Why do people want communism?

[Washington Resistance Army]

So he gets $1100 a month from you, without having to actually do anything for that money. You work to earn money, and then you give it to him, simply because a piece of paper says he is the legal owner of a house which he does not use.

Basically, he gets free money from you. He gets money that rightfully belongs to you (because you worked for it, and he didn't). That's exploitation.

It doesn't matter if it's "very fair and kinda on the cheap side" for the area. That just means other landlords are the same or worse, and they are generally exploiting people a little more than your landlord. If a thief stole $1100 from you, but other thieves stole $1200 or $1500 from your neighbors, would you consider your thief to be fair and nice by comparison?


He didn't work for the rent money he's getting from you.

The fact that he worked for some other sum of money is irrelevant. If I worked for $500,000, then I deserve $500,000. But what I do not deserve is the ability to use this money to buy something that then grants me the power to get additional free money from people.

And this is precisely what capitalism does: If you have enough money, capitalism allows you to buy things that other people require in order to live, and then charge those people for using them.

I had something fairly large typed up but Chrome decided to wipe my tabs and I have to go soon so I could shoot you a TG or reply later, whichever you prefer.

A brief TL;DR was essentially; I admit I'm probably biased due to a number of factors, I do disagree that it's wrong to charge rent or other such things, no I wouldn't consider any of the thieves fair and nice, we disagree heavily on the exploitation bit (if you wanna talk exploitation we can talk about how I had to pay fees for being in lockup) etc.

[Imperializt Russia]

So he gets $1100 a month from you, without having to actually do anything for that money. You work to earn money, and then you give it to him, simply because a piece of paper says he is the legal owner of a house which he does not use.

Basically, he gets free money from you. He gets money that rightfully belongs to you (because you worked for it, and he didn't). That's exploitation.

It doesn't matter if it's "very fair and kinda on the cheap side" for the area. That just means other landlords are the same or worse, and they are generally exploiting people a little more than your landlord. If a thief stole $1100 from you, but other thieves stole $1200 or $1500 from your neighbors, would you consider your thief to be fair and nice by comparison?


He didn't work for the rent money he's getting from you.

The fact that he worked for some other sum of money is irrelevant. If I worked for $500,000, then I deserve $500,000. But what I do not deserve is the ability to use this money to buy something that then grants me the power to get additional free money from people.

And this is precisely what capitalism does: If you have enough money, capitalism allows you to buy things that other people require in order to live, and then charge those people for using them.

I had something fairly large typed up but Chrome decided to wipe my tabs and I have to go soon so I could shoot you a TG or reply later, whichever you prefer.

A brief TL;DR was essentially; I admit I'm probably biased due to a number of factors, I do disagree that it's wrong to charge rent or other such things, no I wouldn't consider any of the thieves fair and nice, we disagree heavily on the exploitation bit (if you wanna talk exploitation we can talk about how I had to pay fees for being in lockup) etc.

There are obviously degrees of exploitation and communists would obviously consider things in a capitalist system exploitation, as I'm sure capitalists would consider aspects of communism (or certainly the socialist states that strive for communism, as the OP did) to be exploitative.

You consider this level of "exploitation", that is paying an amount of rent sufficient for a landlord to profit off, acceptable. Communists do not, because they do not see it as moral to charge basic necessities for profit.
I agree with the sentiment they put forwards, but would rather see mitigating factors like the citizen's wage I mentioned earlier and rent controls, at least as intermediary stages to eliminated rent for profit and buy-to-let.

[Zoo Trouble]

@Constantinopolis, I think the issue you may be having is that liberals define terms like theft or exploitation in vastly different ways. It's hard to communicate with them without defining what is meant. Like to them, someone working in a coal mine for $5 a week isn't exploitation and what not.

[Imperializt Russia]

@Constantinopolis, I think the issue you may be having is that liberals define terms like theft or exploitation in vastly different ways. It's hard to communicate with them without defining what is meant. Like to them, someone working in a coal mine for $5 a week isn't exploitation and what not.

