How do you raise a child to be a Good Communist?

[JohnT]

Laura and I were at a restaurant today and the usual 2 year-old shenanigans were going on:

grabbing salt-shaker "MINE!!!!"
grabbing salt-shaker "No, Sophie."
unthwarted, grabs pepper shaker "MINE, DADA! MIINE!!!"
grabbing pepper-shaker "Sophie, No!"
grabs menu "Dis is mine, Dada. Pweeee?"
resigned "OK, Sophie, the menu is yours."

So, do this for about 20 straight minutes and you start to wonder (well, I do, anyway): How can any person argue that Communism can be a natural state of man? Given that even a 2 year old knows that something must be hers before it can fully benefit her, how can 22 year olds not understand this?

In short: how would've Marx handled the above scene?

grabbing salt-shaker "MINE!!!!"
grabbing salt-shaker "Child, the acceptance of the ideology of private property just plays in the hands of the capitalist oppressors."
unthwarted, grabs pepper shaker "MINE, DADA! MIINE!!!"
grabbing pepper-shaker "There is no property but what society allows you to have. The society I wish to raise my child in is just, one that has no property. Rather than it being *your* pepper shaker, Sophia, you'd be better off saying "Mine, Dada, by the good graces of the Neighborhood Soviet of pepper shaker manufacturers."
grabs menu "Dis is mine, Dada. Pweeee?"
resigned "Sophie, due to the fact that you seem to accept the communal role of property, you may play with the menu until a needier child comes along."

The point is that children are greedy, needful things who don't like to be thwarted. But Communism is all about the denial of personal wants and the unacceptability of private property, programs your child will not care for. Loudly. Vocally. For years.

So, how do you raise a kid to be a "natural" Communist? How do you get rid of the instinct of private property, of ownership? Assuming that the rest of the world is with you (so you can't counterargue that "society will screw with 'em"), how exactly can you eliminate the "need" to have?

[Kuciwalker]

[Imran Siddiqui]

I bet they'll say that the consumer culture has ingrained itself into Sophie's poor little head and made her think that everything can be owned .

[JohnT]

Not in this scenario, Imran. Remember: "Assuming that the rest of the world is with you (so you can't counterargue that "society will screw with 'em")..." so they can't go that route.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I never said it would make sense .

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

JOhnT,

Glad you brought this up. Obviously this is a point we both agree on and discusssed as much.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Ohh and by the way I take exception to the title of the thread. There is no such thing as a good communist.

[Kuciwalker]

Except for one thrown out of a helicopter

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Except for one thrown out of a helicopter

You're young and impressionable, once you reach college age and learn to think critically, you might understand things better.

[BeBro]

Just curious, but who said communism is the "natural state of man"?

[Kuciwalker]

Most of the commies on this board

[ErikM]

Well, if you are an authentic Communist, you of course don't go to a restaurant that has a MENU for crying out loud, so the whole setup is entirely academic

[Buck Birdseed]

Well, I'm sure you can pick any stage in child development and say that it's proof for the naturality of either an individualistic or a communitarian political philosophy. For example, in a couple of years give Sophie and three of her friends a carton of juice and four glasses, and I'm sure they'll obsessively divide it in such a way as to make each glass exactly as full as any other.

Surely the point is that the Utopian socialist (which Marx, with all his failings, wasn't) would consider people intellectually capable of creating a sharing society instead of competing for resources. If perfectly (impossibly perfectly) implemented such a system is the most efficient and fair and thus "natural".

[Rogan Josh]

I don't think it is the 'natural state of man' but I think it would be great if it could be acheived. Unfortunately, with all man's faults, it cannot

[Solly]

"such a system is the most efficient"

No, as there would be no incentives to work to full effort.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by JohnT
So, how do you raise a kid to be a "natural" Communist? How do you get rid of the instinct of private property, of ownership?

Send her to a gulag. It's probably already too late in the case of poor Sophie, though... she'll have to be re-educated via firing squad.

[Buck Birdseed]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
"such a system is the most efficient"

No, as there would be no incentives to work to full effort.

Of course there would, the well-being of society! What higher goal could exist?

(Utopian socialists thend to be a tad naive one thinks.)

[Nubclear]

We can't just assume the world is with them because the world isn't.
I've tried on my two children to raise them to be nice communistchildren. It failed in my oldest, but it seems to be suceeding in my youngest

In my oldest I tried teaching him about collective ownership, industrialisation, etc however that failed. He's a capitalist
However in my younger one I taught him about private property and (more importantly) about morality. I didn't force the ideology on him, instead I taught him about it.
I taught him that private property can be a good thing, but that collective ownership can also be a good thing and that greed indeed is one of the basic human emotions that must be fulfilled if one is to achieve higher thinking, however that this need must only be fulfilled ot the extent in which it is required: After that it is wasteful and immoral.
But one cannot expect results at 4 At that time children are not capable of higher intellectual reasoning and as such, you can't expect them to embrace any form of "utopian communism" (As impossible as it is).
I also taught him that educated men recognize their failings, however they also seek to overcome them whether those failings be a skill or whether they be dependence on the more basic emotions.
Thus he now realizes that true utopian communism wil take many thousnads of years in order to even be possible, however that all people must endeavour to achieve this state and propagate this idea. As more of the peoples become educated, this becomes more and more possible and we distance ourselves away from capitalism

[JohnT]

So you are now arguing that Communism will come true in some vague time period "in the future".

Isn't this analogous to Christian theology, this Second Coming of Marx?

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, he's talking about the Mormon variant

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by JohnT
So you are now arguing that Communism will come true in some vague time period "in the future".

When did I ever argue otherwise?

Isn't this analogous to Christian theology, this Second Coming of Marx?

No.

[Verto]

Originally posted by ErikM


Well, if you are an authentic Communist, you of course don't go to a restaurant that has a MENU for crying out loud, so the whole setup is entirely academic

I think you, that if you are an authentic Communist, you can't afford to go to a restaurant that has a menu.

[General Ludd]

If you want to raise a natural communist, put them in a natural environment.

[Buck Birdseed]

Anyway, JohnT, how do you know The Grabbing of the Salt Shaker wasn't a revolutionary act of defiance, the proletariat retaking what is rightfully its from the hegemonistic bourgeois institution/restaurant?

[JohnT]

I thought the idea was that some restaurants were abhorrent because they kept alive the fuedal and antiquated notions of "servitude" in their use of a wait staff.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
Anyway, JohnT, how do you know The Grabbing of the Salt Shaker wasn't a revolutionary act of defiance, the proletariat retaking what is rightfully its from the hegemonistic bourgeois institution/restaurant?

Because she has ten times that amount sitting in the pantry at home.

[Nubclear]

Perhaps its a revolutionary act against you, the capitalist, for denying the people what they rightfully deserve.

[Spiffor]

Those commies who don't share the idea of utopic communism (on these boards, at least Azazel and myself) want to create a working system that takes human greedy nature into account. I suggest you to look at Az's and my posts in the latest Communism vs. Capitalism thread to see how we intend to work it out.

[Verto]

I thought communists, by definition, had to ridicule utopian socialism.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Isn't this analogous to Christian theology, this Second Coming of Marx?

Yes... Marxist Communism is simply another form of religion.