Originally posted by Rajk999When I talk about redistributing Bill Gates' wealth, that is an example of what would happen if I were given absolute power to run the earth as an autocrat. The wealthy would be sent en masse to the guillotine and the streets would run ankle deep with blood. But unlike Robespierre, I'm smart enough to realize that I would quickly succumb to the temptation to abuse any measure of absolute power. And I don't trust any other man to resist such temptation either. That is why I advocate anarchism, whereby no man has any power over any other.
OK. My apologies for that, but here is where the confusion is :
On one hand you are suggesting small, somewhat socialist communities that exist within the main capitalist economic system. And then on the other you seem to advocate taking away the accumulated wealth of the owners of resources and distributing it to the poor.
Although I am in total agr ...[text shortened]... in the US alone, it means that your idea is already at work. Why do you need to change anything?
There are dozens of intentional communities in the US, but they are mostly small and not all of them are socialist or income sharing. I would say that most of them are not. Some, like Dancing Rabbit Eco-village, in Missouri, have communal living, but they have outside jobs in the mainstream workforce. There are about six communities, with about 250 people spread between them, who in my estimation could be labeled as egalitarian socialist. It's a very, very small fringe of society that most people don't even realize exists. As the resources of society are overwhelmingly directed toward propagating capitalist institutions, it's very difficult for alternatives to get their foot in the door. The existing intentional communities represent only the barest of toeholds. I'd simply like to level that playing field a little bit. I think if intentional communities were more widely available, more people would try them out.
Originally posted by spruce112358hear, hear.
About those billions wallowing in hunger and poverty...
The only reason they continue to wallow is they can't participate in a free market. Most of them live in countries that are lead by self-serving, suspicious, ignorant, ideologically intolerant, hardly-better-than-feudal "kings". These rulers abhor the idea of people having the freedom to start t ...[text shortened]... urally and automatically. Grant those two things, and the people themselves will do the rest.
Originally posted by rwingettGreat ! The truth is coming out. Personally you are capable of being a psychopathic killer but with enough sense to realise that your absolute power can/will be abused and that wont be in the best interest of the 'cause'.
When I talk about redistributing Bill Gates' wealth, that is an example of what would happen if I were given absolute power to run the earth as an autocrat. The wealthy would be sent en masse to the guillotine and the streets would run ankle deep with blood. But unlike Robespierre, I'm smart enough to realize that I would quickly succumb to the temptation t ...[text shortened]... nk if intentional communities were more widely available, more people would try them out.
Putting your personal failings aside, your dream for humanity (although noble and right) is also doomed to fail. You underestimate the importance of capitalism and the profit motive and its power to generate innovation and invention and personal sacrifice and hard work and drive and ...... etc. All your 'dream world' will do is remove scarce resources from capitalist enterprises and place it in the hands of drones. Note : a drone is a bee in the hive that does not work but still enjoys all the benefits of living in hive.