Fail to see how a "liberal" would fail to see that as anything but exploitation.

[Unitaristic Regions]

I had something fairly large typed up but Chrome decided to wipe my tabs and I have to go soon so I could shoot you a TG or reply later, whichever you prefer.

A brief TL;DR was essentially; I admit I'm probably biased due to a number of factors, I do disagree that it's wrong to charge rent or other such things, no I wouldn't consider any of the thieves fair and nice, we disagree heavily on the exploitation bit (if you wanna talk exploitation we can talk about how I had to pay fees for being in lockup) etc.

There are obviously degrees of exploitation and communists would obviously consider things in a capitalist system exploitation, as I'm sure capitalists would consider aspects of communism (or certainly the socialist states that strive for communism, as the OP did) to be exploitative.

You consider this level of "exploitation", that is paying an amount of rent sufficient for a landlord to profit off, acceptable. Communists do not, because they do not see it as moral to charge basic necessities for profit.
I agree with the sentiment they put forwards, but would rather see mitigating factors like the citizen's wage I mentioned earlier and rent controls, at least as intermediary stages to eliminated rent for profit and buy-to-let.

It's actually just a descriptive term for marxists, not a moral one . Roughly, since all value is deemed to be produced by workers, the capitalist has to exact tribute from the value the worker added to be able to make a profit. The process of exacting tribute is called exploitation. There's no moral judgement here in of itself.

[Zoo Trouble]

@Constantinopolis, I think the issue you may be having is that liberals define terms like theft or exploitation in vastly different ways. It's hard to communicate with them without defining what is meant. Like to them, someone working in a coal mine for $5 a week isn't exploitation and what not.

Fail to see how a "liberal" would fail to see that as anything but exploitation.

It was an example. You can insert whatever wage. The worker is forced to sell their labour to mine/produce something or live on skid row/poverty or die. The worker doesn't get to keep the value of whatever it is they produced, instead the value is extracted from them and profit is made. A coal miner produces more value than what they're paid. This is exploitative. Liberals have no issue with this.

[The Grey Wolf]

Because they believe that it will bring them freedom. They are disgusted by the expendability of the worker while the management becomes rich, the fear of homelessness, and other injustices they perceive to be inherent in the capitalist system.

The Soviet Union and China aren't really good examples of why Communism doesn't work. Neither Marx nor Engels believed that socialism could occur in feudal or third world countries that hadn't had a capitalist revolution like the West had. Both the USSR and China were economically backwater countries that were barely out of the feudal stage (if that). It's intellectually dishonest to use that to assert Communism doesn't work.

[United Kingdom of Poland]

Because they believe that it will bring them freedom. They are disgusted by the expendability of the worker while the management becomes rich, the fear of homelessness, and other injustices they perceive to be inherent in the capitalist system.

The Soviet Union and China aren't really good examples of why Communism doesn't work. Neither Marx nor Engels believed that socialism could occur in feudal or third world countries that hadn't had a capitalist revolution like the West had. Both the USSR and China were economically backwater countries that were barely out of the feudal stage (if that). It's intellectually dishonest to use that to assert Communism doesn't work.

Here's the issue though. Communism requires a perfect word where people like Stalin and Mao don't exist because at its core it is a leaderless society and thus one giant power vacuum. Unfortunately a world like that doesn't exist and never will, so there will always be people ready to take the reigns and undo any work you do.

[Thirdwheelium]

No. Most of my family was made miserable due to communism. Amongst them were engineers, teachers and scientists, and our family lost all its oldest lands and possessions.

Ah. Well, if your family had lands and possessions, that explains the situation, doesn't it?

Former landowners and capitalists didn't have a very nice time.

