Alright… Triple response time y’all…
Bogart,
“I do not believe that given the “Calculation Problem” that any Communist society can exist in the long term.”
This is quite possibly true of a large communist society, but we know that communes can exist, at least from an economic standpoint, within the capitalist society.
“I can not see people in the commune staying their for long absent force.”
I can see people doing so for the above reasons, but in many ways the deciding factors will be how much can communes appeal to people’s inherent needs while keeping real wages as high as possible.
Wheylous,
“as soon as there is a conflict over each other’s property, there are no clear ways of solving it. Arguably, the defense agencies will intervene, but I haven’t read anything on the matter.”
Society at large will have to decide upon a property norm, whether or not they agree with the communists or the capitalists will decide this conflict.
“Either way, I think communism is unstable on a larger scale and for a prolonged period of time. Maybe pockets of people, but maybe not even that…”
There is no inherent reason why fairly large communes (tens of thousands people) cannot exist within a large modern society (tens of millions of people). It may be the case, but this comes down to individual choice, not economic law.
“With all due respect, I think anarcho-communists would be quite at odds with anarcho-capitalists, as they’d be inciting and engaging in behaviors that anarcho-capitalists consider to be aggression.”
- This might be the case, it might not be, but as I showed above there’s no reason why this must be the case and that a world is conceivable in which they are peaceful
- The more aggressive the communists are the more their image with the public is soiled, so if they have any sense they would avoid from using violence. They would also likely be stopped by society at large if it came to that.
- If communists believe that their vision is so effective then they should be spending time creating their own communes and proving the efficacy of their vision, not attacking capitalists. A huge point of leftist anarchism is that education must come before revolution, as opposed to marxism which supposedly supports the “top down” revolution of elites who guide the masses, rather than the anarchist vision of a “bottom up” revolution. There is no better way to convince people of the favorable nature of something than giving them a possible and visible example.
- It’s also important to note that according to the leftist’s theories the capitalist society, when left unaided by the welfare state, must degenerate increasingly into chaos and poverty, when this doesn’t happen there’s a whole lot of wind taken out of their sails, and increasingly less reason to openly revolt.