correctly, I can’t even incite them with food, because that makes it a bartering economy instead. So if the tractor repairing community close by disbands, I best hope that someone further away from my home is doing the same and is willing to take time out to come look at my tractor even though they aren’t dependent on my food. Just missing one of a long list of critical things will ruin my crops and leave people hungry. And it snowballs from there.


You keep repeating this like it means that everything we have an interest in, we can do. Wanting to do something and being able to do it are two completely different things. If there are no trained nuclear engineers in your part of the country, that plant will stop irregardless. And here’s a little secret. There are many necessary jobs out there that are tedious, boring and mind-numbing. Given a chance, people will switch over to being something else, even if they are no good at that either. And when people are needed In those jobs, everyone is going to say “Why me? There are plenty of other ex-engineers, one of them, should do it”. Or janitors, or manual labourers, or whatever.


Well, you did state that there is no organization on top. I guess every group can vote to have their own laws and enforce them within the group, but that’s not the same as laws. And if the group votes do something another group disapproves of, what are you going to do? Unless you have a voluntary judiciary, a voluntary prison system and a voluntary police force. But in that case, why would the people in the voluntary police force take orders from anyone else? They are the guys with the guns.


Again, you stated that there is no organization on top, these are all independent groups. There’s no reason for a group in Iowa to follow the regulations put forth by a group in California. Your “regulation” is pretty much the same as your “law”, something a group of people votes on and accepts as a rule. That doesn’t bind any other group to it though. Don’t like that my cotton producing group uses back people as slave labour? Don’t like that our janitor group thinks that “bacteria” are a scientific piece of propaganda against God? Don’t like that in our Nuclear plant group, feelings are as important as numbers? Well those are the rules we voted on and if you don’t like them I guess you can just leave. You get to feel smug later when a lot of people die, but that hardly helps.


Are you actually saying that people underperform at work because it is something they need to do to survive, but if they don’t get paid but the job still needs to be done in order for them to survive they’ll become wonderfully motivated to do it? Less freedom equals more meaning?


You mean rumour? Yeah, sure. I hear farmer Bob is really hoarding all that food for himself, let’s go look in his basement! Seriously, even if there is an anarchist press around, how do I know that they aren’t being given food by farmer Bob to write what he wants me to think?  It’s not like there is any authority that will punish them for publishing false information. For all I know their “law” is “We write whatever gives us potatoes”.


This was replied to already, but what benefits me or even my family most is not what benefits us as a race most.

As an aside, I notice you skipped quite a few points, I’ll just assume you concede those.

Also, an interesting thought. That Free Territory and the Spanish one was pretty interesting, but they seemed like ethnically and culturally pretty homogenous groups. Is there any record of this being tried where people have different religions, cultures and social norms?

No. Actually, I think people will be more motivated when they want to do it, i.e. someone who loves the outdoors running a farm.


That would be completely pointless, because the publishers could not get any better access to the farmer's food (legally, at least). They might as well publish the truth.


Not necessarily, but I don't have an answer for them right now. I'm definitely not a politician and I'm no good at debating or researching, so if you try debating someone better at it than me... don't get your hopes up. ;)

Who loves to do this? It's difficult, labor intensive, back-breaking work to run a subsistence farm, let alone one that can feed an entire region. Why would people be motivated to produce more than they and their family need to survive? Most of the folks who "love running a farm" nowadays are so enormously wealthy from other channels that they can treat it as a diversion and a hobby to subsistence farm. I doubt that most of the folks who work on the huge, modern, industrial-style farms that produce most of our food really love what they do, nor would be able to run such an operation without leadership.


Legally what? Who is making these laws you keep mentioning? Why wouldn't they publish lies, if it benefitted them? Who is going to stop them? People who love policing others? What makes those "police" any different from gangsters, enforcing their personal code via the business end of a gun?


What purpose does government have if not to represent the people? A nation cannot exist without its people. A governement without the support of its people can only enforce its will through fear and force, and will eventually fall because of that; people won't stand for those conditions indefinitely. This is why the most totalitarian regimes have to deal with the most violent uprisings.