In a society based on earning your own possessions, it disadvantages most people, going from the middle class upwards.
Anywho, this "equity" creates the exact opposite you only consider its consequences on people's wealth. "I'll be a cashier and I'll earn as much as a doctor, great!"

In the end, people will always vote for the party which gives them more advantages or satisfies their needs better. It's made me become cynical about politics in general.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

There is human nature. Because you don't know what that means doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Nope. Humanity adapts to the environment in which it is placed; our behavior is dependent on the nature of our society.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

It was a stable and relatively stress-free life. There was no need to struggle to survive. There was no fear of unemployment, or homelessness, or abject poverty. For those who are poor today (and for many with middle incomes as well), this is a very attractive state of affairs.

No. Most of my family was made miserable due to communism. Amongst them were engineers, teachers and scientists, and our family lost all its oldest lands and possessions.

*wipes away a tear* Oh, the poor bourgeoisie.

You need to come to the realization that we honestly do not care.

[Finland SSR]

They already "sucked" beforehand. By any measure, Marxist governments vastly improved the living standards in the countries they ruled. Many people have short memories, however, and only compare their living standards with those in present-day Western Europe, not to the living standards in their own countries before Marxist governments came along.

The idea that living in Soviet Lithuania was better than in Interwar Lithuania is absolute bullcrap, but I'll let Soviet apologism slide.

If this was all about living standards, then maybe. But that's not what I meant by "sucking".

The Baltic states are a bit of an exception, in that they have extremely right-wing populations who seem to hate communism so much that many of them even sympathize with the Nazis, despite the fact that the Baltic states were actually the wealthiest parts of the Soviet Union. I do not understand this phenomenon, but it is what it is.

Where are you getting the "extremely right-wing populations" idea from? We have no far-right parties - all are defunct or banned. Even if there's an obscure one hiding deep there somewhere, it gets next to no votes and doesn't show up in party lists. I don't know what kind of person Wolf was talking to, but so far, I haven't seen even a single Lithuanian who would openly praise the Nazi regime or even sympathize with them. Over here, we see them as just as terrible, if not even more terrible, as the Soviets - we know that Hitler planned to exterminate us in Generalplan Ost, that's even taught in schools. The Holocaust and Lithuanian supporters of it are also seen in a negative light, what with the term "žydšaudys" ("Jew-shooter") being a derogatory term that's used for those people.

What, you mean nationalism? You should differentiate mild nationalism from chauvinism.

If you need to understand the phenomenon, you merely need to know that the Soviets deported thousands of our people to Siberia, wrecked our economy by making it overly dependent on Russian imports and tried to Russify us by making Russian practically mandatory and sending thousands of colonists to populate our lands. I mean, that's not much to remember, is it?

*shuts the door and locks it*

[Nerotysia]

Anywho, this "equity" creates the exact opposite you only consider its consequences on people's wealth. "I'll be a cashier and I'll earn as much as a doctor, great!"

Because that's how communism works, amirite?

In the end, people will always vote for the party which gives them more advantages or satisfies their needs better. It's made me become cynical about politics in general.

Most human activity is driven by selfish desires. Get used to it.

[Nerotysia]

If you need to understand the phenomenon, you merely need to know that the Soviets deported thousands of our people to Siberia, wrecked our economy by making it overly dependent on Russian imports and tried to Russify us by making Russian practically mandatory and sending thousands of colonists to populate our lands. I mean, that's not much to remember, is it?

*shuts the door and locks it*

Yes, the Russians wrecked Lithuania. Just like the US wrecked "capitalist" states in Latin America and across the world.

Your point?

[Finland SSR]

Your point?

P2TM is far better than NSG.

[Nerotysia]

Your point?

P2TM is far better than NSG.

That's because RP is infinitely better than debate, but that's beside the point.

[Lady Scylla]

I wonder why do so many people want communism. It has been proved that it is a very bad system and it is destructive to nations. Here are a few arguments against communism:

1. Lack of freedom. In communist countries people get arrested for merely being against communism. Press is strictly regulated and censored. People are arrested and even killed for being in anticommunist protests. Foreign trips are nearly impossible because of their cost and the suspicion of the government for them.

