"Was he at least good-looking?"

No, but his sister was - and a few years back I got to visit his nieces, both of whom were sweet, pretty girls.

"You need access to all the advanced technology and mass worker cooperation to produce an abundance for all."

Wait! wait! I know where this is going. Communists always need to be in charge of everything before they can prove that their idea works ... and of course once they have established their totalitarian control and can command that all the riches come to themselves, who cares if it works?

This is why no two communists can agree on an ideology: because ultimately, every communist presumes they should be the one in charge.

It's a nice gig, if you can get it.

"If you try to force people to work at jobs/vocations in which they are not suited for or do not have a talent for, then yes, you're going to get people who only do what they have to do, and nothing more."

They were allowed to choose for themselves what they were going to do - and necessary things did not get done. They were given more opportunity than you presume, and produced less than you presume.

"A global system of social ownership would ensure everyone received meaningful work that suited their talents and temperament, and the "just take anything you can get" mentality of capitalism that causes so many people to hate their jobs would be eliminated."

So - a commons? As in "the tragedy of the commons"?

I'm not quite sure what socialists and communists don't understand about "this has been tried countless times over many centuries, and it has failed every time". I'm really not trying to be offensive or obtuse - I just have a hard time understanding how anyone can't see this. In fact, I suspect you're putting me on. I am not an expert on automobiles, but I know that I can't tie a baguette to a duck and expect it do zero to sixty in 4.2 seconds. I don't have to try it for myself, and I've never seen it fail once - much less thousands of times.

"There would be no perceived need to grab more than a week's supply of anything off the shelf in a distribution center, and since all would have access to 3-D printers we could make enough of what we needed right at home."

A rare point of agreement: when every individual possesses the means to provide for themselves without any effort, most will do so. A minority will still pester their neighbor to command the device for them, just on principle.




Baldur