And we're back to the two things I mentioned earlier. First off, there are a lot of very important jobs out there that aren't super inspiring and something you love with the very core of your being.  I'd guess you'd suddenly see a lot more poets, writers and other jobs like that, the stuff people dream of doing now. And maybe some physical jobs like park ranger or builder. But other professions will be sucked dry. Not just the really sucky jobs that can't be replaced by machines right now, but also some of the okay to nice jobs that consist of pushing paper back and forth and going to meetings all day. And secondly, not everyone wants to do all that much.

That brings an interesting point up actually. I think we've established that there are people around who are ostracised right now for being lazy at work and getting "unfair" compensation. in your system, you think this would not happen, although it's not clear to me why. But can you always even be sure? I mean, I sit in meetings for several hours a day. i coordinate a lot of small projects, but I do very little hands on work in most of them. I'm sort of a human databank for this stuff, since I've been involved in every project on some level. But that's pretty hard to measure. I could just sit in those meetings and ignore everything said. I could get away with always just referring questions onwards to the next person. How would anyone know when I cross the point from working to slacking off? There are a lot of jobs like this out there, where your coordinator or management guy might be lazy, or just not good at what he does. How do you determine if he is to be ostracised or pitied?


I'm confused because I wrote a whole bunch on law in my last reply that you seem to have skipped, and yet you still claim that there is some form of law here. Can you please explain how this all encompassing law works without any overlaying oganization? I mean sure, I accept that the groups will be able to govern their own somehow, but how do you force several groups to conform to these laws? Isn't that completely the opposite of what you've been saying before?


I'm not a debater either, my main interest here is to understand how your system works. In my opinion, I'm asking some pretty simple questions and pointing out some valid real world situations that I think might negatively impact the function of your system. But that doesn't mean I assume I'm right. If there are clear logical answers and good reasons for this work, I'd love to hear them. If there are some newer experiments with this on any scale I'd be interested in reading about them. If you want to point me in the direction of some FAQ on this stuff that you think is good I'd love to read it. It just seems to me that if you wholeheartedly believe in this system, you should be able to reply to my questions and at least give me some insight on where you disagree. Otherwise you'll run into trouble as soon as you try to make this real.

Also, i've replied to all your points. If you're not going to do the same, it'd be polite to let me know beforehand  :P

As mentioned before, Kibbutz movement was pretty close to Communist ideals. Not Anarchistic, though. And it worked for some time pretty effectively, despite hostile environment, both physical and national. You might want to read about in on Wikipedia.

As an anarchist, I oppose an Authoritarian state, but I have to disagree with you on this one. Just look at every empire that has existed throughout history. Most of them fell as a result of being too spread-out, being conquered by a more powerful empire, or otherwise from bad leadership, not as a result of angry citizens. Propoganda, nationalism, and religion have historically always been effective at keeping citizens in check.


I'm not fully responding because I don't have an answer. This just means that I would like to first see what another Anarcho-Communist says at some point in the future, and then reconsider my position. You can take my lack of response as a victory, I suppose; it can mean that you're right and I will eventually agree with you (for the most part, changing my position to a less Libertarian view), or it can mean that I will still disagree and will have a much more refined answer. This will probably not be for a LOOOOOONG time (i.e. several months), however, because 8 hours of my day are pre-scheduled for school, and I would rather spend my free time working on games and playing games.

Also, I should mention that I have no intention of trying to make this real, although I do have intention of promoting a gift economy within our capitalist economy mostly by developing open source software.

As for pointing you to an FAQ, I don't know of one as of now, so your research is as good as mine. There is, however, an interesting YouTube user who I have been subscribed to for a long time, TheElMoIsEviL (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheElMoIsEviL). He identifies as a left Libertarian, and his political beliefs are very similar to mine (in fact, I would say I partially drew many of my ideas from him).

Are you sure there aren't similar projects in other countries?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_dams_in_the_world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations_in_the_world

America put a man on the moon working together as a democracy, who knows what China could do as one.