2. Harsh penitential system for dissenters. People caught on being against the government are frequently tortured, even to death. Some get sentenced to a few years in solitary confinement, while others get killed. Many dissenters die of police brutality and the killers go unpunished.

3. Violent antitheism. In communist nations faiths are heavily repressed. Churches are
destroyed and people have to stay under the radar with their faith. What's worse, many people get imprisoned or even killed just for keeping to their faiths.

4. Bad economy. In communist countries people are really poor. They live for under 1/5 of Westrrn wages. This might be caused by the bad governmental control of the economy.

5. Aprovisational trouble. Citizens of communist countries have to wait very long to get basic items. You have to wait for over ten years to get an apartment or a car. Waiting time for having a telephone line is a few years. Even things like meat or butter are rare in shops and even if they get to them, you have to stand in a line for a few hours just to get them.

6. Shoddy products. The communist method of directing workers causes their productive output to be of very bad quality. TVs made in communist states are known for being fire-prone and cars made there survive over 10 years only because cars are such a rarity.

7. Economic instability. While many people think that communism gives a more stable economy than capitalism, they are wrong. In communism, inflation is rampant (money's value can go down by 50% in a few years, eating savings up), stores might not have basic items, such as toilet paper or lemons and families are afraid of breadwinners getting arrested.

8. Heavy internet censorship and lack of access to it. Communist countries do their best to stop spreading dissent through the internet. In such nations internet traffic is spied on and foreign or dissent sites are blocked. Another barrier is the lack of money to buy a computer and an internet access amongst families.

So, if you were a supporter of communism before reading this, think again. Do you still support communism? Do you support lack of freedom and a bad economy? Maybe you have more arguments for communism? Tell me!

A lot of these are misconceptions. Which, is dependent on real-world experience vs the theory.

Theoretically, a Communist society would be quite free in so far as civil liberties. The problem here, is that we are using, as aforementioned, real-world examples of supposed 'Communist' nations. In fact, you're looking at it from the wrong angle. However, to firstly address your question, you need to understand the context originally intended when Communism spread throughout the working populations of Europe.

Not long post-industrialisation, workers' rights were abhorrent, and for many, this was a major problem. Naturally, thanks to human nature, when you oppress or treat a group of people badly, they're going to want it to change. This is why Communism became so popular, though with varying results in different nations. Those with worse off populations had the most impact, Russian serfs being a grand example of this. The need for Communism today, is all but dead, it had a much more spectacular if subtle impact in society. Workers' rights did become a thing in most developed countries, child labour was outlawed, minimum wages were set, sensible working hours assigned, et cetera.

Now then, Communism sounds amazing on paper. Feeding into the notion of social altruism and the idea of being communal towards one's people. However, it ignores human nature, and this is why the USSR, China, and other alleged 'Communist' regimes are such a marvellous example. Not because they were Communist, or attempted such, but because they show why it can't work on a large scale. Humans, as far as our nature, are monsters. We're selfish, egotistical, self-existential, and can behave quite carnal and primitively. In Capitalism, this flourishes, because the system runs on this type of conflict and greed to operate.

Although the ideas of a utopian society, and altruism and such are marvellous theories to embrace. They're just not a reality. We are not capable of functioning in a Utopia, and would more than likely commit suicide or topple the whole thing. We crave conflict, and not much has changed from the days of Rome when we watched people tear each other's throats out, to today, where we do it at our couch with a game or a movie. Conflict, as apart of the human condition, is the reason we are where we are as the apex predator. Quite literally, we're the only human species surviving of our little branch of the tree of life, we killed off the rest of our competition.

