Microblog Memes

Communism worked in Australia

No it didn't

for 65,000 years.

Do you have a time machine/some secret aboriginal 65000 year old journals or did you manage to figure all this out from stone tools and cave paintings?

It was classless, stateless, moneyless.

Most primitive societies were/are. If that's communism then it only provides empirical evidence that it doesn't work very well as it did not survive to this day and it's been outcompeted by capitalist societies. Literally natural selection.

from each according to ability, to each according to need

This is why communism is immoral and ineffective. When you say "from each according to ability" you demand that people do what they do best and do it as well as they can, regardless of their own interests, ambitions or desires. Are you a muscular guy, sorry comrade, science division is full, you'll fit in better at the manual labor camp. Do you like to paint and sing, too bad, society demands your talents at the nuclear research facility. You're burned out and don't feel like giving your 100% right now, think again, we only care if you're able, not if you're willing. In capitalism you get to choose what you want to do with your life, of course, the more useful that thing is to others the bigger your reward, but it's ultimately your choice.

It also assumes that you can accurately gauge someone's abilities and needs. If Leonardo da Vinci lived under communism he likely would have never discovered his talents in science, engineering and mathematics as he would have been forced solely into artistry after his predispositions for it manifested at a young age. Conversely, you can't tell if someone is really unable to work and to what capacity. I can guarantee you that if all negative repercussions of it were removed, given a choice between going to work and giving it your all vs faking an illness to stay home and play videogames, a very large portion of the population would choose the latter, you don't even need to think about it to figure it out.

"To each according to need" works great until there isn't enough to go around, and that's when real human nature shows itself. We are not hive animals like ants or bees who have been genetically programmed through haplodiploidy to put the good of the hive above their own. We are pack animals, we only care about the pack to the extent that it benefits us as individuals. Given a choice between the good of the pack at the expense of themselves and their family or their own and family's good at the expense of the pack, humans will choose the latter ~90% of the time. I'm sure even those ancient aboriginal communists you made up would hide away some nuts and berries for themselves and their families instead of sharing them with the whole tribe when resources were tight.

See, David Graeber interviewed a lot of people who work in "bullshit jobs". Jobs that serve to useful purpose to anyone, and even the person doing the job thinks it's pointless. People who tick boxes all day, or who look busy without doing anything, or who get a paycheck even though the company has forgotten about them.

Graeber expected the people working bullshit jobs to be very happy with how they've beaten the system, but most weren't. Most were depressed. People have a fundamental need to help others; to be useful to society. If they didn't, they would have gone extinct long ago. People who work bullshit jobs are unhappy. People who work meaningful, important, and prosocial jobs tend to be satisfied with themselves. Their moral needs are being met.

People have their interests, ambitions and desires, for some it will be helping others and being useful to society and for others it will be something else of no use to anyone but themselves. There's plenty of amateur musicians, coders, lego builders, bird watchers, chess players, bloggers, photographers, painters, sportsmen, bodybuilders, speedrunners... whose work benefits absolutely nobody but their own satisfaction, and yet they're their happiest when they get to do those things. If people had a fundamental need to be useful to society then everyone who ever retires would be absolutely miserable and nobody would do it of their own volition.

That's the mistake capitalism makes. Capitalists think you need to scam people into working by withholding food and water and shelter. They don't believe in human rights, they believe in using these necessities to control people. They think greed is human nature.

Greed is human nature. We exist in the world of finite resources, we evolved in the world of finite resources to survive in the world of finite resources. We evolved to accumulate, compete for and preserve resources. That's why laziness, theft, gluttony and greed exist. It's literally our nature, not the only part of it, altruism and charity exist of course but it always comes second to personal benefit.

Also, you're not withholding anything. Things don't just materialize, you either earn them or they aren't yours. You can only speak of withholding if someone agreed to give you something and then went back on their promise. Someone not giving you free food, water or shelter (which btw every developed country does, there's plenty of food banks and homeless shelters and water doesn't even need mentioning) isn't withholding anything from you. If you want water go to a river or catch rain/dew, if you want food plant some or forage, if you want shelter build one (or pay someone more qualified to do it, you know, the capitalist way).

But Indigenous Australians have known full well for 65,000 years that people want to be good. And they have used their vast science of psychology and sociology and politics to engineer a system which makes the best use of that natural impulse, driving people to do good. That's successful communism.

Ok, cool story bro.