I don’t really see debates as contests to be honest. I think the important part is that they get all involved parties thinking about the issues brought up, which in my opinion leads to better insight. For instance, you started this debate off saying that you were a Anarchist Communist and giving every indication that you knew how the system worked and approved of it. Here, at the end of the debate you’ve apparently drawn the conclusion that you need to think more about how this works, and presumably you will be looking at it from new angles. On my part, I started off thinking that this couldn’t possibly work. But I’ve learned about the Free Republic and the Spanish territories, something I wasn’t aware had ever existed,  and will be doing some reading on that. So if anything, I think we both come out winners.


I’m sure it isn’t your intention, but I’d be careful with your wording here. Coupled with the last message, it kind of gives me  a “well I have a life you know I haven’t got time for your silly internet debates. I might be back, but don’t desperately hope for it because I know you have nothing better to do” vibe. Keep in mind that you’re the one who brought this up and wanted to talk about it. In a similar fashion I could say “Good luck with learning, do post back if you manage to work out how your system functions but don’t count too much on me replying because I have a job, a family, a lot of social activities and when I’m on the internet I prefer to do useful stuff instead of talking to people who believe in half-formed concepts”.  See my point?


Fair enough, though you probably shouldn’t be calling yourself an Anarchist Communist then, more like someone with an interest in it.


Cool, I’ll check it out. Cheers.

Alvarin: My sister worked at Rosh Hanikra when she was young and I visited it. Nice place. There were Kibbutzes in Spain after the war as well IIRC, but I always saw it as more of a PR system than anything else.

No, no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm just informing you ahead of time that I probably won't be returning to this debate, because by the time I have looked into what I want to look into, this topic will most likely be dead. This was in no way intended to imply that I have "more of a life" than you (which, frankly, I think is a silly claim for anyone to make).


Well, right now, I'm hovering between Libertarian Socialist, Anarcho-Communist, and some kind of Libertarian (but not stateless) Communist. I'll find out later as I said. ;)

Millions of people had to be relocated for the 3 gorges dam. This massive relocating wouldn't be possible in any other country.
You will see China's supremacy rise in the next 20 years, they will surpass all that we will achieve.

And do you really think that the Chinese people don't support this government? I don't see massive and violent uprisings, yet I see megastrikes going on on democratic countries like France and Greece.

Just choose Democrat or Republican. Those are your only real options

That's because democratic countries don't violently repress dissent of any kind. If the Chinese people tried to pull something like that... well, just look at what happened last time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989).


Argh, too true. :(

Look a little bit backwards in history. It's not that they didn't try. It is just very difficult to maintain uprising against rifles and tanks...

Uh... no. Those are my only real options for elections, but I don't have to actually subscribe to their political ideologies.

Indeed, and as such the regime is quite effective in maintaining order. Where greece is in turmoil, china stands strong.

You see the megastrikes in Greece and France because the people have freedom to demonstrate and a free press so that others know they are demonstrating. The Chinese government is notorious for having a stranglehold on information, which is why you rarely hear about these things; it's not that they don't happen, it's that the Chinese goverment doesn't want anyone to find out, so they kill or "disappear" dissenters and won't allow news of demonstrations to get out, even within the country.

Of course, you already know this, and seem to think that dictatorships are the best kind of government. Are you a dictator, Angelfish? Because those tend to be the only ones who like this form of government.

Well, if you take Pratchett's lord Vetinari, dictatorship can be good for a state...

The country is not something to be glorified beyond the individuals that it consists of. If the government or whatever other system is present oppresses and takes these freedoms away from people, it becomes more of a burden than an entity serving to protect and unite them. Besides, any nation people would sacrifice almost anything to escape is hardly the image of a 'good country'. You would also want your country to live on in history as the very pinnacle of civilization. Barbarity and intolerance never make a good impression, unless of course you are an even worse barbarian.


Ha... We'll see how well their system fares in a few decades I suppose.