The real-world examples we have of the attempts of a Communist system outline this perfectly. Many were derailed rather quickly, and abused or corrupted to fit the power-hungry who took power. The early implementation of the USSR during Lenin's ascendancy, was rather and especially democratic if not borderline confederal. There arose a problem, however, over Soviets electing leaders that weren't from Lenin's clique, the Bolsheviks. When Democratic Centralism became a thing, and the Russian Civil War occurred, the Mensheviks (Moderates) and the Bolsheviks (Radicals) didn't like each other. The latter wanted a sudden and violent change contrary to the progressive movement of the Mensheviks.

Stalin's rise to power, and how he socially engineered his way into the hearts and minds of the Russian populace post-Lenin with falsified papers, photographs and such, is the best example of humans' tendencies to be twats. The idea of a stateless, utopian, and communist society was pretty much dealt the death blow by this point, only a few years after it took off. Many of the initial policies that would've been inherently 'communist' in practise were abandoned, and then geopolitics took affect, and what we had was something hardly any different from any other nation.

So yes, in the real-world, it is not rationally applicable, let alone possible to achieve. Humans cling to their identity and sense of self, and this always trumps any idea of a 'utopian society'. I'm not saying that we can't be altruistic, or communal, but we're definitely not capable of being saints. In truth, either extreme, the Communist notion, or the Capitalist one, will always fail, because we straddle the centre line as far as our behaviour. And our cravings for violence and greed will always destroy any attempt at a 'utopia'.

[Finland SSR]

P2TM is far better than NSG.

That's because RP is infinitely better than debate, but that's beside the point.

Ice cream and sweets were monstrously cheap in Soviet times.

If those prices existed in our time, I'd be having sundaes every Sunday.

[Constantinopolis]

Where are you getting the "extremely right-wing populations" idea from? We have no far-right parties - all are defunct or banned.

I didn't mean "extremely right-wing" in the sense of fascist, I meant "extremely right-wing" in the sense of having enthusiastically embraced neoliberalism, austerity, corporate domination of the economy (together with the massive rise in inequality that accompanied these things, and the general suffering caused by the Great Recession), and treating a large part of the Russian minority as second-class citizens non-citizens (having been stripped of citizenship after the Baltic states gained independence, as a form of collective punishment).

Of course this isn't fascism, but it sure as hell isn't center-right either. Baltic politics is hard-right, and the Baltic states are arguably the most right-wing countries in the European Union (the only other contender being Viktor Orban's Hungary).

If you need to understand the phenomenon, you merely need to know that the Soviets deported thousands of our people to Siberia, wrecked our economy by making it overly dependent on Russian imports and tried to Russify us by making Russian practically mandatory and sending thousands of colonists to populate our lands. I mean, that's not much to remember, is it?

*shuts the door and locks it*

But my point was that other countries suffered much worse things at the hands of other occupying powers, and yet don't hate them as much.

As I said before, take Ireland for example (there are even better examples on other continents, but let's go with Ireland because it's European). The Russians may have tried to Russify Lithuania, but the British actually succeeded in Anglicizing Ireland. Today, almost all Irish people have English as their mother language, and the Irish Gaelic language (the actual native language of Ireland) barely survives in a few remote rural areas in the West of the island, and as a subject of academic study in universities. In addition, there are actually more people of Irish ancestry living today in America than in Ireland, because British policies in the 19th and early 20th century were so brutal that a majority of the Irish population emigrated and/or died.

Also, the British sent tens of thousands of colonists to populate Ireland, and as a result of the presence of these colonists, Northern Ireland (the place where most of the colonists had settled) remained part of Britain when the rest of Ireland gained independence.

And yet, anti-British sentiment in the independent Republic of Ireland is nowhere close to the level of anti-Russian sentiment in the Baltic states. There was never any attempt to remove the English language from public life and re-Gaelicize Ireland, for example. There was state support for the Irish Gaelic language, but only to help it survive and to maybe encourage people to learn it as a second language. And Ireland never joined any anti-British or anti-Western military alliance, the way the Baltic states enthusiastically joined NATO. Instead, Ireland became a neutral country, both during WW2 and during the Cold War.

[Imperializt Russia]

The adage of "time heals all wounds" is valid, since those policies to which you refer occurred centuries ago. Obviously the Irish Civil War occurred a century ago as did the fall of the Russian Empire, and the Troubles and Soviet suppression of Eastern Europe occurred at similar times.

[Petrolheadia]

I thought a lot about utopian communism and my conclusion is...
that it is even worse than real-life communism. I'm serious. It encourages laziness because of the equal division of goods - no matter what you do, you get the same amount of everything. And let's set things clear - one-upping is in our nature. It is what made us. Not making everyone have the same thing, but having someone make something better. If anything, utopian communism would screw up the world.

[Kubra]

I thought a lot about utopian communism and my conclusion is...
that it is even worse than real-life communism. I'm serious. It encourages laziness because of the equal division of goods - no matter what you do, you get the same amount of everything. And let's set things clear - one-upping is in our nature. It is what made us. Not making everyone have the same thing, but having someone make something better. If anything, utopian communism would screw up the world.

what's wrong with laziness
maybe it's in your nature, bruv. Remind me not to go bowling with you.

[Unitaristic Regions]

I thought a lot about utopian communism and my conclusion is...
that it is even worse than real-life communism. I'm serious. It encourages laziness because of the equal division of goods - no matter what you do, you get the same amount of everything. And let's set things clear - one-upping is in our nature. It is what made us. Not making everyone have the same thing, but having someone make something better. If anything, utopian communism would screw up the world.

what's wrong with laziness
maybe it's in your nature, bruv. Remind me not to go bowling with you.

[Conscentia]

I thought a lot about utopian communism and my conclusion is...
that it is even worse than real-life communism. I'm serious. It encourages laziness because of the equal division of goods - no matter what you do, you get the same amount of everything. And let's set things clear - one-upping is in our nature. It is what made us. Not making everyone have the same thing, but having someone make something better. If anything, utopian communism would screw up the world.

What do you mean by "utopian communism" and "real-life communism"?

As I said in another thread, communism isn't about equality of outcome ("equal division of goods")...

It should also be noted that communism does not involve equality of outcome. The lower stage of communism is based on the principle of "to each according to their contribution", and the higher stage of communism (which is post-scarcity) is based on free access to articles of consumption.

[The New Dawn Commune]

I wonder why do so many people want communism. It has been proved that it is a very bad system and it is destructive to nations. Here are a few arguments against communism:

1. Lack of freedom. In communist countries people get arrested for merely being against communism. Press is strictly regulated and censored. People are arrested and even killed for being in anticommunist protests. Foreign trips are nearly impossible because of their cost and the suspicion of the government for them.

2. Harsh penitential system for dissenters. People caught on being against the government are frequently tortured, even to death. Some get sentenced to a few years in solitary confinement, while others get killed. Many dissenters die of police brutality and the killers go unpunished.

3. Violent antitheism. In communist nations faiths are heavily repressed. Churches are
destroyed and people have to stay under the radar with their faith. What's worse, many people get imprisoned or even killed just for keeping to their faiths.

4. Bad economy. In communist countries people are really poor. They live for under 1/5 of Westrrn wages. This might be caused by the bad governmental control of the economy.

5. Aprovisational trouble. Citizens of communist countries have to wait very long to get basic items. You have to wait for over ten years to get an apartment or a car. Waiting time for having a telephone line is a few years. Even things like meat or butter are rare in shops and even if they get to them, you have to stand in a line for a few hours just to get them.

6. Shoddy products. The communist method of directing workers causes their productive output to be of very bad quality. TVs made in communist states are known for being fire-prone and cars made there survive over 10 years only because cars are such a rarity.