You sort of do unfortunately. Because in the end, the party you vote for represents the closest fit to your ideology. And in the end, its the party you vote for that represents the reality of the society you can live in.

I don't like dictatorships, but I can imagine that a dictatorship is working out quite allright for China as a country. I hope you're willing to look past what would be a perfect form of government for you personally, because quite frankly, you're just a tiny little drop of water in an ocean ;). If we'd all have our perfect form of government.. ask that to the dirt poor people without healthcare in the USA, or ask that to the heavy tax paying people in Sweden. Or ask that to the dutch elderly who get beaten up by moroccan people every day, because our country is so damn friendly to foreigners :).

So, you're saying that I can't choose the lesser evil (the Democratic party) unless I fully agree with everything the Democratic party says? Because all I said was the opposite of that. If that's not what you meant, you're not contradicting me here.

Based on your arguments, I was just about to peg you as a fascist, because the core of that belief system is the elevation of the state and its needs over those of the individual. In the long run, that works out well for basically nobody.

No country will ever have an ideal government for everyone, because you can't please everyone all of the time. However, ensuring the well being of as much of the majority as possible is the mark of a successful system. At no time does this include governments who work to ensure the well being of the ruling elite and to hell with everyone else, which is basically how most "communist" countries seem to have worked out.

I just came across this post.  So forgive me if some of the points I want to make are from earlier (and in the original thread).

My father was a Hungarian who came to the U.S. after fighting Russians for freedom from the USSR in the Hungarian Revolution. He was shot twice and almost died. My grandmother was gang raped by Russian soldiers. My grandfather almost died in a Gulag and only lived a few short years afterwards due to his injuries. Like Rome, Russia was maintaining itself by feeding off other countries. It also kept power by violent purges of anybody who opposed them, while blatantly spouting non-stop propaganda to get the masses to agree with them. It told everybody everything was okay while It was on the brink of economic collapse.  When I see some comments from somebody who is Russian commenting on how they prefer the old USSR compared to their new system of government I can't help but feel a little like giving them the finger.   For that unsustainable standard of living they enjoyed, how many had to oppressed? How many had to die?

Now, that being said. I believe the U.S. finds itself in a similar situation and I'm just as much against it. Until recently the U.S. had been enjoying an unsustainable standard of living. In many ways (like the deficit), we still are.  Our involvement in the middle east is mostly about our need for oil. How many have to be oppressed, and how many have to die so we can enjoy things like gas under $4/gallon?

As far as Republican and Democrats voting. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. You reap what you sow.

For stuff like open source projects like Timewarp (and project6014). Money is a great motivator, but not the only one. I think this video might provide some insight: What Motivates Us (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc)

I strongly disagree! I do not know nor care who you think you are, but I am no drop of water!

People are capable of amazing things when properly motivated. With the right amount of hard work, almost anyone can improve their lot in life. Furthermore, people are individuals. They have unique personalities, values, and interests which all make them behave differently.

If you like the Chinese government so much, why don't you simply pack all of your worldly possessions and move there?  ::)
I suggest you familiarise yourself with the expression "The grass is always greener on the other side".

Communism was present in diffrent shapes all over the world, but none was ideal.
Ideal communism would solve the well known, eternal and global *rich-and-poor-people* problem and people would share everything for both their own good and good of their comrades.
That would prevent any type of slavery between people and I personaly like such ideas.
Sadly, communist goverments took most of resources for themselves and made their nations poor.

Err, then what are you? What is your significance in the world, or even in the country you're living in?


What have you thusfar been capable of?


What has liking the chinese government have to do with this? Ofcourse I don't like it and I wouldn't want to live there.
Then again, I was not talking about what I like personally, but about what's best for the country.

Ask anyone what company they'd like to work for. A company which offers a high salary, many benefits, a low stress job and not much overtime. Such a company will likely go bankrupt in a few years ;).

Not true. Salary and benefits would be inferior to the personal interest and work surroundings. engaging and stimulating job and overtime requirement are sometimes even positive.
I work at Intel. My job is far from the top, but my salary is little higher than average on the market  (42nis/hr as opposed to 40) and work is not stressfull, overtime is very rare, and there are no signs of Intel going bankrupt anytime soon.