7. Economic instability. While many people think that communism gives a more stable economy than capitalism, they are wrong. In communism, inflation is rampant (money's value can go down by 50% in a few years, eating savings up), stores might not have basic items, such as toilet paper or lemons and families are afraid of breadwinners getting arrested.

8. Heavy internet censorship and lack of access to it. Communist countries do their best to stop spreading dissent through the internet. In such nations internet traffic is spied on and foreign or dissent sites are blocked. Another barrier is the lack of money to buy a computer and an internet access amongst families.

So, if you were a supporter of communism before reading this, think again. Do you still support communism? Do you support lack of freedom and a bad economy? Maybe you have more arguments for communism? Tell me!

Now then, Communism sounds amazing on paper. Feeding into the notion of social altruism and the idea of being communal towards one's people. However, it ignores human nature, and this is why the USSR, China, and other alleged 'Communist' regimes are such a marvellous example. Not because they were Communist, or attempted such, but because they show why it can't work on a large scale. Humans, as far as our nature, are monsters. We're selfish, egotistical, self-existential, and can behave quite carnal and primitively. In Capitalism, this flourishes, because the system runs on this type of conflict and greed to operate.

This is the part of your response I wanted to address because of it's commonality among anti-communists. To use a marxist phrase, what you are is a fetishist or an idealist. You have ascribed properties to an abstract concept and universalized it. It just so happens that those properties are in sync with capitalism. Human nature exists, but it is necessary to remember that human nature does not exist apart from actually existing concrete subjects (Marx faulted Feuerbach for assuming an abstract individual nature) and those subjects are products and shapers of history. Historically speaking, prior to the rise of class society, people weren't as bad as everyone likes to make them out to be. Primitive Communism is a genuine thing.

The world as we enter the 21st century is one of greed, of gross inequalities between rich and poor, of racist and national chauvinist prejudice, of barbarous practices and horrific wars. It is very easy to believe that this is what things have always been like and that, therefore, they can be no different. Such a message is put across by innumerable writers and philosophers, politicians and sociologists, journalists and psychologists. They portray hierarchy, deference, greed and brutality as ‘natural’ features of human behaviour. Indeed, there are some who would see these as a feature throughout the animal kingdom, a ‘sociobiological’ imperative imposed by the alleged ‘laws’ of genetics.
There are in-numerable popular, supposedly ‘scientific’ paperbacks which propagate such a view—with talk of humans as ‘the naked ape’ (Desmond Morris), the ‘killer imperative’ (Robert Ardrey), and, in a more sophisticatedform, as programmed by the ‘selfish gene’ (Richard Dawkins).

Yet such Flintstones caricatures of human behaviour are simply not borne out by what we now know about the lives our ancestors lived in the innumerable generations before recorded history. A cumulation of scientific evidence shows that their societies were not characterized by competition, inequality and oppression. These things are, rather, the product of history, and of rather recent history. The evidence comes from archaeological findings about patterns of human behaviour world-wide until only about 5,000 years ago, and from anthropological studies of societies in different parts of the world which remained organized along similar lines until the 19th and earlier part of the 20th century.

The anthropologist Richard Lee has summarised the findings:

Before the rise of the state and the entrenchment of social inequality, people lived for millennia in small-scale kin-based social groups, in which the core institutions of economic life included collective or common ownership of land and resources, generalised reciprocity in the distribution of food, and relatively egalitarian political relations.


In other words, people shared with and helped each other, with no rulers and no ruled, no rich and no poor. Lee echoes the phrase used by Frederick Engels in the 1880s to describe this state of affairs, ‘primitive communism’. The point is of enormous importance. Our species (modern humans, or Homo sapiens sapiens) is over 100,000 years old. For 95 percent of this time it has not been characterised at all by many of the forms of behaviour ascribed to ‘human nature’ today. There is nothing built into our biology that makes present day societies the way they are. Our predicament as we face a new millennium cannot be blamed on it.

- A People's History of the World, Prologue, pgs 3-4