And if some company offered you double what you're being paid now for the same job? Would you consider that a better job opportunity?
PS: In euro's your salary is about as much as an average supermarked employee makes over here... No wait, it's even less than minimum wage.. wtf? Ofcourse Intel isn't going to go bankrupt on paying such salaries ;).

On the other hand that's eight and a half times higher than minimum salary here and one could live pretty well; so it's all relative.

I think you may have inadvertently made Angelfish's point for him.  You might strongly disagree that you're unimportant but teh goverments, it doesn't give a flying wombats fart what you think.

I'd wager stuff costs less where he is though. When I worked in a bar on Ireland I once worked with this Romanian who thought our employers were idiots for paying him such amazingly large sums of money, more than he could ever earn back home. But every time he came home from the supermarket he was furious with the price of basic necessities, so outrageously more expensive than back home.

And you'd loose. The general prices are about the same as in US, electronics and cars cost about 150% due to taxes. What is much cheaper is the housind prices.

Yeah, but the US is dirt cheap compared to where Angelfish lives, and cheaper than dirt compared to the united Scandinavian socialist confederacy, so that's not saying much.

What am I, you ask? I am me. I am an intelligent human being. I am significant, as is everyone else with the potential to contribute positively to society if he chooses.

Again with the country... As long as the people live in misery, the country means jack squat. The people are the country. Without them, you're just a big army camp, and I see very little civilization in that. Since when is taking military action against any and all people who dare to protest their conditions better for a country? Like I stated before, the country's legacy is important. In the event of a country's inevitable fall, is it not ideal to be remembered in history as a prosperous, civilized nation?

While China has constructed many feats of engineering due to their harsh system, other countries have built their fair share of great structures as well. The Hoover Dam did not require the use of slave labor, nor did millions of people die in its construction.

Just saying you're significant doesn't make it so, dude :).

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The 3 gorges dam wasn't built with slave labour and millions of people didn't die.
However, the country you live in wouldn't even have existed without slave labour ;). Slaves ever so generously provided by us, the dutch.

Well, some people are more important than others. For instance, I dream the dream that you call life and when I wake this plane of existence will be no more. So I'm pretty important. The admiral, not so much.


Pretty sure they weren't provided generously, but rather at at fair price.  ;)

I know no one's talking about Anarchism in this topic much any more, but I found this little video (looks like part of a documentary) on Anarchist Spain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUig0lFHDDw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUig0lFHDDw)

It doesn't get very far; it kind of seems like it was cut off early. But it's interesting, anyway.

Sorry for double-posting, but I found an interesting article by chance (I was looking for a human civilization simulation game, but this showed up as one of Google's top results).
http://www.naturalnews.com/029056_environmental_protection_population_control.html (http://www.naturalnews.com/029056_environmental_protection_population_control.html)

It's actually about climate and natural resources, so you might be scratching your head right now, but I noticed this statement:


To summarize, it says that our current economic system is based on consumption, and as a result, getting people to conserve resources is incredibly difficult or even impossible.

This is one advantage I can see in any sort of Communist economy. People are not encouraged to create unnecessary surpluses which waste natural resources, because they can gain no profit from that. Rather, people would try to do as little work as possible (because of laziness) by making fewer, more durable products. This was also briefly mentioned in this two-part video which I found a few weeks ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvuB46y2x2Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvuB46y2x2Q)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ROCykU__E (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ROCykU__E)

Just something to think about. ;)

Weeeelll... consuming energy is potentially not going to squander natural resources, so long as the energy sources are not things that can be used up - solar, wind, geothermal. At present, we are wasting irreplaceable resources on energy, but long before using up these energy resources would cause civilization to collapse on the account of their exhaustion, the sources that won't be exhausted will outcompete them in the most dramatic way. This is not to say that overconsumption is harmless, but unless it spawns nuclear war, energy overconsumption won't end civilization altogether.

And we'd love it if recycling businesses managed to exhaust their resource - our trash.

Onpon4:  that quote is garbage.

All economic systems require consumption because economics relies on supply and demand.

You cant just say "Hey let's have a an economc sytem that doesn't consume anything!"

It's a matter of having an economic system which produces more than it consumes, thereby creating wealth.

Wealth = everyone having a good life

Societies form to create governments which create regulations to protect the environment. This is because societies as a whole realise the importance of the environment and also appreciate the futility of expecting people and businesses to take stewardship of the environemtn. So they say "right, this is the tax/punishment for polluting" thereby creating an economic incentive for responsible behaviour.

Individuals are selfish and all about looking after number 1. Businesses are the same - their goal is to make money. But individuals are smart enough to know that if everyone abides by the same rules then its an even playing field and we all win. Thus governments are creaed to enforce these rules

Admittedly its not working that well in the environmental sphere at present, but it will start working when people start appreicatiate the importance of our only planet. Most countries realise that taxing people for health and education has benefits.

To eliminate free enteprise and commerce in favour of some communal system goes agaisnt every fibre of human thought and motivation. People have been trading with each other for hundreds of thousands of years. Its what allows us to innovate and thrive.

No, all economic systems require consumption because humans need certain resources to survive. Life itself is not much more than a method of consuming energy available in the environment. I wasn't saying that it's possible to consume nothing; that is absurd. I was only saying that our capitalist system wastes a lot of resources, which is true. Imagine how must plastic gets wasted on cheap toys for children, ending up in landfills in the next year, for example.

The problem is that there is no incentive to save resources. If it turns out that it's an absolute waste of resources (i.e. McDonald's toys), it doesn't matter as long as it earns them money.


True, we do produce more than we consume, but we also waste quite a lot.


I'm actually not talking about energy, but physical goods, such as toys, computers, beds, etc. I'm thinking of toys in particular, because that seems to be the most wasteful set of goods at present (because kids can be easily tricked into wanting more toys). However, it can also apply to other goods, if you factor in the elimination of our need to have our own stuff (many things can be shared, i.e. video game consoles, webcams, board games, screwdrivers, wireless routers, etc, etc).


People have been making war with each other for thousands of years as well, you know.

Besides that, trading wouldn't disappear if a more collective system emerged. It would just happen between large communities, rather than individuals. Cuba has a communist type economy, but that doesn't stop them from trading with other countries (their sugar and cigars for other goods).

As horrible as it is, war is mankind's greatest incentive to innovate. Nothing inspires people to create amazing (and sometimes terrible) things better than their desire to survive and emerge victorious over their foes.

Yes, I agree about that. Conflicts between people are certainly inspired by hunger for power which comes in many diffrent forms; money, fame, political and military influence...
It is natural becouse power gives us ability to survive, but people often can't keep the balance and they forget about the fact that morality is more important than mere power.

I have to say  that I disagree. Wealth, in my mind, has been the greatest incentive to innovate.

anarchists are too disorganised to get the rights they want unlike communists who are organised internationaly and help each other from across the border from countrys that are already communist.

... what decade are you from? Communists did that for around a century starting about 130 years ago.

Also, you posted over 2 years too late.

I got it! Time traveler. Totally called it. Either that or a younger relative of Kohr-Ah Primat.

I don't understand that exactly. I work on hypothetical physics whether there's a war going on or not or whether I'm in a communist society or a capitalist society. Personally I don't want to work on anything for a war, I'm tired of humanity being limited to this planet and I wanna see a warp-drive get made or at least a hyper-drive. And then there's also asteroid defense or mass-defense. Basically, there's people who have no need for war or to be incentive's by money, there's many people who are driven by pure inspiration, seek progress or seek further knowledge, so don't be so gloomy.
Perhaps one day man-kind will be "mature" enough to not seek war and dominating others when there is a lack of government, but for now it seems it is needed so that it's members have enough resources to have specialization in their work forces to fuel the development of greater technology. Governments have a specific purpose and there's a good reason for why when one falls that many others are born.